Founder Lessons From Scaling, Going Public, and Rebuilding | Rick Jordan

Summary

Podcast Summary: Right About Now – Legendary Business Advice

Episode: Founder Lessons From Scaling, Going Public, and Rebuilding | Rick Jordan

Host: Ryan Alford (The Radcast Network)
Guest: Rick Jordan
Date: June 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the real, raw journey of founder Rick Jordan as he shares the highs and devastating lows of scaling an IT business, taking it public, surviving brutal acquisitions gone wrong, and rebuilding from the rubble. Host Ryan Alford guides a candid conversation that strips away the “LinkedIn fluff” to lay bare founder lessons on failure, resilience, ego, and the realities behind fast growth and public company life. Listeners will find unfiltered wisdom on what really happens after the “big climb” — including what to do when the rocket fuel runs out.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unseen Lows Behind the Highs (02:14–06:01)

• The Climb: Rick recounts how he went from building an IT business up to $4M/year, then took it to $15M within two years via acquisitions and going public.

  • “4 million a year is a lot to a lot of people... Then in a matter of two year time period, I took it from 4 million to 15 in just two years.” (02:57)

• Crash & Reflection: After hitting $15M, the company imploded in just six months due to problematic acquisitions, customer loss, lawsuits, and stock collapse.

  • “These acquisitions, they tanked, man. There was some bad actors involved. Customers were being taken back. There were issues with invoicing... It all crashed down in about six months.” (04:27)

• Personal Responsibility: Despite guidance from top advisors (including Kevin Harrington and David Meltzer), Rick struggled with self-blame even when told “we don’t see anything you did wrong.”

  • “That’s something I’ve always done. I’ve never been the blame guy to push it on other people… It’s always I turn inward, and it’s like, where did I go wrong first?” (05:09)

• The Tornado Analogy: Sometimes, crisis hits no matter what you do—like a tornado you can’t move your house out of the way for.

  • “Maybe it’s kind of like a tornado. If you have your house, you can’t just pick up and move… It’s hitting it no matter what.” (09:32)

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2. Ego, Sacrifice, Failure & the Challenges of Being at the Top (11:06–17:01)

• Asset Protection & Survival: Rick explains how careful isolation of assets and companies meant he never “went to zero,” retaining a “go bag” of customers and foundation to rebuild.

  • “I never transferred all of them over when we went public… which is why we went down to the two. It was kind of like the go bag.” (11:49)

• Emotional Cost: Both agree that even when not personally at zero, failure takes a mental toll, especially from feeling responsible for others.

  • “How did I allow this to happen? Because it’s affected so many.” (14:48)

• Sacrifice Fallacy: Rick reflects how founders’ self-sacrifice is expected, yet unhealthy if it means constantly covering shortfalls from their own money.

  • “An entrepreneur is expected to be self-sacrificing and fall on their own sword… Maybe I should take some cues from [employees] in this next run.” (15:09)

• Symptom vs. Disease: Injecting cash may “treat the symptom,” but the real fix is changing why the company’s in crisis.

  • “The cash flow into the company is not the thing that needs to change. It’s the company itself, something within the company. And how you got to that place to begin with is where the change needs to happen first.” (17:01 / see also: 01:00 and 17:35)

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3. Founder Mistakes: Lessons in M&A & Due Diligence (23:35–31:22)

• Bucket Analogy for Acquisitions: Rick differentiates asset vs. stock (“bucket”) sales:

  • “You can buy the bucket… or you can take what you want out and leave the bucket and things you don’t want with the seller… Debt, accounts payables, the branding are like stickers on the outside.” (23:35)

• The Cost of Bad M&A: Insufficient due diligence exposed Rick’s company to hidden sales tax liabilities, lawsuits, vendor debts—over $9M in damages.

  • “There was a sales tax liability that we did not know existed… Only 21 days before… one of the sellers signed an extension on that audit… five months after that acquisition… that was multiple six figures.” (27:00)

• The Litigation Trap: Even winning lawsuits offers little real recovery if sellers are insolvent and collection costs are steep.

  • “Pretty much every lawsuit is an economic decision, or at least it should be… There’s nothing beyond it besides that.” (29:52)

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4. Recovery, Vision, and New Approach (31:32–36:43)

• Industry Gaps: Rick remains the only founder to take a managed services provider (MSP) public, noting how most MSP owners struggle financially (average $68k/year salary).

  • “It increased a little bit, Ryan. It’s up to like $68,000 a year now.” (32:41)
  • “It’s not worth it to own your own business unless you’re going to scale it to a point where you make at least three times as much as you would doing the same job for somebody else.” (35:45)

• Core Mission: Rick shifts toward teaching other founders to scale, profit, and avoid his mistakes, launching a bootcamp/mentoring program.

  • “Even if you only implemented 10% of it, you’re going to make an enormous amount more money.” (36:43)

• Incremental Progress: Emphasizes that even small improvements drive transformation.

