Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - This RV Training Business Prints $3M a Year

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

In this episode, the hosts analyze a $9.5M revenue RV technician school with $2.8M profit, high regulatory barriers, and a tricky $6M real estate kicker.Business Listing – https://quietlight.com/listings/12510300/Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.💰 Sponsored by:Acquisition Lab – Your fast-track to business ownership. Get hands-on support, world-class resources, and join a top-tier community of acquisition entrepreneurs. Schedule your free consultation at https://www.acquisitionlab.com and mention Acquisitions Anonymous!Capital Pad – A platform connecting accredited investors with vetted small business acquisition deals. Discover exclusive opportunities at https://capitalpad.comThe hosts review a dominant RV technician training and certification school generating $9.5M in revenue and $2.85M in net income. With VA program approval, regulatory licensing, and custom facilities, the business holds a strong moat in a booming industry driven by record RV sales and a shortage of skilled technicians. The listing price is $15.6M—excluding the $6M real estate that’s “part and parcel” to operations.Key Highlights:- $9.5M revenue, $2.85M profit (~30% margins)- Asking price $15.6M, but real estate adds another $6M- Largest RV tech school in North America, founded 2017- VA program approval provides strong pipeline but introduces payer risk- Growth levers: satellite campuses, Fort Hood program, online platformSubscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous, Internet's number one podcast about buying, selling, and investing in small businesses. Today's deal that we broke down was a training school located here in Texas, and Bill and I had a great time digging in, and Bill was delightful, as always. And I was a me. So, all right, here's the episode. I hope you enjoyed. We'll say, Acquisition Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% beers anymore. And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory line.

Are you ready to take a leap into business ownership but you don't know where to start? Well, look no further than Acquisition Lab, the premier resource for entrepreneurs seeking to buy their dream business. Founded by Harvard MBA and acquisition expert Walker and Diebel, the lab is your fast-tracked success in the search diligence and acquisition process. With hands-on support, world-class resources, and a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, Acquisition Lab gives you the tools and confidence to navigate every step of the journey. And we're proud to call Walker and Chelsea, the lab's director, longtime friends of the business. the podcast. They're passionate about helping entrepreneurs like you take the next big step. So don't wait to make your business ownership dream or reality. Visit AcquisitionLab.com

today to learn more and schedule your free consultation. And when you do, be sure to tell them the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast sent you. All right. Morning, Michael. Good morning to you. I'm glad we're recording on a Friday because it seems to be your happiest day of the week. I was watching our episode that went out today. You're like, happy Friday, everybody. Yeah, Fridays are great. Even when you're self-employed Fridays are great. Yes. When I figure that out, I'll let you know. So how many more episodes you're going to record from this house before you move to you? I don't know. We've probably got another month here.

Okay. Got another month here. And then we'll be in the new, I think I have a dedicated content studio in the new house. There's like a basement room that has no windows and stuff. I think it's like technically like part of the foundation, but they kind of, they said you could turn this into a safe room if you want. I'm going to turn it into a, podcast studio. Because it has no windows, like thick walls, so it's going to be great acoustically. You can totally control the light. So we should have a good podcast studio in the basement in the new house. Because, I mean, this is a substantial house. So you're going to be figuring out what to do with some of these rooms. So are you going to, are you going to have something cool, like a monopoly

room or something like that? No, I just, I would have a room where I lock the kids in and I don't hear them. That's what I want. I'm in the room where we optimize to make sure that we have a good guest bedroom for the three nights a year that somebody stays at our house. So I'm just happy I get to work out here. Earlier in the year, you had like the dedicated podcast room with like the teleprompter situation and all the lights with like the desk right in the middle of the room. And I haven't seen you in there a while. Yeah, that's at my office. So I'm in home today. I just have to go to the office much. So my wife asked me, why don't you go to your office much? I was like, I don't know, the house is pretty great. There's a kitchen here and there's food. I think I find it's like a like a

I get into cycles where I'm going in the office like four days a week. And I love it. But then if I let it slip, like over the summer, you travel and stuff and then you're not in the office routine, it's so easy to go, oh, I'll just stay home today, I'll just stay home today. And I got to get back in the office routine. I'm happier when I'm in the office routine. Right.

