Almost 3 years ago to the day, while laying in bed, I opened the twitter app and tweeted out that I wanted to buy a landscaping business. I ended up doing it.

2 years ago to the date, we formed our holding company around buying landscaping companies and subsequently acquired 6 landscaping companies in two states.

Today? I’d like to share that we have sold our landscaping portfolio.

The buyer…..?

@thomasince

Now, let me tell you the story.

3 years ago to the day, I was DMing with @sweatystartup about a landscaping company near my office, he told me to post it and I’d raise money to buy it. I did…and I did. I couldn’t believe the responses and interest I was getting.

I didn’t know what I was doing. Not a single part of it. I didn’t know how to raise money, I didn’t know what terms meant, I didn’t know if it was a good deal / bad deal, etc. Google became my advisor. I chatted with @tsludwig and he suggested a few ways that I should structure it….so I did.

After ~100 conversations with people, I realized it isn’t about how many investors you have…it’s about WHO you have.

@justindross took a chance on me, when he probably shouldn’t have, and was an amazing...amazing....guy to have in the boat. Sorry for the stressful first few months...but, hey…it worked out. 🙃

We doubled EBITDA in ~5 months (I’ll tell this story later) and I was ready to buy the next one

I found one, a big one, a 100% residential landscaping company that had 1,200…yes, 1,200 homes in 1 upscale neighborhood.

I needed additional capital, I don't believe in debt for acquisitions.

@SamtLeslie was just starting to put a newsletter of deals together with people that wanted to invest in businesses. I let him tease the deal, and the response again was overwhelming.

I developed a thesis around landscaping / outdoors and started pitching a much bigger plan / thesis.

Random guy with a weird twitter profile picture responded to the email and we started chatting.

We shared the same vision on EVERYTHING. While there was a chance to load up the cap table with a ton of great people; I decided less is more.

@PeterTufo and his group enters the arena

We form a holding company and buy the landscaping business, while rolling my original one into it.

We were the largest residential landscaper in Central Florida. We quickly realized that was not the way (oops, sorry). We pivoted to 100% commercial. (i’ll tell this story at a later date)

In a span of 30 days, we acquired 2 landscaping companies...this time, all commercial. We started disposing, selling off, and dropping the residential customers. We let go of millions of dollars of recurring residential customers. Some local guy is a happy camper those days! lol. After a while, we were 100% commercial and off on our way.

In December of 2022, we made our largest acquisition to date (each one was larger than the previous). And we found an absolute rockstar CEO to take over the business so I can move to more focus on the M&A and holding company.

In June of 2023, after being introduced by @whentheresawill and chatting with him on twitter (!) and 2 years of convincing him….we made our first acquisition out of state and acquired @adrian_pinto2 company in GA, forming our GA platform with Adrian leading the charge as CEO.

We became a Top 100 commercial landscaping company. (*remove pest companies from the list).

Today, United Land Services; a top 5 commercial landscaping company in the US and platform of LP First Capital…has acquired both of our platform landscaping companies.

Our entire team is excited and stoked for the future. ULS is a rocket ship; we couldn't be more excited to be a part of ULS journey in the future.

Want to know why @thomasince is one of the best at what he does?

He sent me a DM on October 7th, 2021. Hung around the hoop, shared tips/tricks/resources, encouraged, was honest and upfront. We met him in-person at @SMB_ash in Orlando in 2022; Peter and I both walked away saying..."that's a great dude, he gets it, we could work something with him one day."

Patience. Honesty, and the ability to develop a genuine relationship with people with zero outcome based intent.

724 days later - it’s his

There are so many people along this journey that assisted. Big ways to small ways.

Want to thank two people….

1. My wife…she’s a SAINT! (I have a few posts lined up about this journey and spouses)

2. @PeterTufo ... this journey is FUN, REWARDING…and FUUUUCKING BRUTAL, I don’t give a shit what twitter says…this is HARD…and BRUTAL…and I would never ever ever ever ever do it alone. Having a guy next to you that can tell you that you are awesome, but also in the next sentence tell you to stfu you being a dummy, to just listen to me rant and scream…to telling me to calm down, it’s just 1 win. I’ve chatted more with Peter in the last 2 years than anyone in my life…probably including my wife. We've had 3am calls, we've had 5 minute calls at 8pm that turn into 2 hours and all inbetween. He took a chance on a dude with a small landscaping company and a big idea. Forever thankful for being on this ride. He entered as an investor, and we leave as very close friends.

Want to know how crazy twitter is?