  • “There’s some truth to the incremental improvement is improvement… 5% every quarter, 5% every year, it’s still improvement.” (37:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You don’t win by following the playbook.” — Ryan Alford (01:24)
• “You win by rewriting it.” — Rick Jordan (01:27)
• “You spend 15 years building something and then it can crash in six months.” — Rick Jordan (10:00)
• “Never gone to zero. Not just in the bank account, but more in the aptitude and ability and the soul. I know what’s there.” — Ryan Alford (14:07)
• “When the company needed cash, I kicked it in… I would go without taking my salary… That’s a big lesson I learned.” — Rick Jordan (15:09)
• “If you have that thought cross your mind — oh, I could just go out and get this cash… That’s not the thing that needs to change. It’s the company itself.” — Rick Jordan (01:00/17:01)
• “You’re treating symptoms and not the disease.” — Ryan Alford (17:35)
• “If we had done those [acquisitions] as asset sales, we would have been free and clear, no issues.” — Rick Jordan (25:30)
• “Pretty much every lawsuit is an economic decision, or at least it should be.” — Rick Jordan quoting legal counsel (29:52)
• “It’s not worth the stress, it’s not worth the headache… If you’ll learn anything from me… it was worth it.” — Rick Jordan (35:45/38:27)
• Rick’s closing punch: “Information doesn’t change your life. Execution does.” (39:26)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:00–02:57: Rick describes the meteoric climb and sets stage for the crash
• 04:27–06:01: The rapid unraveling, lawsuit fallout, inner turmoil
• 09:32–10:07: The tornado analogy for business failure
• 11:49–13:12: Rick explains asset isolation and never really going to zero
• 15:09–17:01: Lessons in self-sacrifice and founder boundaries
• 23:35–25:10: “Bucket” analogy of stock vs. asset sales in M&A
• 27:00–29:39: Sales tax liability, lawsuits, and the real cost of bad acquisitions
• 29:52–31:22: Lawsuits as economic—not emotional—decisions
• 31:32–33:16: Rick’s status as rare MSP founder to go public; industry earnings stats
• 36:43–37:37: Nuts and bolts of Rick’s upcoming educational program

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Actionable Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Don’t sacrifice personal solvency to patch systemic business issues—solve root problems.
• Structure acquisitions as asset deals, not blanket (“bucket”) entity purchases, to avoid inheriting unseen liabilities.
• Due diligence won’t always catch every skeleton, but can be improved by anticipating undisclosed legal processes (e.g., audits).
• Incremental improvement beats stagnation—don’t try to overhaul everything at once.
• Focus on business models that pay you substantially above market for your risk—or don’t bother.
• Separate emotion from legal and financial decisions in crises.
• Leverage hard lessons into systems and education for others—turn pain into new opportunity.

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Where to Find More

• Rick Jordan:

  • Website
  • Instagram
  • X (Twitter)

• Ryan Alford:

  • Instagram
  • Full episodes, highlights, and guest links

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“Information doesn’t change your life. Execution does. Take the idea, make the call, launch the thing, fix the problem, and build what you keep talking about building.” — Rick Jordan & Ryan Alford (39:26–39:43)

Transcript

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[Rick Jordan]

Let me tell you the biggest lesson that I learned is that if you have that thought cross your mind, oh, I could just go out and get this cash that puts the liability on me to put it in the company, to keep it going. That's not the thing that needs to change in that moment. The cash flow into the company is not the thing that needs to change. It's the company itself, something within the company. And how you got to that place to begin with is where the change needs to happen first.

[Ryan Alford]

You don't win by following the playbook.

[Rick Jordan]

You win by rewriting it 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is right about now with Ryan Alford.

[Ryan Alford]

What's up, guys? Welcome right about now. On today's episode, we talk to Rick Jordan. He's back on right about now. And this time we're getting into what happens after the big climb. Rick took his company public. They scaled fast, they fell harder. Acquisitions can be tough. You got to rebuild. You got to live through the pressure. Today we're talking failure, ego, resilience, and what it really takes to get back up when you run out of that rocket fuel. And you got to get up and give it your own. Rick, welcome. Right about now.

[Rick Jordan]

What's shaking, dude? It's good to be here again, man.

[Ryan Alford]

You had already done a lot and taken off, but you're about to go towards this climb and you've had it. What stage of that there is, you know, you to share that we all see and hear people talk, think that they won't be subject to things that others have. The failures, the wins, the highs and the lows. I even put people sometimes in that. It's always highs for them, never lows. It's always, yeah, no joke. They're always crushing it.

[Rick Jordan]

Yeah. Then it's like, well, why can't I be like them?

[Ryan Alford]

Right? Exactly. We all have that a little bit. I try to live in my own lane. Gotta do that pretty well. But at the same time, we all go through it. I'm excited for you to share a little bit of that. And I know we'll get into some rosier things. Things. Just share what that journey's been like the last few years.

[Rick Jordan]