One of the 30 minutes of like getting set up with a new place, get your lunch packed and all that kind of stuff. It counts, right? It adds up every day. Yeah. Speaking of travel, I heard you have a deal. I have a cool deal today. So this is from our friends at Kwile Brokridge.

And when they sent this to me, I said, we got to do this on the pod. So I saved, I saved this for you, Michael. This is a RV technician training and certification school. It says it is industry dominant, campus based, and has major barriers to entry. It has $9.5 million of revenue and $2.85 million of net income. and they're asking 15.6 million, so it's a 5.5x multiple. Okay. So strong multiple, but also strong business.

It says, this RV Training Academy represents a rare opportunity to acquire the dominant market leader in a recession-proof high-demand niche with explosive growth potential, substantial regulatory barriers to entry, and multiple expansion pathways already underway. Established 2017, so eight years ago, this company operates, is the largest RV technical training provider in North America, serving an industry experiencing acute technician and inspector shortages driven by record RV sales over the past decade. The business benefits from significant barriers to entry,

including state workforce commission licensing with mandatory annual audits, VA program approval for veteran benefits, operational real estate, and specialized infrastructure and equipment requirements that competitors cannot easily replicate. No other training facility, provides premium classroom and hands-on training leading to industry certification. The vertically integrated ecosystem generates $9.6 million in revenue across multiple streams.

There's the core training programs, which are 74% of revenue, their campus training programs, which is 12% of revenue, the online courses, which is 10% of revenue, and then professional associations, which is 4% of revenue. With their COO and seasoned department directors managing daily operations, business delivers 2.8 million in SDE while requiring minimal owner involvement from the 71-year-old founders. Multiple growth catalysts position the business for expansion. Satellite schools planned for Florida and Arizona, a Fort Hood military program leveraging VA approval, a rapidly scaling online platform, a new custom app, which they call Uber for RV technicians, an integration avering over 100 daily

service requests, expanding manufacturer partnerships, and 70 acres available for rally and service center development beyond the current 50 million revenue target. The purchase price does not include the income generating $6 million prime real estate available to be purchased, which is part and parcel to the operation. All right. So does not include the $6 million real estate, which is part and parcel to the operation, can't run it without the real estate. But it's not including. The founders are ready to retire and transition this turnkey operation to new ownership who can build on the foundation. This is by Chris Wozniak over at Quiet Light. That's a good photo of Chris, by the way.

Yeah, very suave, very dapper. Yeah, good for Chris. So what? So this is a, this is a career school. Basically is what this is. Yeah. For RV technicians and inspectors. Got it.

So it's here in Texas, right? I don't think it says that. I did not see any indication. It says they are looking at expanding to Florida and Arizona, so I would assume it's not in those places. The reason I ask is they use the name for the Workforce Commission.

That is the name of the Texas entity. Capital Workforce Commission. That is the state entity in Texas that supervises these types of schools. Okay. Interesting. So maybe it is in Texas. takes a Texan to recognize that. Well, I was in the career school business for a while.

So I learned some stuff about it. It's hard. That's why I want your take on this one. Man, so I guess my first question is, what do we think about this real estate situation? I mean, this is obviously BS, right? Like, you can't, like, sell how the whole unique, the whole, all this listing says that it has this unique real estate,

part of the revenue is coming from on-campus programs. The car, the barrier to entry is the real estate and like the training park where I assume they teach you to like drive RVs and like moving them around and do all that stuff. And then say at the very end, purchase prices not include $6 million of prime real estate available to be purchased, which they then straight up admit, which hands off to Chris Wozniak for being straight up about this, which is part and parcel to the operation. Right. Meaning you absolutely need it. So like I get the sense this is semi-custom. real estate. Like, you wouldn't want to buy this and then move. So at the very least, you've got a negative EBITDA ad back for market rent on this place and a new lease.

