Thread by @jacubwilliamson

I bought my family catering company in the middle of the COVID pandemic.

I broke down in tears on more than one occasion in 2020-2021.

I honestly don't remember entire months at a time.

Here is a dose of reality for first-time buyers.

A 🧵

🚨Buying a company is hard....

💣Buying a family company is harder...

You have to manage emotions on both sides of the table and come out the other side getting along. Your happiness depends on it.

I did everything against the norm in buying my first biz:

💥Stock sale to help with seller taxes
💥Timed the sale to help the seller
💥Didn't include 100% of the COVID slump
💥Etc...

What I got in return was an overvalued business that I had built for 4 years for little pay.

I used an earnout and my own money to close the deal with two happy parties.
(more on this in a future thread)

Day one of my ownership was no different from the last 4 years running ops. The team knew me and my plans for the future.

I went back to work...

COVID hit while all of this was going down.

We went from two weeks to slow the spread to a complete shutdown of social gatherings right as wedding season was getting started.

I had a strong cash position so I wasn't too worried yet...

As the months rolled by without gatherings, we were dealing with:

canceled events
postponed weddings
clients in tears
clients angry with us for the restrictions
Venues trying to bend the rules

Luckily, we got through 2020

The real mess started in 2021 when gatherings were allowed again with major restrictions on guest count and space usage.

We had no idea how hard 2021 would be...

💩The first sh*t to hit the fan = rule interpretation

Everyone had a different perspective on what the government restrictions allowed.

Venues wanted events so they were bending the rules to allow events

Clients didn't like that rule bending so they wanted money back. (cont.)

Clients were way more COVID cautious so they demanded money back from venues and asked us to back them up.

They wanted us to refuse to do the event, so the venue would have to refund.

So we were stuck in lawsuit and legal threat city for a year!!

💩Second dose of fan hitting = Food supply

For the events that COULD happen, we needed to source food.

Guess who else needed food.

Everyone on the planet Earth all at the same time!!

This, combined with labor issues, made it incredibly expensive and difficult to get food orders. 🚚

We would often get word that food trucks would be delayed indefinitely or that the price of the order would be 25% - 50% higher.

💩The final pile of sh*t to hit the already messy fan = LABOR

This broke me...

Even though events could happen-ish, much of our labor force avoided work like the plague.

Health concerns, political beliefs, and personal values caused chaos in the service labor pool.

🔥We had employees who were angry that we were even agreeing to do events because it was "killing people."
🔥We had employees tell us they were making too much in unemployment to work.
🔥Then came the people who refused to participate if vaccines were required.

This is when you started to see me come apart on occasion.

I worked EVERYDAY for 10 months.

I was at almost every event. Sometimes, setting up for a breakfast and then tearing down from a late wedding.

⏰ 0500-midnight wasn't unusual.

I would find myself with tears in my eyes from shear lack of sleep. You know, the uncontrollable emotion kind...Never felt it before.

This is not a pity party! This is a thread of hope 😇

I got through this and was able to not only build for a better (more successful 2022) but also move out of state and start looking for my next business acquisition.

How did I get through it?

⚡Family, they were there every time I needed support.
⚡I recruited fast and fired even faster
⚡I found business owners who also needed support.
⚡I held firm to my principles and didn't let other shady actors bog me down. (cont.)

⚡I took a vacation at the end of the season to recharge.
⚡I fired customers who didn't give a crap
⚡I kept great employees on the books even in down time.
⚡I tried to exercise as much as possible

In the end:

👉I bought a business at the wrong time
👉It punched me in the gut everyday
👉I came out the other side with a better biz
👉I became a better operator and human

The best part about this....

I now own a successful business with a sterling reputation (In part from our handling of COVID)

We have grown 100% since 2019

My team has been through it with me and now runs things while I live in a different state.

What am I up to now?

I am on the hunt for the next business to add to my portfolio.

I have been through the ringer and I know what the dark side of SMB land feels like.

Even so, I want to do it again. and again. and again as I build to $50M in SMBs.

for those of you who are searching for their first business:

This is hard. Until you feel the visceral reaction to these things, you won't know. people like @SamtLeslie @Damon_SMB @Fundof1 and so many more get it!

Reach out to them for their incredible stories.

@SamtLeslie @Damon_SMB @Fundof1 On the other hand:

Buying and/or operating SMBs is the wildest ride I have ever taken.

You provide a living for people
You fill a need in the market
You pave the way for teams to grow

All while seeing the incredible financial upside. 💸💸💸

@SamtLeslie @Damon_SMB @Fundof1 This is the most frustrating, exhilarating, lonely, rewarding, dirty, and lucrative job I've ever had.

I worked hard to get to the point where I can buy more businesses and work ON them and not IN them.

You CAN get there too!

@SamtLeslie @Damon_SMB @Fundof1 I'm still learning about SMB acquisitions and will continue to do so until I kick it.

If you ever want to talk about operating a biz after closing or family companies, hit me up. DMs are open!

#SMB #entrepreneur #ETA #operations

@SamtLeslie @Damon_SMB @Fundof1 I hope you enjoyed this thread. If you did, give it a like and retweet the first post so others can see it. 👇👇

Follow me for more on biz ops and family cos. watch as I build to a larger holdco! Also I fly airplanes ✈️

https://twitter.com/jacubwilliamson/status/1599478690261438465