I started an I t. Business 16 years ago now. And I got it to the point where it was doing a few million per year. And then I had gotten it to a few, meaning like 4 million per year. 4 million a year is a lot to a lot of people. Truly. I thought it was a lot to me 15 years ago. Then in a matter of two year time period, I took it from 4 million to 15 in just two years. It was right about that time that we went public. And that was through some M and A, through some acquisitions, because I had built this thing. You know the movie the Founder with Michael Keaton, one of my favorites ever, right? And Michael Keaton is playing the role of Ray Kroc from McDonald's. And now he does the deal with the McDonald's brothers. A scene in there where he was on a tennis court. He was taping out masking tape on the tennis court where the different stations were going to go for the kitchen at the McDonald's. The McDonald's brothers had the speedy system. And he was like, I think we can do it better. And he had people like bumping into each other and then he would rearrange where things were supposed to go. It was really cool to watch that, especially because I worked at McDonald's. I was a shift manager when I was 16. Some of the best sales training to this day. Do you want fries with that? The best upsell line in the world. Seriously. That celebrity upsell Dude. The McDonald's brothers and Ray Kroc made this thing scalable where they could deploy tens of thousands of restaurants across the world because it was the same thing everywhere. And that's another thing I learned, and that's what I did, is I made this IT company scalable, where I could take a rubber stamp and put it into other it Companies and clone it that way. Well, why would I want to start it from scratch in all these different places when I can accelerate super fast with some capital backing and I could just use that stamp and clone this thing? And that's what I started to do. It was going really, really well. These acquisitions, they tanked, man. There was some bad actors involved. Customers were being taken back. There was issues with invoicing clients that I had purchased and all of these other things. You're talking, like, lawsuits that were filed that I had filed, Having it within a matter of about six months, this climb that I had started, that took probably about three years to get to the point to where I could make that climb. And then we accelerated it to 15 million, and it all crashed down in about six months. It's not just that because we had gone public, too. It wasn't just the revenue of the company. It was also the stock price, of course, because that kind of follows the hate that comes after that. And I burrowed inside of me for a little while. What could I have done differently? Where did I mess up? That's something I've always done. I've never been the blame guy to push it on other people. I've never played the role of the victim. That's not just in business. It's in relationships. That's in every aspect of my life. It's always I turn inward, and it's like, where did I go wrong first? I kept getting the same answer, even from mentors, investors that were in the company, or even guys on my board. Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank or David Meltzer from Jerry Maguire. All these guys are in my circles and literally on the board. And, like, we don't see anything that you did wrong. Do you know how hard it is to accept that?

[Ryan Alford]

You want to blame something, and it starts at the top usually, but sometimes it doesn't when it gets bigger than yourself.

[Rick Jordan]

As we're recording this, there's going to be some really bad tornadoes that are sweeping through Chicago. Part of my title should be, like, storm chaser. I do. I actually literally chase them, if you want to call it a hobby of mine. But that was going to be my first career. When I was seven, by the way, seven years old. I wanted to be a storm chaser. I still do it.

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[Rick Jordan]

That's the reflection. You start to think, am I just chasing chaos? I started to use the analogy that actually made sense to me in this journey when people that I trust and that I look up to and then I've tried to mod, like these guys that I named when they said it's like, we don't see anything, you did wrong. Well, maybe it's kind of like a tornado. If you have your house, you can't just pick up and move your house to try to get it out of the way of this thing. It's hitting it no matter what. It's the best thing that made sense to me, seriously, because, like, even though you might see that the clouds are kind of dark and everything, but it could only be a half a mile down the road is actually where this destructive force is. And you still just can't see it

[Ryan Alford]

yet and you're praying it doesn't hit you.

[Rick Jordan]

Yeah, exactly. You see signs. I saw signs ahead of time before this stuff really came crashing down. And that's the thing. You start to, like, pick up pieces like, is this really happening? You start investigations, and then that takes a little bit of time. A month or two months or whatever. Remember, all this took place in a matter of six months when it came crashing down. It happens really, really quick. You spend 15 years building something and then it can crash in six months. When it does. This is the part that I was getting at. And of course, shareholders, they don't understand they need to play victim. Seriously, I'm sure a lot are going to be seeing this and I don't care. I know that I've done everything. This is exactly what happened. But it doesn't matter because people lost their investment. They lost the money that was put into it. Hey, if you looked at filings, I have put over 2 million of my own, my hard money into this organization going public. And afterwards, I'm still the biggest investor. I'm the lead investor in myself, and I haven't gotten that stuff back yet. It's like, so what do you think I'm going to do, man? Do you think after this tornado hit that I'M just going to sit in the rubble and throw my hands up and be like, well, I guess this is my home now.

[Ryan Alford]

I landed in shit. You're going to get out of it as fast as you can.

[Rick Jordan]

It does. It takes time to rebuild that stuff. That's the mode that I'm in right now. It's been great. I look back and if I visualize the rubble of a house completely destroyed by a tornado that really sucked, I hope that's never going to happen again. But you know what? Maybe this time I'm not going to use a wood frame. Maybe I'll use steel beams or something like that. Fortify this sucker like it was in the middle of Florida facing a Category 5 hurricane. The thing doesn't just utterly destroyed like that.

[Ryan Alford]

You built up couple million, 4 million, then you took it to 15. And I get. You start scaling. You do M and A and you scale. It's curious to me that how it becomes zero. You built it alone before you went public and all that. Why is it zero? Is there nothing to carve out of this thing?