Or they've got to somehow sell you the real estate also. But, like, either way, it's not fair to look at the financials of this business without either assuming you are leasing the real estate or you are owning the real estate and the cost of capital to do that because there is no business without the real estate, which they admit. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think this will come up when we determine if the price is fair. But, okay, so just we're on the same page, the customer for this business are people that aspire to be professional RV technicians. They come and apply to the school. The school delivers them training, certifies them, and then graduates them to go be RV techs. That's the name of the game. That's right. I think it's get into the RV tech career school. interesting. Do they tell us how many students they have? Because they're doing 9.6 million of revenue at 20,000 per, or let's say 30,000 per. That means they're at about 300,000, 300 students a year. That'd be 500 students a year if it's 20 grand per, roughly. Yeah. Do you think it's 20 grand per?

That's expensive. Have you seen how much it costs to become a licensed beautician? No. I don't want to know. Oh, it's part of the student debt problem, right? Is the, like, you want to go get a trade degree, like, to go to beauty school? People rack up like $30,000 in debt to go to beauty school for 18 months. Oh, my goodness. That is unbelievable. Yeah.

And I mean, I would think the earning power of an RV tech is probably significantly better than a beautician. I believe so, but these are not, you know, these are still. $50 an hour jobs, hopefully. Yeah. That's $100,000 a year, right? Still very good. Still pretty good. Still pretty good.

I would think the world needs more RV techs and people earn in $50 to $80 an hour fixing stuff. So that's awesome. But, okay, but yeah, let's call 500 students a year. Yeah, so speaking of which young, young, Gerdley, who's 19 years old, wanted to buy a truck because he's getting very handy with his hands and has about a 138,000-mile used fleet vehicle.

And yesterday I went out to the garage and he was changing the spark plugs and the coils in this Ford F-150. Awesome. Awesome. Well, he probably needs it, 138,000 miles of fleet use. He's going to learn a mechanic. Well, we gave a budget and said, you know, hey, you could spend $15,000.

So the first thing he came back with was like a bunch of 2006 Ford Rangers because he really wanted a manual transmission truck. We finally got him over that. but based on his budget this is what he could afford and it's been adorable watching the whole process

he ran the whole purchase process at 19 years old got the truck inspected all this kind of stuff made a deal on it but it was clearly used in the oil field somewhere because they had this whole like electrical electrician like cabin on the back because he could store all these parts and he didn't realize when he bought it

it had an aftermarket alarm so the first day it spent the entire afternoon and the alarm in our street going off. It was great. Nice. Well, if he ever wants to get into bigger iron and work on RVs, you can go to this. This is the chance.

Yeah. The other reason I thought it was in Texas is they talk about Fort Hood, which is up there between Dallas and Austin. Okay. So the challenge was all this stuff is how does financing work for the students, right? and one thing to notice with this is

they have a VA program approval for veterans benefits so there's this whole industry of folks who have built schools around VA programs and so there's GI Bill which pays to go to college and accredited things and then there's a bunch of other programs as well

and so I'm curious how people are getting financial and able to afford going to the school. So let's say if it's $20,000 for a six-month RV tech program, like how are they paying for it? Well, it does say specifically they have VA program approval. That's part of it. I mean, it sounds like, especially if they want to expand up by Fort Hood,

it seems like they probably already have a pretty robust pipeline of people coming out of the military wanting to get RV certified and using their VA benefits. I would wonder how much of revenue that pipeline is that is, VA paid. Is that good revenue, Michael, or is that bad revenue? It's a risky revenue. It's basically what Heather talks about with supplier risk or I forget how she describes it directly, but it's like

there's times when it looks like you actually have a diverse customer base, but there's really only one payer. It's kind of like if you're, I guess, a good example is if you're like a medical device, like local medical device supplier, it's like, oh, like I have all of these doctors is referral subjects. Well, actually, no, there's only three insurance companies that are sending you business, and they're all trying to screw you over. And they all base their prices based on Medicare.

So you have a very limited customer base and a strong amount of customer concentration. So the VA stuff is something that actually be very worried about because it creates a single point of failure for the whole thing. If the VA screws up and changes your contract, not that this happened to me, but it can kill your business, right? Like, it could totally do that. If one bureaucrat decides to do something stupid, it can kill the whole thing.

