Taylor Wallace | Dog Daycare Owner * SMB Investor

I bought an SMB in 2020 with 100% debt as a side project. In the last three years, we’ve seen our valuation balloon ~700%. This isn’t a story about the risk of self-funded search. But it is an SMB story about the potential for massive upside if you buy the right small business. Doing so has changed my life, my partner’s life, and the lives of many of our top employees. At the time, I had no idea what ETA/SMB/Search etc. even were. My best friend managed a dog daycare for an absentee owner. He did all the work and she made all the money. For years, we’d talked about how some day we’d start our own dog care company. I’d just gotten laid off from my high paid tech job, and was exploring whether or not I wanted to stay in tech. We started searching for a way to start a business. My partner worked in a franchisee system, so we looked there. I was a startup guy, so we also explored just starting up. When we stumbled upon a small, independent dog daycare for sale, we didn’t even really know you could buy a small business. We pulled together a group of family and friends investor advisors, and they assured us that buying a small business was a great idea. It would give us a running start, and while the facility wasn’t perfect, we knew we could at least make as much, if not more money, than the current owners were. We didn’t really know anything about the SBA, but dog care as a business was heating up. We put together a plan to borrow 100% of the money to buy the business and gave up a decent chunk of equity to do so (this is what I'd done in tech for years, just this time it was debt instead of equity). If things went well, we’d be able to pay the debt off in 5-7 years and have a great cash flowing business that could support us. Maybe we could grow it… I came on part time after close to help streamline the business model, tech systems, manage HR and finance. My partner was the day to day operator. The business kicked off enough cash to replace his currently salary and pay me about 1/3 of what I’d made at my prior tech job. Our first financial model was an absolute joke. If you’re a finance bro, you’d absolutely cringe if you saw it. I’m a product/marketing guy, not a spreadsheet jockey. It didn’t matter, within six months, we doubled every projection I crudely modeled. We went on to buy our second location almost a year to the day after closing on the first. That model was slightly more sophisticated. The structure of our first deal worked well, so we just replicated that for the second, financing 100% of the purchase price yet again. Interest rates were still low, and our investors had seen their equity value in the first location skyrocket in under a year, and they were making 6% on their money. I came on full time. The business could now support paying me about half of what I’d made when last working full time. My partner was making more money than he’d ever made working for someone else. Within 6mo we smashed our projections again. We finally started building a daycare from the ground up. We bought another location with cashflow from the existing two. Was there risk? We didn’t have to PG an SBA loan, so the actual financial risk was more minimal than I realized. But we had massive reputational and time risk. My partner left a sure thing to go out on his own, and I forwent potentially an awesome tech/VC job to play with dogs. We were the right pair to grow the business we bought. He had the operating chops, and I knew how to manage the business. In hindsight, we should have had more conviction than we did, but I suppose success makes you bold. With all this back and forth on the risks of SMB, if you find something you’re passionate about, something you can understand, and you really do your homework to see there’s true upside, do it. There was no better way for me to build personal wealth in such a short period of time than what we did, aside from maybe inventing something like YouTube or working at OpenAI. And I tried doing that for 10yrs with little to show for it than a six figure salary and worthless equity. I’m not that smart, but buying an SMB was the best thing I ever did. I know it doesn’t always work out that way for everyone. There was a lot of luck in finding the right industry, having great connections to investors that were willing to bet on us, and having the best partner in the world. You can always get another job.

@Sam_Rosati Sick oakmont flag

Dropping a quick video ahead of tomorrow's webinar on investor equity raise, one of the most misunderstood and feared workstreams in SBA acquisition. Tomorrow at 12 PM EST we're covering structure, economics, governance, investor docs, and more.

@JerimiahLee U picking salmon or wagyu?

The wine selection is top notch Rory knows ball

If RE is a part of your SMB deal, you HAVE to do the work to fully understand the dependencies and lease terms.

@connorpera Hell yeah!