[Rick Jordan]

It didn't go to zero. It went to two. Built it up to four, then M& A. And going public got it up to 15 in a matter of two years, right from the four to the 15, and then in six months and went down to two, which is where we're at right now. Most of the customers that were part of these acquisitions were just gone as well because of the results. The aftermath of a lot of these things, that was all disclosed. I was grateful though, truly, because I kind of kept a little bit of a foundation to kind of start again. If you want to look at. If we're using this house analogy, it's kind of like I always had a suitcase, kind of like a go bag in that area. I did the M and A through a different company that went public. This is good for people to talk about, if you want to talk about asset protection or isolation. And made sure, because we were independently audited too, man, being a public company, making sure that if there was anything. Because I kept some staff in my private company, some technicians and all that. So then they were servicing customers, the public company. But that actually became like a vendor client relationship. And those transactions were fully audited so that they stayed in an arm's length. Because interrelated company transactions are never that great when it comes to being a public, public company. That's why we made sure we did everything right in that and kept everything completely separate. All the transactions completely logged. If there Was services, in essence, being provided. There was invoices that were going back and forth, man. So in essence, it's like my private company, which I retained customers in. I never transferred all of them over when we went public, which is why we went down to the two. It was kind of like the go bag. Exactly. Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

You kept the security blanket, but you had no intent on using it.

[Rick Jordan]

That's a good point. Because it was never a desire to keep those customers separate, as it was actually going to be another acquisition for us, acquiring the original customers. But then the timing in what it was, it made sense to just keep that. Let's just stop for a moment. Let's put the brakes on, because we just discovered some not so great things with the people that were selling these businesses to us. Let's see where this pans out first. And then it became a blessing. Dude, seriously. As the foundation again. And that's the part that's like. I don't know if anybody ever really goes back to zero, do you?

[Ryan Alford]

No, I wouldn't think so. I've had a crash and burn myself, and I didn't go to zero. I mean, I lost a million dollars in the car business in 2014, but I knew zero. You know, I was doing carvana before carvana. I had the idea, right. The execution. Wrong. I didn't go public. I didn't go that far. I took all the crashing and all the burning.

[Rick Jordan]

But not zero, right?

[Ryan Alford]

No, not zero. And it was enough to land on my feet. And there's always another day. I feel that. And you. I would have known that about you anyway. I know you well enough that I call you a friend, but obviously from a distance. We don't see each other often or anything like that, But I know you to be a fight. And I know you to be someone that would never go to zero. Not just in the bank account, but more in the aptitude and ability and the soul. I know what's there. You'll be all right. A lot of people probably can relate to this conversation, you know, like, we've all had failures of different scale and different sizes, and you're never immune to it. Got the T shirt. Learn from failure. I like to keep it raw and real, and it sucks. Especially when you feel like you let people down.

[Rick Jordan]

That does creep in, too, man. I know I didn't say that in the story I was telling, but that does creep in. You and I are kindred spirits that way. How did I allow this to happen? Because it's affected so many.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, you Take it personal. Even if you couldn't change anything, it weighs on you. It's human. But it's also human for those people that feel like, okay, well, I don't know what they would have expected you do different.

[Rick Jordan]

There's another thing that's a little hard for guys like us to grasp. When it comes to people that are working for you, for the majority, 99% of them, the mental point of origin is not the organization, it's themselves. When you're the person at the top, it's like the mental point of origin is almost never yourself. When the company needed cash, I kicked it in. When the company needed, needed to pay expenses, I would pay those expenses on a credit card. I would go without taking my salary out of the public company long before it got to anybody else. That's a big lesson that I learned on this too, man. An entrepreneur is expected to be self sacrificing and fall on their own sword. And that's what I found is the expectation of everybody who works for you in the organization too. From founding it 15 years ago and bringing on the first employee, the very first one in 2011, who actually stayed with me through this entire thing, but then left in the middle of stuff. It was another hard lesson for me. And seeing that take place, it was just. I get it. I understand why everybody is in the place that they are. And at the same time, maybe I should take some cues from them in this next run. If I'm not in a good place, the organization won't be in a good place.

[Ryan Alford]

I'm picking up what you're turning down a little bit. You probably wrote checks that you probably shouldn't have written.

[Rick Jordan]

Totally. Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

Because you were trying to save it or do what you can. You feel like it was altruistic, it's the right thing to do, but it actually probably wasn't for you.

[Rick Jordan]

Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

Now that you're being selfish, you're trying to do what you felt it was the right thing, but at the same time it's not. It's an interesting place to be when you've built something like you did, and it's always on you. I've never gone public and don't plan to like anything that I've done. I've potentially kept it in my own circle, my own failure, my own wins. I mean, I've got team and all that. It would be a struggle for me. I could write that check, but I'm not going to because I can't. Like that's just not for certain things. And unless you've done and been at those levels, you don't quite understand what the hell are you talking about. No, you just write the check. No, no, actually, you don't write the check. Check. That feels right, but it's not right because the company has to stand on its own.

[Rick Jordan]

I was coaching a friend of mine the other day for the same exact thing. And it was like, yeah, he's like, I pulled money. This is a friend of mine. Open a loan. That way I could put that cash into the company. He's like, you know, I just kept trying to get it going and now it's just in a bad place. I'm like, let me tell you the biggest lesson that I learned is that if you have that thought cross your mind, like, oh, I could just go out and get this cash that puts the liability on me to put into the company to keep it going. That's not the thing that needs to change in that moment. The cash flow into the company is not the thing that needs change. It's the company itself. Something within the company. And how you got to that place to begin with is where the change needs to happen first.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, you're treating symptoms and not the disease. We got a disease. And you're buying the best cough medicine on earth. And it that cough goes away for about two weeks so that next payroll comes.

[Rick Jordan]

That's about it. Dude, seriously, you expect the things to turn around in that short period of time?