And so that's why if it's 80% VA, I would be kind of, I would be very scared, very scared. Is it, how does this VA program work? I mean, I'm imagining that there's VA benefits for continuing education and that you just kind of choose your continuing education and you submit for reimbursement. I wouldn't imagine that the VA has a contract specifically with this RV school, right? So what the VA will do is the VA will have a generic plan like GI Bill where you get for accredited schools. And there are career schools that are you familiar with how accreditation works in the United States? I can imagine that prescription you've got to live up to it and then you get accredited.

So basically the way it all works is, and this is part of the why education costs are out of control. So you have the Department of Education. Department of Education basically acts nationally to certify. different accrediting bodies. And they are the ones that go through and inspect the colleges and career schools to say you're now accredited. So Harvard gets accredited,

University of Texas gets accredited, Bill DeLessandro's Beauty School, and this RV school, they all get accredited. Now there's five or six different accrediting bodies that do this accreditation, but they all kind of get this level of accreditation. And what that does is it opens up

you to different types of funding. And so there are, say, just straight up student loans, which go to accredited universities, or you can also get into typically what's used most by the VA is what's called GI Bill. And GI Bill is this, you're a veteran, we give you the benefit and we pay for your education at accredited universities and schools. So, functionally, any accredited university, trade school, whatever, is now eligible for GI Bill. Correct. So the Accredited is so expanded now that you can.

can end up, like, you give it to your kids and stuff. So there's people that go to cars. One of the dangers, however, is the VA will go and start to create specialty programs about specialty things, like specialty areas of stuff. So they do it around coding. Another one, you know, computer programming for a while, another one where they did it was around helicopter pilots. So there was this, at one point, there was this whole VA thing where the helicopter pilots

were getting like basically like, every helicopter pilots. helicopter school was booming like crazy because there was this like, all you can eat buffet of helicopter benefits. So like every vet was like, you know what I'm going to do? Helicopter money, right? But that's bad though, right? Because I imagine that would introduce another accreditation to specifically qualify for that program or is that good because now there's earmarked funds?

It's good and bad. It depends on how they structure it. And this is where kind of the VA, which, you know, can set whatever terms they want. If they're 80% of your business, like you've got to, to take it. So the VA, for example, could set it up to where, like, you only get paid if people graduate this RV tech program and they get a job. And if you do that, then maybe you have to take all the risks this person doesn't get employed. They did this, they did this exactly with all the coding schools. And suddenly all the coding schools, if, you know, if you look, almost all the coding

schools have gone out of business over the past couple years. And the reason is, is they created this program that basically did what I was saying called VetTech, which is basically like, congratulations, like, you're taking all the risk that these people get jobs and we're not going to pay you until they do. So suddenly you had no, unlike a normal school, which pays tuition ahead of time, the coding schools didn't get paid until a year after they gave some of the education. So they couldn't actually start new programs without losing money, and nobody would sign up for the programs unless they could use their vet tech free money. So it's just just like convoluted thing. So that's why I'm saying, like, the VA is a huge point of risk for this.

a RV technician special program, right? You just want them to stay out of it. You want generic GI. Absolutely not. Correct. Okay. But it's a risk. So the risk here is that they pay attention to you, and then they try to support

your industry. The risk is that the government tries to help, essential. Brattle Reagan. I've heard from the government, and I've heard to help. Okay. Interesting. So that is certainly an area of diligence then. Correct.

And also even like what is the level of, of interest in RV technician training in Washington, and you hope the answer is zero. Hopefully it's zero. Hey, everyone, it's Bill, and I want to tell you about maybe the most exciting sponsor we've had in a long time on the pod. It's called CapitalPad, and it is the thing that I wish existed when I started my journey of operating and investing in small businesses. So CapitalPad is a marketplace for acquisition entrepreneurs that is people who want to buy a

business and need capital to live. list their deals and solicit capital from other people who want to invest in acquisition deals. So if you want to back somebody buying a small business, CapitalPad is a place to do it. And if you want to buy a business and need capital, you can go on CapitalPad to be introduced to investors. So the really great thing, too, from the investor side is that CapitalPad takes care of all of the details that can get hairy with small business acquisitions. They handle standardized terms, standardized governance, standardized distributions all up front in black and white. Basically, CapitalPad professionalizes investing in small businesses.