Today we are celebrating 9 years of continuous sobriety! This past year, I officially crossed the point where I’ve been sober for longer than I ever drank. That’s hard for me to wrap my head around because of the role alcohol played in my life before I gave it up. Drinking was more than something I did for fun. It was more than a best friend. It was my life. It was my everything. I ran to it for courage, for peace, for belonging. And for a while, it worked. Until it didn’t. Instead of courage, I got fear. Instead of peace, I got chaos. Instead of belonging, I got loneliness. By the time I realized it, I was trapped. I didn’t know where to turn. Then something happened to me. I still don’t understand what exactly happened, how it happened, or why, I just know that God carried me to a new starting line and told me to walk. So that’s what I’ve been doing these past nine years. Walking. Not perfectly. Not quickly. Just earnestly trying to follow His path for me. So when I say it’s hard to wrap my head around being sober for longer than I drank, it’s because this was never part of my plan. Not even in my wildest dreams. If you’re stuck in the cycle and you don’t know where to turn, please reach out for help. It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a better way. If you surrender and just start walking, I promise your life will turn into something you never planned for or imagined was possible. And if you’re anything like me, that’s a good thing. Keep walking everyone!🚶‍➡️✝️

Congrats @KSI on ownership in @Dag_RedFC I’ve known Grabowski since we were 14, had a front row seat to the hustle, and you couldn’t have a better partner or human to work with. Premier league here we come!

If you’ve read the Yale case studies, fill this out!

@JerimiahLee Changed my life on the golf course and the bike, then I got lasik and got wild and now I can own 8 pairs of sunglasses

Holy shit, I just got prescription sunglasses and they are a game changer. Is this really how the rest of you see whenever it’s sunny?

“Chat gpt, what are the easiest sports to get to the olympics” “Blunt Truth If you’re starting after age 20, your only remotely realistic paths are: •Shooting •Archery •Sailing •Possibly race walking (if you’re extremely disciplined)” Well damn

@MikeBotkin_ nbcnews.com/news/us-news/p…

@taywall I meant like a year or two before the Olympics take place. A 28 year old figure skater is not being propped up by parents still, right?

What are the economics of Olympic athletes? Sitting in a hotel watching figure skating. Who pays for their training? How far in advance does that pay-for-training begin? Is there a return? Who pays it? How many figure skaters are paid but don’t make Olympics?

@CTW_SMB Ppt is hard, it cant really do visuals yet. Great for structure and flow but not actually slide output.

Claude looks amazing for excel, PPT. But those are demo video Who has actually been using this to do PPT decks and models? Will be working on our BOD deck this wknd. Great forcing function to stop day to day and think big Timeline tells me Claude can do it in minutes. Tips? Who are the power users?

@MatznerJon Sent u a dm

Dillan -Social Media Management, SEO, Email Marketing, and Growth Strategy - South Africa

A year ago, Pearl Talent tried to poach one of our execs (fair play!) Today, they pitched 4 hires via email at a $3,000+ month markups... while the workers get scraps. Been looking for a reason to return the favor! Here's the info of the talent so you can hire them directly:

@BojanRadojici10 Plz share

360 years. That is the collective Excel experience of my team of 30 people, in one room. I have personally used Excel for 20 years. Since the very beginning. We’ve spent decades "crushing it" when it comes to financial modeling. We knew every shortcut. Every nested formula. We thought we had reached the peak of efficiency. (They are better then me, just to admit) But I have something to tell you. The game just changed. In my opinion, we are witnessing the biggest innovation since Excel was first released. It’s not a new function or a Power BI update. It’s Claude. Specifically, Claude’s ability to build and manipulate Excel models. For 40 years, the "manual labor" was the tax we paid. Hardcoding formulas. Spending hours formatting cells. Manually linking sheets and building tables from scratch. That era is over. Claude can now handle the heavy lifting of building the structure, the logic, and the formatting in minutes. But here is the part that really surprised me: It actually understands accounting. It understands the relationship between a Balance Sheet and a Cash Flow statement. It understands how operating drivers flow into a P&L. We aren't replacing our expertise. We are finally liberating it. Instead of spending 80% of our time building the model, we spend 100% of our time analyzing the results. If you want this Prompt and Excel model, just drop a comment and I’ll send it to you. (Important: follow me so I can DM you!)

@PEoperator I love the idea of this model as it creates more aligned incentives around actually long term company building

What if instead of raising funds to then go buy companies, private equity had to raise funds for each specific deal? This makes them more like an independent sponsor. What would that actually do to the industry? It would definitely slow things down and it increases company-specific risk for LPs, but it could also increase transparency. Thoughts?