[Ryan Alford]

You're not buying a cure. Not unless you spent that money on the fixer. But he don't exist either. He's only in movies. Talking with Rick Jordan. He is the CEO. We still Reach Out Digital.

[Rick Jordan]

Yep, Reach Out Digital, the public company. We got that name change in the midst of all this stuff, kind of after everything came crashing too. So it's kind of good. The public company that I took over for this was Younglings Ice Cream Corporation. I was writing signatures and documents and everything as the CEO of an ice cream company throughout this period. But then now it's Frequency holdings, the symbols. FRQN is my show, which I need to have you on. It was all in with Rick Jordan years, you know, and then this year, going into January, rebranded. It's amazing. I'm grateful that it's in the top one one and a half percent in the world and it's top 100 on Apple. You know, it's been incred, incredible ever since the rebrand. But the rebrand of my show to Frequency came before the public company name change. We had started to plan this, I'm like, well, that should just be the name of the PubCo too. It's this whole thing if I'm acquiring businesses and I want things that are symbiotic and have both high frequencies and low frequencies in their vibe and what they produce, kind of the energy levels that they have, because it's like conversations even like you and I. It's like we can have moments in this episode or in the previous episode that'll be very different. We could just go off and off and off these high frequencies messages and high frequencies. They can, they can download a lot of data, a lot of information in a heartbeat. It's almost like a shock value in that moment. And it can wake somebody up or it can knock somebody out. It doesn't last. That effect doesn't last that long. It's men. Like if anybody's ever seen who's watching this, has seen Tony Robbins or whatever, it's like there's moments he does this too intentionally to where he'll pound so hard and then all of a sudden he'll bring it down to a low frequency because those are deep, just like wavelengths. And literally in radio frequencies it's these long waves that are meant to penetrate super deep. They can go through buildings, they can go through the hardest substances and they can travel really far. And those are the sustaining things. That's another thing that I learned throughout this too. But it's like, well, that's the vision for all of these acquisitions that I was doing too. All these symbiotic things. It's like it really kind of fits.

[Ryan Alford]

I used to think it all had to be the same frequency. I've changed that tune. It can all be different. You need different frequencies, but you all got to be on the same channel. How you get there, right on. We all need to be in that channel. But the frequencies and all that are all needed because you need highs, need lows, need middles, and that goes a lot of way from diversity to talent to skill sets to ability. All of those could be frequency in an intensity of certain things like those frequencies. But the don't play if it ain't on the right channel.

[Rick Jordan]

If I'm going to stick with this vision of like the house in the rubble, I can look back and I'm like, you know what? I guess there was some things about that house that I really didn't like anyways.

[Ryan Alford]

I always liked wanted to paint that front door and change the shingles. You got a blower to clean it, you need mortar to Fix it.

[Rick Jordan]

I'm glad we could laugh about it, dude, because I mean, that's true.

[Ryan Alford]

If you're like me, you probably spend a lot of time paying attention to what's happening in the world. Markets, business, crypto, interest rates, sports, politics, all of it. I'm always looking at headlines thinking, okay, what happens next? That's honestly why I've been spending time on Gemini predictions. What makes it interesting is instead of just watching stories move the market in real time, you can actually trade on the outcomes of real world events. Maybe it's oil prices, what happens with the Fed, crypto movements, major sports events, or broader world headlines. There are live contracts across all kinds of categories, and what I like is it feels built for people who already think this way. If you naturally pay attention to trends, follow business news, or spend your day analyzing what's happening in the economy and market, this gives you a completely different way to engage with it. The platform itself is also really straightforward. Everything runs directly through the Gemini app, the interface is clean, and there are new markets opening every day. I've been on there browsing different contracts and it's honestly just fun seeing how quickly things shift based on real world news and momentum. And again, it's not about just passively watching headlines anymore. You can actually participate in what you think happens next. To start trading right now, head to gemini.com predictions and browse through all available contracts. Starting something new isn't just exciting, it's honestly a little terrifying. I remember right before I launched my podcast, all those what if thoughts creeping in. But looking back, taking that leap was one of the best decisions I've made. And I'll tell you, if your systems are clunky, everything slows down, things are smooth, you actually keep moving. That's why having the right platform behind you makes such a big difference. For a lot of founders and entrepreneurs, that platform is Shopify. From massive brands to people just getting started, they make it easier to go from idea to real business. You get hundreds of ready to use templates, design a store that actually looks like your brand, you get AI tools that help write product descriptions, page headlines, even cleaner up product photos, which saves founders a ton of time. And once you're live, Shopify handles the hard stuff. Inventory, payments, shipping, returns, all one dashboard. Instead of bouncing between different platforms, everything's just in one place, which honestly saves us a ton of time. And that's the part people don't always see. It's not just about building a website. Start your business today with the industry's best Business partners partner Shopify and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com Ryan that's shopify.com R Y A N. What are we building Different. What are we doing different?