And the returns can be really, really good. I'm so stoked that they exist. It's founded by my friend Travis, who is a phenomenal entrepreneur in his own right. So if this sounds like something that's appealing to you, if you want to buy a small business and need capital, or if you want to invest in small businesses, go check out Capitalpad. and tell them that acquisitions anonymous sent you. So there's actually a lot of the acquirers for people who buy up these types of schools. They actually don't want accredited things and they don't want VA bill, VA-centric stuff.

Because that increases the risk that they can try to help, basically. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's an interesting point of diligence here. Putting that aside, though, which, I mean, like you diligence that, but maybe it's VA's 20% of it, and it's mostly private pay and it sounds good. Yeah. Is this a really good business? I mean, because it seems to me, you know, you know more about this space, Michael.

It seems like the margins are fantastic, right? I mean, they've got 30% net margins. They're making $3 million a year. They have no inventory. It's training. It's got a moat. It feels like there's a reputational moat also. You know, the more students should put through this, you know, it's the marquee one in Texas or in their areas.

It seems like they're trying to expand to Florida and Arizona so you can actually grow this business. It seems like they're in with the VA. They're moving up to Fort Hood. Is this amazing or what? Am I missing something? This all comes down to the name of the game is filling classes. If you know how to fill classes, you're golden, right?

So, you know, the economics with schools are like airplanes, right? If the airplane is 80% full, it loses money. If the airplane's 90% full, it makes some money when it takes off. If it's 100% full and everybody paid full price, you're making a ton of money. So your marginal benefit of filling classes is enormous. And so the big question is with high fixed costs, can you fill classes? So besides the payee concentration, I would want to know, how are you filling classes? How are you getting people in the door such that every time you start a class and start a program,

it's 100% full or something there that is profitable. That's the whole secret to this game. Okay. And you know what I bet they're going to say? And I bet this is going to come back to just the double-edged stored. They're going to say, we have an incredible pipeline from the military, and it's all GI Bill. And you're going to go, well, great, you can feel it's great, great, great, you're 100% full until you're 0% full if they change the funding. Yeah.

And to your point, this doesn't mean it's not a great business. It just means that it's not, you know, it's tough to pay. well, now we're back to the property thing, pay $15 million plus $6 million for the land. You're at $21 million now that you have to have invested in this business or be paying more in rent, one of the two,

which we're not sure they're paying rent on the $6 million property value at this point. So if you pay $21 million for this, you're at $7.5 times. Yeah. Now, you do own some hard assets and there's real estate there, but you need that real estate to run the business.

So you've either got to look at it that way that you're paying seven and a half times, or maybe instead of $2.8 million of ebada, it's 2.1 because you need to lease the space. You need to lease the real estate in perpetuity. And look, I think that could be part of the calculus here. If a structure where, okay, I'm going to rent the land, you know, I'm going to pay $50,000 a month for the land.

That may be high. That's $600 grand a year, but it gives them a 10 cap on the thing. And then you're able to come up with some sort of structure where they understand the risk of this whole GI Bill, and accreditation stuff and they take some of the risk, assuming there's that payee concentration, like it's a good business to be in. It's just a tough one to bet your life on and do a, you know, a big person guaranteed note that the thing's going to keep going forever based on how

fragile this payee risk is. And I mean, you talked about like the dynamics of a fixed cost industry. So you have the fixed cost of the real estate and, you know, instructors and everything. And on top of it, you're laying on the fixed cost of debt, of debt service, right, if you're going to use leverage to help you buy this business. So now you are really, I mean, this is what leverage does. It goes really great. It goes really great or goes really bad, really fast. You are now hypersensitive to your ability to fill the classes.

