The Valuation Lab

@SteveOnSpeed Mixed on this. Currently 31 and have a very decent life (married, kids, homeowner). Most of the people I know complaining about the cost of living have a spending problem (3-4 vacations a year, new car) but also don’t have the income to realistically support any of it.

Precisely. Those who are in a position to help their family should do so before waiting until they die.

@blueprintsmb22 Big uncle bills guy

Overcast day in Cape May today with family. Surfer actually got some nice rides before the light rain started.

@SteveWiesnerSMB Those price raises won’t stop people from buying Apple products. Willing to bet it has less than a 2% impact on volumes

@Lancebachmann Let’s connect. Based in Philly and want to run a business idea by you

In Morocco with my family and won’t be back in my office until August. The businesses still run because we built systems, leadership, and process. Wildwood. July 22-23. Sign up and change your life: buildittosellit.com/mastermind/ #BuildItToSellIt

@dipinvest Got through the first two levels pre covid. No ambition to finish it. Already a mid level manger

The CFA isn’t a competitive advantage anymore.

@pestctrlguy @Will_Schryver Define micro.. are you talking sub $1mm revenue

We’re scooping up micro companies for 1-2x EBITDA. Integrate them into our systems which isn’t much work bringing over 1-2 employees and a few hundred customers. Plan to exit some day for 6-10x or so. We help boomers retire that otherwise may not have sold their business, then we 3-5x our wealth. Everybody wins.

Platform EBITDA $18M Add-on EBITDA $2M ← 10x Platform PF EBITDA $20M ← 16x Platform multiple applies to full $20M EBITDA, even if 10% was acquired recently HVAC platform gets full credit for $2M HVAC add-on as part of a recap Which is why private equity can “afford” to pay a premium right before a platform exit

@blueprintsmb22 Love the recurring discussion with my wife where she recommends we give up our $1,500 mortgage for a $4,800 monthly mortgage just to get an extra bed room

Ha. Wife dragged me another open house near Ridgewood NJ on Sunday. House listed for $1.1MM. 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. No central air. Bathrooms would need to be upgraded from the 1970s, central air/heat would be needed and the basement would need to be finished. My wife who does real estate development as her W2 said this would easily be $200-300k of costs to upgrade everything. So getting permits to upgrade would probably push appraised value closer to $1.3MM. 2.5% property tax = $33k a year forever once the mortgage is paid off. Public schools are fantastic but that's alot of property tax for a really really old home that needs alot of work. x.com/shortsqueeznew…

@BustedAuction The older I get the worst the analyst are.

Bro - I am still modeling my ass off in my mid-30s. I’m doing all the sourcing, selling, structuring, PA drafting, blah blah blah… any of the elder finbros still doing this? I’m in a unique role (not traditional pe or ib), but ffs… I’m tired

@JD_DeYonker Does the son currently work in the business? It’s interesting some parents feel obligated to transition the business to a family member but their kids don’t have the same grit or business understanding as they do.

Met a roofing biz owner who plans to sell to his son for $4m over 10 years $13m top line, ~$2m EBITDA, 28 W2 employees, 40 years in biz, 60/40 resi/comm Feels like they’re doing themselves a disservice by not taking chips off the table / derisking

@MarketingMax @ant0ni0_r0mer0 Claude

@ant0ni0_r0mer0 Claude

BREAKING: Claude Code can now make your ads like a $10K/mo agency. One skill. One product URL. Five finished Meta ads in under 5 minutes. I tested it to prove it couldn't be that good. It was. Distinct angles. Different funnel stages. Each one looked like a separate creative team built it. I have hired those teams. But this was sharper. Here is what the skill actually does once you feed it a URL: - Pulls live competitor ads and finds the angles nobody is running - Reverse-engineers the hooks already winning in your category - Builds the full brief: ICP, pains, customer language, the psychology behind the buy - Writes the concepts, the copy, and the visual direction as one package - Ships a set built to test against each other, not to sit pretty in a deck No dashboards. No logins. No designer queue. It runs in the terminal. And here is the uncomfortable part for the industry: You were never paying $4K for ideas. You were paying for briefs, decks, revision rounds, and the Slack thread that goes quiet for three days. I dropped this into our performance engine and the first account went from one new angle a week to five a day. More angles. More signal. We found the winning ROAS in days, not months. If you want the exact build: 1. Connect with me 2. Comment "CLAUDE" I'll send it to your DMs.