[Rick Jordan]

I put out this on X a couple weeks ago in an interview that I did. We announced the reverse split, which most investors just do not like. You know, they think they're going to be wiped out, but in actual, it's the thing that could potentially save them. Truly, everybody it could potentially save. That's what I'm excited about working on now. But what I put it out there, I'm like. The biggest lesson I learned from an M and a perspective is there's two types of sales, two types of acquisitions. One is where I've illustrated as a bucket, you can buy the bucket. And inside the bucket are the customers, the processes, the SOPs, all the intellectual property of that business, all the tools that they use, everything. And it's all inside this bucket. You can buy the bucket with everything in it. And that's what we did. It's called a stock sale. Or if it's an llc, it's a whole membership interest. Can you take control of that entire entity? You get the ein right, you're buying the whole thing for those. Or the other way is that it's an asset purchase and you take what you want out of the bucket and you leave the bucket and the things you don't want with the seller and you could even take everything out of that bucket if you wanted to, but you leave the actual bucket with the seller. Because on the outside of that bucket are things that are taped to it or riveted to it. If it's a metal bucket, I always envision a metal bucket for some reason. Things like debt, accounts payables. Exactly. Yeah, Right on. Even the name of the company, the branding of that company is all part of that bucket. That's like the stickers on the outside, if you want to look at it. Yeah, that's where I know looking back that I up, it was probably the, transactionally speaking, the easier way to do it because you don't have to if you buy just the assets, which means that, like, the people, the employees come with it too. So in essence, they have to be fired or resigned from their existing company that you just bought and then be rehired. And all that happens in the same day. Of course, it's a disruption to them too, because there's benefits differences, Most likely different 401k case, different salary, structures, Even different titles, all that has to be re obtained. That's part of the struggle of doing an asset purchase. But it also protects you from any of those skeletons in the closet. And if we had done those as asset sales, we would have been free and clear, no issues. It was really the second large acquisition that we did that kind of tanked everything. It was around 5 million in revenue. And when you lose all that almost overnight, it hurts everything, man. You still have all the employees that you gained going from. It was Probably, I think 12 people. We were doing $4 million dollars a year with 12 people and then we were doing 15 after the acquisitions with 94. That doesn't even scale. Right. Doesn't even make sense. That's part of the integration though, because with any kind of acquisitions, when I said I was going to carbon copy and stamp those things, clone it, that was part of the process over the first year with these, it was supposed to be to where we reduce the headcounts in order to make the companies more profitable and run more efficiently under my integration plan, under the way that I build things. But when it happens so quick after the acquisition, it's a different story. Then you're just scrambling, you're trying to figure these things out. But yes, one of the biggest things, a sales tax liability, this is probably the single largest one that was there. When you buy a company that's on paper showing that they're making net income $600,000 a year after all expenses, even with the owner's salaries added back in, if it's 300k for the owners, the company was really only making 300k a year. But then these are called add backs because you don't have that liability. Those people could go away, the sellers could go away if they were buying the business. So it becomes future profits that are just kind of baked in. Now we're really down to 300k a year that the company was making. But then there was a sal sales tax liability that we did not know existed. And this is where a lot of the shareholders and like you should have done your diligence in all of this. We did, we called the state, we called the irs, we got all the forms done and everything came back that they were paid. The problem is that it wasn't disclosed that a sales tax audit was in progress by the state. And that's not something that the state will ever disclose. It was only 21 days before. So within a month before we actually closed on this, that one of the sellers signed an extension on that audit with the state and still didn't tell us. It was about five months after that acquisition that we got a phone call from the state that said, hey, we finished the audit. But even so, like still filing sales tax returns during those time periods and nothing was ever brought up about five months later. And that was multiple six figures. So now you have this company that was producing around 600k in net income every year minus the employee or the owner's salaries. Really they were only making 300. And now you get this multiple six figure liability. It makes the company worth zero out of the gate. Because every company is typically bought on a multiple of ebitda, which is their net income. This industry, it's roughly like four to six times. You're talking three to four million dollars. Somewhere around there is what the company was worth in what was presented to us. But at the end of the day, of course, when all the liabilities. And there was more, dude, it was vendors that filed lawsuits from a year prior, like which would have been like six months before we bought it, that were like 60 grand. All in all. It was like the damages added up really to about $9 million on our side.

[Ryan Alford]

It's not fraud on some level.

[Rick Jordan]

There's a lot of people that have called it that.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I know you're not calling it that. I'm not asking you to call it that.

[Rick Jordan]

That's what neutral are law lawsuit. That's what was alleged in the lawsuit. These were the conversations that were had. And for anybody looking to do this, when you file a lawsuit in the multiple millions and you bought a business from people like you and I, Ryan, people like you and I, you could win. And this was the point of the conversations with all the lawyers I had on this. It's like you could win, Rick, and you likely will. You'll get somewhere in there which will likely be several million. But the problem is, is then you have to collect afterwards too. Do you think they have the money? That was the question. And even more so, do you want to spend. Because it'll probably take. And this was no joke, right? They said it would probably take about a million dollars to fully litigate this case. Like so from an ROI perspective, if these individuals had the money and you could collect 3 million, that makes sense to pursue it. But if you think that you'll get less than a million dollars out of them, which for some of them, and there was another issue with another acquisition, very similar story, is that when you do the investigations on these individuals through PIs and you find out the one and a quarter million that you put down on a down payment to them. And then it was like three months later. It's like one dude bo. A $300,000 Porsche you're able to find through private investigators. I don't think they got the money. Whatever went in went out. It's much harder to collect from the way that I was taught on this than it is to actually even win the case to begin with. But then it becomes roi.

[Ryan Alford]

How much you want to spend for that moral victory?