My entire cap table was via twitter, an acquisition was via twitter, we have provided services to a few people on twitter, and our acquirer is via twitter.

@elonmusk ....keep this thing rolling...it changed my life. Thanks homie! Backdrop on our acquisitions

x.com/MikeBotkin_/st…

I received a lot of texts/calls re: this acquisition. Mainly how we did it especially bc Day 0 to close it was ~120 days.
I told somebody “shit….my wife was crucial”

He responded “oh, she’s on the deal team?”

No….let me explain the last 120 days professionally / personally.

https://twitter.com/MikeBotkin_/status/1601367691490918400

First….deal team? What is this….Berkshire?

We are 18 months into this journey and have done (now) 5 acquisitions. We are constantly learning and each deal we do we look back at previous and say “man we should’ve done xyz differently.”

Deal team = me & @PeterTufo

Update ‼️

We closed our 5th Acquisition today.

Commercial Landscaping company. 🚜

This has been our largest acquisition we’ve done to date.

Located in Orlando. Off-market deal. This was from earlier this year. Still holds true with how we think about deals.

Although, this one took ~120 days from first contact to close

https://twitter.com/mikebotkin_/status/1533205196171624453

I’m constantly asked about labor in the landscaping industry and how we deal with it.

1. Are you keeping the good employees you currently have?

2. Are you training the not so good employees you currently have?

3. Do you have a place people actually want to work at? In an ultra competitive industry, you have to put more emphasis on retaining than you do recruiting. Or else you will have a revolving door.

Are you taking care of (+) talent? Comp, benefits, verbal affirmation, rewards for exceeding expectations, clean trucks, good uniforms

We’ve closed 3 deals in the last 8 months.

All off-market.

We have a few more under LOI that all came about off-market. (we have 100% close-rate if a deal goes to LOI).

I’ve been asked a lot about how we finance and structure deals.

1/ 2/

Let me start with we are not experts, we are learning as we go and constantly evolving.

I truly believe anybody can buy a business. It’s the “easy” part of acquisitions. The hard part is what happens Day 1 and beyond.

1/ We have officially closed on our newest acquisition.

Before I get into that, let’s walk it back a bit

Just over a year ago I put together a thesis about the landscaping industry and how there was massive opportunity in the category. Especially in Florida 2/ The top 100 US companies combined for ~ $15b in rev in 2020. The top 3 earned $1b+ each. 8 of the top 25 companies are HQ or have massive ops in Florida.

But, that’s not where I saw the opportunity. I saw the fragmentation of the industry and knew that’s the play.

We did this.

We built 200 SF homes & 25 townhomes.

On 1 site. Gated the development

Had onsite water park, clubhouse, bar&grill, and onsite hospitality (sales, management, maintenance, cleaners, etc)

Here’s some pics throughout Development

Cont...

https://twitter.com/roblabonne/status/1418491375360819201

Each home was specifically built for STR.

Every room was a master suite

Every house had a pool

Our niche was

“AirBnB privacy [own home], but resort amenities & staff”

We were a horizontal hotel

We were live on all channels
Website, AirBnB, Expedia, hotels, etc

Want to "fix" homebuilding?

Pretty interesting glimpse at building permit data for 2020

1. The South (is MD really "the south"?) dominates building permits

2. Per Capita comparison, Utah issued more permits than TX

3. Zoom in, the issue with housing is this...(next) 3 cont...

While TX built more homes than the entire NE/MW combined, 75% of the permits were in Austin/Dallas/Houston.

Pennsylvania has 2x the population of TN, yet TN built 2x as many homes

4. Florida has 9 of the top 100 markets (TX has 6)

Young guy I know who has done some small SFH RE deals called me today for advice on raising bigger $. Said he spoke to others in industry & all were vague

Not sure why everything so secretive?

Shared this w/ him. We did this structure at prev firm.

Raised ~ $250m 1. It varied deal by deal to a degree

2. We were extremely exp end terms went more our favor the better we got

3. We were land buyers + ground up developers
(100-400 unit SFH developments, 20-800unit MF, hotels, sports, etc)

4. We also operated all projects after finish

1/
I made a giant mistake when purchasing my current company....

~ Unit economics ~

Not sure it's even possible as a buyer with the information provided to go through ~300 clients and understand each profit/loss as an individual unit in a recurring rev biz with varied pricing 2/
The only way to know...is to visit each individual property while also knowing price + scope, and determine if what the existing owner charges is +/-, which, isn't plausible imo. So...come back to this later

Lets understand how *most* companies do pricing in lawn maintenance

Landscaping (not maintenance) is changing our business outcomes dramatically.