And if they had like a break even at 85% full before, your break even is probably now 93% full or whatever because you've layered on the debt on top of this business. So I would really try to understand that metric right there, where is my break even occupancy, and where does it go when I have the fixed cost of debt on this thing? Could be a great business. But I do think, to your point, Michael,

you've got to structure some sort of risk sharing specifically around the GI funding, the VA funding. And you got to go, look, it doesn't have to be like an earnout if the business grows 4X. For a while, the Amazon aggregators were using this new branding on an earnout, which they called a stability payment. So all the deal in like 2020, 2020, 2021, 2021, all of the Amazon Aggregor deals had a stability payment, which is just an earn out.

But it's an earn out basically fixed at the business doesn't decline. Yeah. So you may need some sort of structure like this where the business doesn't decline or doesn't decline more than 5%. Or, you know, there is and is or is triggered entirely forgivable on the whole seller note if there is a change in the VA funding legislate. You'd have to structure something like that where they share the risk with you. This definitely smells like something that a searcher would run and do a combination of earn out, seller note, and a bit of bank debt, and a small amount of equity. And I think a deal could be put together here.

I mean, obviously, in their shoes, I would love to also be seller finance the real estate. I'd rather my $600,000 a year be going to real estate payments rather than rent. but that that would be kind of a minor issue to negotiate. Because I'd love to own the real estate the next time this business trades 10 years from now or 20 years from now. That's a good point. But yeah, let's say you could get banked out on this, you know, assuming it's been pretty steady. You could borrow one and a half to two times income. So let's say that's $5 million there.

You get the seller to do an earn out of, say, $3 million and then carry a note for the rest of it. I'm seeing deals done like that. pitched one the other day, guys buying a business for $10 million with, basically he's borrowing three turns of EBDA, the rest is seller note, and he's putting in 500 grand. Wow.

Yeah, I was like, okay, are you, what of this are you personally guaranteeing? And he's like, all of it. I'm like, okay. Okay, well, at least you're, at least you're not trying to be kind of pregnant. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

The, I mean, I think I like this. The other thing you got to underwrite here is, you know, they've talked about there's a lot of expansion, which I really like, because a lot of times you see a quasi-local business like this, and you go, how much bigger can it get before I go, you know, without going to new markets? And they have pre-identified satellite schools in Florida and Arizona and a program with Fort Hood, which are probably great ideas. But you as the buyer, especially putting a bunch of debt on the business already,

you've got to understand that there is going to be CAPEX to build those schools, right? Like, we've already talked about that the real estate in the current location is quasi unique. And even if you could lease it, there's some capax to kind of get it to customize it to the point. So I would be really cognizant of how much of my growth plan depended on opening those locations. And that I also modeled, you know, similar cap X that is needed to justify that revenue growth to stand up those two locations. Because you're probably, the business is not going to probably have a ton of excess leverage capacity, at least for several years, if you're going to use a loan to buy it. Yeah. Well, and historically for career schools, people don't move. It's not like college.

People don't relocate to go to career schools. They want to do the career school where the jobs are. So, you know, something like this, it worries me. Like, you're not, it's not like you can say, hey, like, you're going to come move from Florida to Texas to do this particular job. You know, they just, it's difficult to get them to do that. Again, most of these people are doing a career school because they want to earn more money. They don't have any money. That's the problem. Yep. All right. So thumbs up, thumbs down. I'm thumbs up. I feel like this is one of the ones where I could ask from very intelligent questions. It's up there with pizza boat and worm farm in terms of me being able to ask intelligent questions about this. This is a business that it would be good to own if there's

good answers to those questions I put forward. And it's in your backyard. This is you. Heather's got to buy the equestrian school and you've got to buy the RV school. I'd rather own the equestrian school. I don't go to Fort Hood. Nobody wants to go to Fort Hood. We fly over that to Dallas. We don't drive through there. All right. I am also a thumbs up. I think this seems pretty cool,

especially for the right buyer who's willing to be local in Texas. All right. If you like this episode, there are 400 more of them on our website at ACQUanon.com. Go listen to them, get our email list.

We will email you them. They're also all tagged by industry. So if you like schools, like the episode we just did, there are several others on vocational schools on the website. So go check out the website,

subscribe to our newsletter, and we will see you on the next episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.