[Rick Jordan]

If you were a billion dollar company already, Rick, and you wanted to do this just to teach a lesson, I'd say go for it. This is my general counsel. It's like you're just not going to get it back.

[Ryan Alford]

Throwing good money a bad, you know.

[Rick Jordan]

Yeah, exactly. He would always phrase it his name, Stan. He's awesome. He's a 45 year lawyer, sharp as can be, dude. He's just like. Pretty much every lawsuit is an economic decision, or at least it should be from the people that are involved. There's nothing beyond it besides that.

[Ryan Alford]

That's right. You take all emotion out of it,

[Rick Jordan]

which is hard, bro.

[Ryan Alford]

It's real hard. I've been on all sides. It's difficult. But you'll save yourself a lot of money and a lot of headaches if you can. You don't have to make an immediate decision. Most of this stuff with the courts, everything buys whether you want it to or not. It takes time and you got to use that time to sort of, sort of like let the emotion pass and let the logic rise to the top. And you have to let go of your ego. That's the hardest part. Sometimes.

[Rick Jordan]

You could not be more right. I was monitoring the case status here than who I was telling you about. And some of the other lawyers were always like, Rick, could you just let us do our job? Because you have a business to run and your emotional bandwidth should not be tied up with this.

[Ryan Alford]

I think my lawyer said something similar to me about five years ago.

[Rick Jordan]

He always said I was.

[Ryan Alford]

He said, you could have been a lawyer. There's no question, like you know the law better than many lawyers. He said, but you need to stop being the lawyer, dude.

[Rick Jordan]

I was reading through like their drafts and redlining it myself, you know, sending it back. Like, what about this? What about that? This is great. You're really smart.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, exactly. I came up with strategies and theories and like everything else. And he was like, this is really thoughtful. There's very few creative lawyers. He said, you are creative and I would not have thought of that. But he said, unfortunately, the law doesn't like creativity.

[Grainger Announcer]

Foreign.

[Ryan Alford]

Let's talk about some good news. What's got you excited? What's got you pumped up? What's keeping the engine moving forward?

[Rick Jordan]

I am really excited. Everybody knows Alex Hormozi. I started looking at this over the last years. It's a cool time in my space. A cool time, meaning there's an opportunity. Because my type of company is called an msp, a managed service provider. And I still to this day am the only one who have ever taken one of those public. And even going through, there was one called All Cover that was actually bought, I think it was by ConocoMan Nola. Right. So by default, they were acquired by a public company and just remained a subsidiary. I don't count that. Going from startup 15 years ago to taking it public yourself, that's a different story. Still the only one to this day. And I say that humbly, of course, because after everything we talk through, there's a lot of scars that come with that. But still, even before then, being able to build it up to 4 million to make it to the point to where it's scalable, like a McDonald's. And again, I say this humbly. It's like. But it's still fact. It's like, I did it. There's a lot. Because my whole reason for trying to build this nationwide brand and all that to begin with is it's just like I want to do something that actually matters for people. I see so many, and it's not just in msps, but in, generally speaking, small businesses to begin with. The SBA has revised their number recently. As far as how much owners of businesses actually typically take home, on average, it's up to.

[Ryan Alford]

Right.

[Rick Jordan]

It increased a little bit, Ryan. It's up to like $68,000 a year now.

[Ryan Alford]

Lame.

[Rick Jordan]

That's stupid.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Jordan]

You can make more working for somebody else.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, exactly.

[Rick Jordan]

Stress and the headaches and all that stuff, it's like, maybe I could do that to where these people could make more working for me and to where they can have the opportunity without the stressors and I can accomplish this thing. Because the other side of it, there's not a lot of companies that actually truly know how to do this cyber thing. It's still an unregulated industry. And it's not like I'm for regulation, but a surgeon has to be be allowed by the medical board in order to cut into you.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah.

[Rick Jordan]

You know, they have to go through all these things. Now we're at the point where cyber liability is being required by insurance companies because they it as a casualty, the same as like a fire or a flood, it can stop your business cold

[Ryan Alford]

because everything relies on digital and technology now. And with AI and everything else, cyber security has never been more important. They live in the cloud as humans and companies.

[Rick Jordan]