This is a normal $8k job, and the client took a “rush order” pricing (extra $3,500) so the job can be done quicker

We will take over maintenance when project is complete

Few thoughts... Companies that do primarily bulk of their biz is lawn maintenance HATE doing landscaping, especially when it’s not their client. They don’t specialize in it and it completely throws the rhythm of their crews off

I love it for a few reasons...

Some sales numbers...

Jan ‘21 (our first full month)

+12% YOY

Feb ‘21

+17% MOM / +26% YOY

Jan/Feb are historically slow months (grass doesn’t grow, people just getting over Xmas,etc)

Really positive to see this.

March (traditionally busy) - hopefully will be even bigger Few reasons that caused our growth so much in month 1 & 2

1. We answered everything(not normal in industry)

2. Speed w/ quotes. Right over phone or w/in 24hrs if landscaping or such

3. Made PIPs (prop improvement plans) for current clients. Don’t wait for them to come to us

1/ We are doing something 99.9% of landscaping companies don’t do that are +/- similar rev or less

*Offer health/dental insurance

Why don’t others do it?
- It’s expensive as shit
- Employee turnover
- “No one else does it, so why should we” comparing to market

Why we are... 2/ My message to supervisors, your responsible to take care of the job sites. My responsibility is to take care of you!

Issue 1. It’s expensive

It sure is. I look at it 2 ways
1. Differentiating ourselves from competition
2. It pales in comparison to cost of employee churn

1/
Invoicing/billing (cash flow) is vital to SMB success

Let me explain...

Prior to purchase

~90% of invoices were sent last day of month, for service of that month

Clients pay by check, which means payments aren’t received/deposited until 10th - 20th of following mo 2/
As a service business (landscaping), that means we are fronting service 40-50 days, yet all of our expenses are paid for (labor, fuel, supplies, etc)

We have done a few things to combat this

1. Make all invoices electronically (QBO)

Get asked this a lot

We buy raw land, master plan it, entitle/zone it, put in the infrastructure (underground), make it "PAD READY" for a builder.

We then sell the lots to a Nat'l builder who will build/sell the homes

We then put in the above ground infrastructure

https://twitter.com/MilesAbound/status/1309514512261951488

Which is roads/lights/entrances, etc

From the date of purchase of the raw land to the time a builder is on site ready to build a home it can be anywhere from 1 to 3 years depending on a lot of factors

We don't get paid until builder takes us out (buys lots in phases)

Been looking at buying a lawn service company. Zeroed in on one near me in Central Florida

40yrs in operation. Owner is in 60s. Has nobody to pass it down to.

Does $800k in gross sales per yr. (just wait) Pros
(1) Current customers are...

60% commercial
40% residential

Commercial customers are the far and away hardest clients to get/keep (great margin, but super high standards, and get bids constantly)

(2) Route is very dense (essentially 1 main highway is the entire route)

1/ Pennsylvania (and every state in the NE) considering this...

@DeAngelisCorey suggests states give the $ to the families instead of school districts

abc27.com/news/top-stori… 2/
In Florida, that would be *about* $9k per student (FTE in ‘19)

Say 35% has to with school districts (physical plant of school still needs maintenance, Principals employed, etc)

So each parent gets $5,850 per student they have

Many K12 public schools in Florida are dealing with inefficiency and complications with pivoting their traditional model (in-person to online)

I’ve always thought one of the biggest things schools/districts should do is hire a biz exec to an admin for every school First, schools receive $10m - $30m per year in funding. They are medium to large corporations.

Yet nothing is ever spent on innovation, or reserves.

Few thoughts moving into 2020

1/ 🚗 Auto industry is on ‘watch’ for being disrupted. Kids are not getting DLs in metro areas and ride share is gaining. Huge subprime lending industry. Very vulnerable. 🚙 2/ 📚 40%+ colleges & universities will no longer exist by 2030. Price too high, cost of maintaining the physical assets too high, degrees aren’t required and better edu online options 📖

v pt.1 v pt.2

1/ From 2000 to 2016, the avg annual cost of college tuition has doubled ($15k to $32k).

Over last 20yrs, only two other goods service or product has risen as much as college tuition.

Hospital services & college textbooks 2/ Most colleges continue to raise tuition each year (1-2%). Without raising the quality of product. What industry is that acceptable?

Think about it. Are kids learning at a better rate or learning better material today than in 2000? Or in 1990?