@sourcesandmuses Back out the 30% from the new purchase price and structure the new equity as a different class

Looking at a deal where the owner promised two key employees 30% of the company that vests over 10 years based on sales growth (in year 4 of agreement right now) Owner said he would only do the deal if I assumed that agreement. How would you structure out of this?

@FranchiseMnA @AutismCapital You need a primo

@AutismCapital Fake news. Still as good as ever

Jersey Mike’s used to be great. Real ones know. Amazing sandwiches, the appropriate amount of meat, great smiles, made you feel good. It made you say “You know this Jersey Mike guy ain’t half bad.” Then it was bought by Blackstone. And everything changed. The smiles stopped.

@projectxlence @PrivatEquityGuy Just compare searchers living in Utah vs NYC

@PrivatEquityGuy Are there any stats on ETA success by number of children?

I sincerely believe you don't want to compete against someone who quit their high paying $300-400k/year job at a prestigious firm and is now all in on acquiring a traditional niche $1-5M EBITDA business while preparing to have a newborn at home.

@SBA_Ray What are the guarantee fees?

The SBA just opened the floodgates for American manufacturers. 🏭 And I mean ALL manufacturers. 🥩 Food & Beverage Processing 🧵 Textile & Apparel Manufacturing 🖨️ Printing & Publishing ⛽ Petroleum Refining 🧪 Chemical Manufacturing 🛢️ Plastics & Rubber Products 🪨 Nonmetallic Mineral Processing ⚙️ Primary & Fabricated Metal Products 💊 Pharmaceutical & Medicine Manufacturing 💻 Computer & Electronic Products ✈️ Aerospace & Defense Components 🪑 Furniture Manufacturing 🌲 Wood Products & Paper Manufacturing 🚢 Ship & Boat Building 🍺 Breweries & Distilleries Here’s what the SBA just did for this entire sector: ✅ Waiving SBA guarantee fees on loans up to $950,000 ✅ Reducing the lender’s exposure from 25% down to just 10% (which means lenders can say YES a lot more often) So if you’ve been thinking about buying the building across the street 🏢 If you’ve been eyeing that automation equipment 🤖 If you want to vertically integrate your supply chain 🔗 If you want to hire more people and scale production 👷 Now is your time.

@theficouple Calling bs on this. Family of 4 can easily survive on $160k in most states but even the outliers are $200k

Income needed for a family of 4: 1. Massachusetts: $313,747 2. Hawaii: $294,362 3. Connecticut: $290,368 4. California: $287,456 5. New Jersey: $282,714 …maybe this is why people aren’t rushing to have kids.

@AdviserCounsel Personal opinion is people believe it’s a low maintenance hands off cash business, but it’s mainly a low margin nightmare.

There are 2 car washes within a short distance of each other in our town. Someone is building a brand new one. I just don’t see the demand to support it. Do these things print money? Is it like self storage?

@JD_DeYonker @DerekKuns Yes… bulk of them do

@DerekKuns That tracks, ty. Do these groups invest debt and equity?

Met with two smart independent sponsors doing their first and second deals, respectively. Raising real equity ($10m +) and neither knew about SBIC funds. Seems like a way to tap cheap SBA-ish debt through a fund without the PG? Looks like there's glass to chew to be compliant, but pick your flavor of glass when buying an SMB.

@SteveOnSpeed Head of household $115-350

In your opinion, what is a middle class salary these days?

@JD_DeYonker Maybe if there’s some significant synergies that get the target to 5x on post synergy EBITDA, but aside from that the multiple feels aggressive. FLS platform trade 12-15x today

A friend told me there are fire & safety businesses with sub $1M EBITDA trading for 10x+ Two thoughts: i) seems like a hard way to make money ii) unless you start the fire & safety biz

@kieranwgoodwin Depends on the buyer is but we need to promote ESOPs

PE has clearly ruined 1. Skiing 2. Youth Hockey 3. Dentists What else?