Ben Bortner

Nobody who's acquired a small business has EVER failed because they lacked a GREAT IDEA!! They failed because they couldn't execute WITHOUT RESOURCES. You left a resource-rich environment. Maybe it was tech, maybe finance, maybe consulting. You were good at your job. You read "Buy Then Build," got excited about acquisition entrepreneurship, and bought a boring business. HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, whatever. Now you're sitting in the chair and nothing works the way it's supposed to. Not because you're dumb. Because every instinct you built in corporate assumes access to resources that don't exist here. Need a better CRM? There's no budget. Need to hire a controller? You are the controller. The playbook you studied in anticipation of taking over (EOS, Scaling Up, whatever framework) all assumes there's slack in the system to implement it. There isn't. The defining characteristic of small business ownership is NOT ENOUGH MONEY TIME AND PEOPLE. You are not starved for good ideas. You have plenty. What you're starved for is the creativity to execute within an environment where every dollar has three jobs and you can't throw money at problems. This is the real game!! Not strategy. Not vision. RESOURCEFULNESS. The ability to get 80% of the result for 20% of the cost. To cross-train people because you can't afford specialists. To stitch together tools and processes that would make your old boss cringe, but they work. The corporate refugees who make the transition aren't the ones with the best frameworks. They're the ones who learn to build with what they have. The ones who don't learn that? They burn through their SBA loan trying to run a $2M revenue company like it's a Series B startup. And then they're fucked!

@SMB_Attorney LOL, not me, but can relate. 😭

We’ve been in process for 110 days, extended the LOI three times, accrued $70K in legal and financial diligence costs, and you’re demanding a non-refundable deposit for the very first time now?

@KenziesPoolBoy No acid wash? Wear a respirator.

What’s it like building a pool company in year 2 or 3? It’s Saturday morning, but you don’t get a day off. Yesterday, one of your cleaners didn’t finish three pools on his route, and its the same three customers that have getting bumped from Friday to Saturday for the past three weeks. They’re starting to get irritated that you’re not sticking to the schedule you promised. The cleaner is slow, but reliable and a good guy. He just can’t clean fast enough. You woke up early and left the house before your family woke up. You have six jobs today. One is a drain and pressure wash, which will take four hours. Basically, it’s just you cleaning a bunch of swamp rot out of someone’s pool they let sit for five months. After that, you have five more stops, a mix of cleanings and fixes mostly for new customers you recently signed up. While you’re pressure washing, your wife is sending you sweet pictures of your family at the farmers market. You’re missing everything.

@jamesonhaslam Love to see people's toys

should be more truck pics on this site

New bucket truck and wrap for GreenWorks' Dot Palm branch. In 1-year we've replaced Dot Palm's entire fleet, added a second tree crew, and added two manager-level trucks.

@blueprintsmb22 From what I can tell of your business, the bags and packaging you produce is a tiny portion of the overall cost of a product so you should be able to pass along your cost increases fairly easily? Especially if all vendors are experiencing the same pressures?

This resin situation can't be fixed until 2027 is what a few resin distributors I talked to today. Even if the Strait of Hormuz opens up today, it will take 60+ days for capacity to come back online. Resin was $0.50ish per pound in December 2025 and if the price increases go through May, pricing will be $1.05/pound soon. If everything goes perfectly this weekend and the Strait is open, resin prices won't get back to $0.50ish per pound until 2027 at the earliest. The resin manufacturers aren't even returning phone calls to the distributors with priority to ship to the export market where margins are higher. One resin distributor said one his customers agreed to buy 25 railcars (200k pounds per railcar) for the year at contracted rates tied to CMA. Demand was so weak for the industry in Q1, they only used 2 railcars but are now pulling railcars as end market customers want to buy before the resin price increases. The problem is the resin manufacturer said any railcars now are tied to spot market which is closer to $1.00 per pound). This means that the remaining 23 railcars will cost $4.6MM when the customer had budgeted $2.5MM for the year! Obviously they are working on finding remedies but this is the most extreme environment, resin distributors have ever seen in their lifetime. What a time to be alive. x.com/blueprintsmb22…

@bradford_hardin @MikeBotkin_ Magically something is broken every time!

@Slackwatercap @MikeBotkin_ I just tell them “be sure to fix anything that is broken”

Here is my contribution of the day. The industry that I tried rolling up but could not gain traction? Residential irrigation. I love...(repeat)...LOVE residential irrigation. A-MAZ-ING business. I just could not get traction/momentum. I hope somebody sees this and does it. Send me a check when you sell for $$$$$$

@gavin_nurick @MikeBotkin_ Are we converging on full service?

@MikeBotkin_ We do it but haven’t put any money behind growth. Your post has prompted me to test some paid ads around it.

@MSUKyleBrown @bradford_hardin @MikeBotkin_ both these companies are going to get cold called by 5 searchers tomorrow

@bradford_hardin @Slackwatercap @MikeBotkin_ Mine was very similar - $100/hour and ~$50 in parts

@bradford_hardin @MikeBotkin_ Some providers do what they say they will. Some don't. I'm aware of some companies that don't really perform all the checks they say they will.

@Slackwatercap @MikeBotkin_ Isn’t that service the primary repairs sales funnel? It is at my house!

Insurance litigation reform in Florida is working. Progressive gave us a $1,325 "Florida Insurance Reform" credit for the three vehicles on my family's auto policy.

@StumpGuyTy He went for the low bid I see

Since starting my biz, my dad sends me any tree related work happening on his property. Check out how accurate this tree drop was!! Insanely close to the house.

@Robbie_R23 Don't want to sign up for Marketing Pro?

Anyone who does email marketing/newsletters for customers, what is the software of choice these days? Have we moved on from Mailchimp back in the early 2000’s.

@guessworkinvest Did you tell it to "make no mistakes"?

Is there a prompt engineering way to stop Claude from making small silly errors, like dropping brackets? I'm getting errors and the fix is often so basic. I don't get why it's making these errors...should I be prompting it to go slower and be more careful?

@MikeBotkin_ @MaxKrakow_ All you have to do is throw out the fax machine, Mike.

@MaxKrakow_ hell yeah....the ole add a website + fix marketing playbook. Tried and true! Easy peasy.

There is a guy who is sourcing capital to buy a home service business. ~$5m top line, $3.3m ebitda (that tracks I am sure!). His main pitch? Year 2 — they will do $50m in rev and $23m in EBITDA. How? The plan is to buy 30 adjacent companies at an avg of $1.4m in rev. Year 5 — $100m in revenue at 45% margin. Valued at over $1b (with a b) Man….wish I had his confidence. Go get em tiger. I will have to pass on the SpaceX of home services.

@JackieHirsch_ Or bad advisers... :(

@Slackwatercap This also happens. It’s lack of experience often on both ends. Or sometimes the deal just isn’t right for either party. But mostly I see buyers jerking around the seller.

This is how many deals buyers are missing by jerking around sellers.

@BPD1776 They've ruined F1. Hope it changes soon.

YIKES I wrecked like this once. Leading the race, on the back straight at Road Atlanta during Petit Le Mans support race. My closing speed on lapped traffic was dramatically faster than I expected. I spun. Wall. Rear end first. Driveshaft through the transmission into the motor. Only car that Panoz Race Series ever cut up. Cost me the Championship. Probably for the best for me. Realized I wasn't a racer capable of going pro. but these are PROFESSIONALS! FIA will wait until someone is dead to give up on their folly