Gundwolf

Most days, I look forward to building a business empire. Other days, buying 500 acres, disappearing from society, and living off the land sounds better.

@thehvacjack @WilsonCompanies Congrats guys! Excited to see where you take it

SMB Twit Update: After 4 years,(my biz) Rapid Response has merged with @WilsonCompanies ! John has been a great friend and mentor(groomer), and cohost. I am really F%cking excited to continue learning and building badass companies with him. More growth and acquisitions to come!

@ShaanVP Send it

I'm secretly launching a 2nd youtube channel reply "send it" and I'll dm it to you

@BowTiedBroke Demand for premium STRs in the Smokies where you can host a wedding still seems strong... the ones I've found are booked out for much of 2025

The speculative short term rental market in Smoky Mtns is 100% over (along w/many markets). Don’t buy there now! Unless you can build your own, on your own, the returns for ho-hum cabins aren’t there. I have a friend who I spoke with Thurs. He said “By this time in ‘24 my 3/3 was almost full for March. This year, I have ONE booking for March. In 2024, Summer was half full by this time. This year I have zero bookings for summer. I know summer will eventually fill up, but this is worrisome.” He has a very basic run of the mill cabin. No view, no major amenities, not super close to the action. I’ll say it again…If a STR (Airbnb) investment property you are looking at will not do 15% of the purchase price in gross rental income, DO NOT even look at it. My realtor also said she is getting bombarded with folks trying to sell “basic” 3/3 and 4/4 cabins. So many, she is having a hard time keeping up with all of her listings. She told me most will take a massive loss ($100K-$300K) from when they bought in 22/23. They just don’t want to accept that fact so they list high, and the property sits. Run of the mill homes/cabins are horrible investments right now in a market like the Smokies, Broken Bow, etc. You most have one of three things to be successful: 1) Insane view 2) Proximity to touristy stuff (need to be super close) 3) Major amenities (Indoor Pool, crazy Game rooms, Indoor Golf Simulator rooms, etc. No one cares about your single stand up multicade Ms PacMan anymore) Many in the Smokies don’t have any of these, and the owners paid $500/sq foot at 7% rates for a 3/3 cute wooden cabin when the Airbnb rage was in full effect. They’re gonna get smoked. People are already having to take massive losses, and even after dropping the price significantly, the cabin still won’t sell…as seen in this particular listing. This Hatcher Road listing is just one example of many. Dec 2021 - Sold $450K Aug 2022 - Sold $1.7 Million Why? Because the sellers in ‘22 showed the buyer the rental numbers for ‘20, ‘21 and mid way to ‘22. Probably brought in $200K-$225K in gross rent for those years and buyer thought Covid demand would continue. It didn’t. The rental demand has officially reverted to mean. Building your own cabin with subcontractors (without hiring a builder) is the ONLY way you will make money now. Take that to the bank.

@StrongpointRich 🔥🔥

It's wild to think back to what this company's org chart & infrastructure looked like 18 mos ago compared to today. 14 team members -> 61 11 trucks -> 39 4,800 sqft -> 22,000

@FurkYuce @WilsonCompanies What billing terms make it worth it? 33% upfront, 33% halfway through, 33% on completion? Seems contractors always get stuck holding the bag…

@WilsonCompanies We can debate this if you want , construction companies are cash cows if you know what your doing. It’s not something for a rookie to buy

I could never emphasize strongly enough that no one should ever buy a construction company. This feels like common sense. They’re valueless. Have terrible economics. Have terrible cash conversation. Have a massive BK rate. And they’re miserable to run. Stop it.

@CSPopoff Great. Mostly paying off acquisition debt

@Gundwolf How’s cash flow?

Growing revenue at 30% YoY EBITDA is up 110% since acquiring 18 months ago But… most days it feels like it’s all held together with duct tape… Idk if that feeling ever changes In reality, a 30 y/o company likely has much more resilience than the day-to-day fires suggest…

@CitizenPaul4 Yes, we’ve had to invest a lot into beefing up management

@Gundwolf Wow, when you bought it, did the EBITA cover admin staff? I notice a lot of small business understaff which buffs up Ebita. Doesnt seem sustainable.

@AustinLinney Couldn’t agree more…

@Gundwolf So true , most days feels like it’s crushing it and failing apart in the same hour ha . We double revenue this year 3 million up from last year and feels like war everyday

@jd_foote Yes, going very well overall

@Gundwolf Going well overall though??

Our headcount since we acquired the business has grown from 42 to 58… Things are always breaking and someone is upset nearly everyday… Putting systems in place and changing everything around is a painful process… The spreadsheets leave that part out…

@youngmogul4life 100%

@JoeCassandra Things like that happen often, especially with the labor market pressures on skilled workers. I was referring more so to the issues you run into as you scale. It feels like a game of whack-a-mole

@Gundwolf What's an example of something breaking? Techs no showing?

@Miguelcosta6969 @Dropshipceo Everything. Clickbank is easiest…

@Gundwolf @Dropshipceo 😳 are these guys running private offers? Or clickbank

@Miguelcosta6969 @Dropshipceo Yeah, there are affiliates making 6 figures per day…

@Gundwolf @Dropshipceo Would you say it is still a good model?

@tradesearcher Are you largely bullish on HVAC because of the multiples we’re seeing PE still offer? Seems to me the biggest opportunity is simply the expansion on multiples if you’re able to grow it from ~$500k to ~$1.5M EBITDA…

Outside of HVAC here are a few industries that I think are interesting right now. Accounting firms Engineering firms Industrial cleaning Second home management Anyone disagree or have interesting industries to add?

@NM_is_the_place @whentheresawill What kind of rate are you refinancing to?

SBA payment just jumped from $32k/month to $41k/month… Adjustable rates are real… Who knew…

@RahDailyLife Interesting. I’ve not heard of it. Let me know what you think

@Gundwolf Have you heard of buck.ai? I have a demo call with them next week regarding their product. It uses AI to determine what tech is right for the service call.

@mattbcontractor Right now the estimating function is not clear, but the rest of that can be parsed through. The “call taker” would determine if it was a service we offer and either schedule a salesman to visit or have a salesman call the customer back with an estimate. Estimates will be possible

@Gundwolf “Hi I need to remodel my kitchen, but I need to remove a wall and it might be load bearing, and maybe paint the house? And maybe redo the laundry room, ballpark what would that run?” How will AI answer questions like these? This is how most of my initial phone calls go.