@peterfuller23 Launch

Introducing Tracelight 1.0 After six months, we are live with 5 of the 10 biggest management consultancies in the world, as well as PE funds and asset managers with over $600B in AUM. Tracelight is the best AI add-in to Excel. In testing against the leading alternative add-ins, Tracelight 1.0 was: - The most accurate - 2x faster building analysis on average - 20x faster at finding human errors in complex spreadsheets We’ve been building with early adopters and enterprise partners for months. You can now reach a completely new level of performance in Excel. That’s why today we’re proud to launch a major new version. To celebrate, we're giving 1 month of Tracelight Pro for free to anyone who comments LAUNCH below or TAGs a friend who needs this

@KrissBergTweets @SMB_Attorney Secomd this question

@SMB_Attorney What is an f reorg

Just received a sub-$10 million LOI that had an escrow, earnout, equity rollover and F-Reorg. Great structure, and something we see all the time in the lower middle market, but this will terrify a Main Street seller and broker.

How are more people not talking about verizon outage? Minimal reporting from mainstream media, no public why, going on 7-8hrs. Is it not that wide spread? Im not a tinfoil hat guy but this is wild.

@bryan_johnson What pans should we use?!

If you have a non-stick cookware. Get rid of it. New study: a 169% increase in the risk of fatty liver disease in adolescents is linked to PFOA, a forever chemical used in non-stick cookware, with every doubling of exposure. I've been meticulously measuring these toxin levels in myself and drinking water. Significant study findings: + PFOA showed the highest risk increase for fatty liver disease in adolescents; each doubling of PFOA plasma concentration was associated with a 169% increased odds of fatty liver disease. + In one cohort, each doubling of PFHpA was associated with a 73% increased risk of fatty liver disease in adolescents. + Age mediated the risk posed by PFOA in adolescents; each year increase in age added a 45% increased odds of fatty liver disease for every doubling of PFOA plasma concentration. + The high-risk PNPLA3 genotype significantly increased the risk of fatty liver disease with PFAS exposure in adolescents, particularly for PFHxS. Each doubling in PFHxS concentration was associated with a 552% increase in fatty liver disease odds in older adolescents carrying the PNPLA3 GG high-risk phenotype. + No basic association with increased risk was observed with increasing PFAS concentrations in young adults. + Smoking in young adults turned several PFAS, including PFDA, PFHpS, and PFNA, into significant risk factors for metabolic liver disease. Added Context: + MASLD definition: Having >5.5% liver fat in addition to at least one metabolic disease criterion (high BMI, fasting glucose, blood pressure, triglycerides, and/or low HDL). + PNPLA3: A gene involved in fat and cholesterol handling and storage in the liver and adipose tissue. The GG phenotype predisposes its carriers to an increased risk of developing fatty liver and metabolic (non-alcoholic) liver disease. Significance: Known as "forever chemicals," PFAS persist for years or decades in the human body (PFOA has a half-life of 1.5–5 years) and for decades to centuries in the ecosystem (PFOA has a half-life of 92 years in environmental water). PFAS are widely used as insulating and non-stick materials in non-stick cookware, clothing, electronics, and many other household and industrial applications. PFAS have long been known to cause metabolic and endocrine disruptions, affecting metabolism, insulin function, and liver fat metabolism. Adolescence and early adulthood are particularly sensitive phases due to hormonal changes around puberty and related rapid growth, making this age group especially vulnerable to the endocrine, hormonal, and metabolic damage caused by PFAS. This study successfully identified adolescents as an especially vulnerable risk group to specific types of PFAS (PFOA and PFHpA). Given that PFOA is used in non-stick ware and other food containers, this highlights the importance of avoiding these items in households with children, especially around and after the age of puberty. Furthermore, the study uncovered the exacerbation of genetic risk by PFAS, indicating that PNPLA3 GG carriers should be especially aware of the risk from PFHxS. This chemical is commonly used in firefighting foams, water-repellant clothing and polishes, as well as various electronics. Young adults showed no basic association between PFAS and liver disease risk, possibly indicating a special sensitivity before and around puberty. However, smoking altered this relationship, making young-adult smokers more susceptible to increased liver disease risk with PFAS exposure. Limitations While the study offers several actionable insights, more research is needed to determine if the findings hold for non-Hispanic adolescent populations (as the SOLAR adolescent cohort was solely of Hispanic background). Additionally, the somewhat small sample size limits the study's statistical power. Finally, the single-time point PFAS exposure assessment and the cross-sectional nature of the study make it impossible to assess cumulative exposures or draw any causative conclusions, limiting the insights to observational findings.

@9dbfg Ah but I also like to drive really aggressively

@taywall Full self-driving (Tesla), so you can read while meep-meeping through the sunshine state.

I read aggressively. This is a list for you if that's a 2026 goal... Stacks of books cover my desk, my bedroom, my house, and my backpack. The only book free place is my car, and even that is full of Audible.