You got it. That's exactly it. Nobody had ever done this in my industry before. Doesn't mean the business model had not taken place before because in a nutshell, it's a roll up, that's it. You're taking a lot of small companies and making one really big company so you can help more people have more impact. Very simple business plan. You know, if you look at it in vision anyways, in thought process, process execution, obviously there's a lot of moving parts. Now I take a look at Alex. I met him one time when we talked through some stuff. It's like he used to own and operate gyms. And then he's like, wait a second, I could probably have a bigger impact. And I thought about the same thing. It's like, well, I wanted to move the industry, so what if I moved the industry by moving the industry rather than buying the industry, what if I moved them, you know, and I could teach them to do the exact same things and teach those struggling MSP owners who are taking home 68k a year, you know, or let's even say they're running a good ship and they're doing 150k a year. It's like they still could make that somewhere else without all the headaches and the after hours phone calls from clients and dealing with all the payroll, all of that, it's not worth it. If there's a nugget that anybody watching us today, man, can take away. It's like it's not worth it to own your own business unless you're going to scale it to a point to where you can be bringing home at least three times as much as you would doing the same job for somebody else otherwise. It's not worth the stress, it's not worth the headache, it's not worth the interaction with people and the employees. And it doesn't compute, at least in my brain. So if I can teach these owners to do that, because I did it, and not only did, did I do that, I also successfully completed some acquisitions. I'll still call it successfully after I reflect on it. Right, right. Because I completed the transactions, I took this thing from 4 million to 15 million in two years. And then there was just skeletons in the closet that caused this thing to crash. Not eliminating or abdicating my responsibility. And what I said that I'm never going to buy the entities again. I'm not going to do these stock sales. I'll do asset sales from here on out. But in the meantime, there's hundreds of thousands of these across the country. Just like Alex had with gyms. I'm launching a program for them in order to help teach them how to do exactly what I did. And know at the very least that somebody's only doing a half a million in revenue, 500k, right? Those are the ones that are taking home maybe a hundred thousand a year. I know at the very least it'll get them past the seven figure mark and into the multiple seven figure marks and even into the eight figure mark. With the systems that I have, it's like, so why don't I just teach them and then I'll be upfront too. It's like in the same time I could potentially have conversations with them if they're just like, man, this is hard. It's like. I know it is. Scaling sucks. Sometimes when I would talk to owners, potential acquisitions before, I would hear the same thing. Overall, I just want to do the tech work that's truly the position that they're in. It's like, well then maybe they could come under the umbrella and be part of this thing that I'm building. That'll be such a small percentage, man. Probably like less than 1% of the people that I will teach will actually come to a point to where we do a deal together to be part of what I'm building. If I can do some good for the other 99% Bro, in the meantime and everybody's making more money, I would love to see that happen.

[Ryan Alford]

Our agency is managed services in a lot of ways, consulting and some things and it's same splitting hairs but it's all about systems. People will be wise to learn from you. You will do well at that. I've watched you from afar before I knew you and can see how you did things. That is your gift. I know that will be strong. Tell me a little more nuts and bolts and where people can take advantage of learning from you.

[Rick Jordan]

Follow me Mr. Rick Jordan on Instagram and on X, those two platforms because this is kind of out there. But you can also just go to the website at Rick Jordan tv but still follow me so you get the up to date notifications on these things. The nuts and bolts of this is it's going to be in essence, kind of a boot camp, followed by an opportunity to engage with me monthly and continue to go through that. But truly, it's like in the boot camp, you'll learn everything you need to know all the systems, all the processes you need. And even if you only implemented like 10% of it, you're going to make an enormous amount more money. If you only took 10% of what I have put in place for myself, you will make a ton of more cash. That's the beauty of this. Even if you half assets, so to speak, or 10th asset, it's still going to be in a better position than where you're at right now. It's almost kind of like, like people trying to lose weight. It's pretty simple. If you actually just eliminate any kind of diet plan or macros or what, whatever, if you're having two donuts every morning for breakfast, gonna lose weight.

[Ryan Alford]

But there's. So there's some truth to the incremental improvement is improvement. Companies go wrong. The reason weight loss goes wrong is we try to eat the whole elephant at the same time. And that's part of the problem. And it's like, no, it's okay to improve 5%, 10% and at a time that doesn't mean you stop there, but 5% every quarter, 5% every year, it's still improvement. If you'll learn anything from you, and I know they would, it was worth it. Of people that listen to our show are at this ends of the spectrum. You've got 25 year olds that are working for someone else that want to maybe do their own thing and be an entrepreneur. And then you got the other end of 45 to 50 that are either further along in that journey and need the tips. The direct insight this episode's done has been pull back the curtain of the rawness and the realness of success, not failure. Because I don't think that's what this is. I think it was expensive learning lesson.

[Rick Jordan]

Extremely expensive.

[Ryan Alford]

Yes, and expensive. It's not just the money. It is the money. It's mentally expensive. Expensive because it took you away from your greatest gift that now you get to put back into the realm. And I'm happy for that for you.

[Rick Jordan]

Thank you for that, brother. That is probably the biggest truth I think of this whole thing is that going through that stuff almost became a distraction from what I actually set out to do.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. Because all you're doing is firefighting all day, even when you want to do good, when you're just putting out bad. It just becomes exhaustive and. But it's life. It's what we do. And that's why we're human. And that's why, why this show is right about now. Rick, man, I love this, brother. I appreciate you for coming on a second time. We'll make it a third sooner. And we need to talk. Not during the show. Let's follow up, man, and get together soon.

[Rick Jordan]

Thanks, brother. I appreciate it, man. This is awesome.

[Ryan Alford]

Hey, guys, Ryan is right. Dot com. That's where you'll find all the highlight clips. You'll get links to all of Rick's stuff. He's as real as he was here. We're always raw. We're always real. We're always right about now. See you next time. Here's the truth.

[Rick Jordan]

Information doesn't change your life. Execution does.

[Ryan Alford]

So don't just listen to this episode and move on.

[Rick Jordan]

Take the idea, make the call.

[Ryan Alford]

Launch the thing.

[Rick Jordan]

Fix the problem.

[Ryan Alford]

Build what you keep talking about building.

[Rick Jordan]

For more, follow Ryan Alford on Instagram

[Ryan Alford]

at Ryan Alford and watch or listen

[Rick Jordan]

to every [e-mail] this is right about now. Quit waiting.

[Ryan Alford]

Go win.

[Grainger Announcer]

Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.