Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Troubled Youth or Troubled Business? The Hidden Challenges of Running a Treatment Center

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

In this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous, hosts Bill D’Alessandro and Michael Girdley dive into a unique opportunity: a youth residential treatment facility with a $750,000 cash flow, up for sale at $5.5 million. The conversation explores key challenges, including recruitment difficulties and staff-to-youth ratios that impact the facility’s ability to operate at full capacity. They discuss whether the rural Utah location enhances the value due to outdoor programs or limits it due to labor shortages.Key Points Discussed:- Staffing Challenges: How recruitment issues affect profitability and capacity in residential treatment centers.- Real Estate Considerations: Whether the $2.7 million in real estate valuation is justified and how owning the property factors into the deal.- Mission-Driven Work: The pros and cons of running a business that changes lives but can be emotionally taxing.- Baumol’s Cost Disease: A deeper dive into how rising wages in one sector affect staffing costs in others.✉️ Subscribe to our Newsletter and get more deals like this every week**: https://www.acquanon.com/newsletter🎧 Listen to our full episodes on your favorite podcast platforms**: https://www.acquanon.com/episodesThanks to this week’s sponsor:Acquisition Lab and their team have been longtime supporters of the pod. Acquisition Lab exists to help people buy a business and navigate all the complexities of the process, as well as provide a trusted framework, tools, and resources to support you from search to close.If you are serious about buying a business, check out acquisitionlab.com or email the Lab's director Chelsea Wood at [e-mail] and mention us ;)Subscribe 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]

This concept of business, Michael, where it's youth support or it's drug counseling or its behavior counseling, is this a good business? I'm interested in your two cents on it, but here are the things I like about just being a business nerd about this. I think... Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% here. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. This is the internet's number one podcast on buying, selling, and operating small businesses. And today you have two of the OGs, myself and Michael Girdley.

And we are talking about a youth counseling and rehabilitation business in southern Utah on what we think is thousands of acres of land. It makes $750,000 a year. It's probably a beautiful lifestyle in Utah. We have a couple digressions about just sort of the therapy industry, but also staffing for therapy and all kinds of other businesses. We've gone a bit of a tangent about great business ideas that Michael. has for staffing businesses and how that works. So if you're interested in that, tune in and listen.

And with no further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. This episode of Acquisitions Anonymous is sponsored by Acquisition Lab and their team. They've been longtime supporters of the pod and they provide a really great service for people who are looking to acquire a business. So it's created by Walker Dival, who's become a friend, the author of Buy, Then Build, How to outsmart the startup game. So Acquisition Lab is an accelerator with a highly vetted cohort-based educational and support community for people who are serious about buying a business. So a lot of our listeners like you, you tune in every week to our deal reviews. You want to get in on buying a business. You know, you're on this podcast because you're trying to learn how to buy a

business. But if you're not quite sure where to start, Acquisition Lab is a great place to start. So they exist to help people buy a business and to navigate all those complexities of the process, everything you hear us talking about on the show. They provide a proven framework, tools and resources that support you all the way from search to close. They do it. There's a whole bunch of educational material and support. So if you're serious about buying a business, check out acquisition lab.com or you can actually email the program director Chelsea Wood directly. Her email is Chelsea at buy then build.com. Bill, I have the perfect deal for you today. It's a residential drug treatment program right up your alley. Maybe I should need to move in, right? Is that what you're

suggesting? I think it's kind of like hair club for men. It's like not only am I. Is this the Acquisitions anonymous version of an intervention? Not only am I not only am I

the owner. I'm also a customer. I don't know if you remember those commercials. They were great. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is, I probably won't be moving in, but I have heard of these types of businesses.

Are you going to read it to us? Yeah, yeah. Let me read it to you. So it is an established and profitable youth residential treatment facility. Cellar financing is available and it's in Utah. They have a photo, if you're here with us on YouTube, of it looks like some youth out in a field somewhere. They are asking $5.5 million for the business and the cash flow is $750,000. So rough math.

7.3 times. 7.3 times. Gross revenue is $2.7 million, and they own $2.7 million worth of real estate. It is a premier residential treatment facility in Utah dedicated to providing comprehensive and compassionate care for youth. They do evidence-based programs that focus on emotional behavioral and academic growth, empowering young individuals to overcome challenges and achieve lasting recovery. With a team of experienced professionals in a nurturing environment, we offer personalized treatment plans tailored to each individual's unique needs. We are committed to fostering resilience, promoting positive change, and supporting families throughout the recovery journey. It has an established track record of rehabilitating troubled youth boys 12 to 17 with repeated glowing accreditation reports. They have boys sports teams, dog training, and outdoor adventure trips available to the youth.

There's a dedicated team of industry professionals managing day-to-day operations. operations, diversified revenue streams, comprehensive programs, addressing academic, behavioral, and emotional needs, and a beautiful facility-owned campus. The inventory, real estate, and 25 employees are involved and included in the asking price. They have a bunch of stuff here about the competition. We stand in the industry by offering personal life comprehensive care that integrates therapeutic, educational, and behavioral health services. They have a bunch of different stuff here. And recognizing the demand, the government offers incentives and grants for establishing additional residential beds. Yet despite the waiting list, the current census remains at

60% of capacity. What's the bottleneck? The answer lies in recruitment and retention challenges within the sector. Staff to youth ratios dictate a facility's ability to fill its beds. Presently, we have approximately 20 beds ready to be filled as we continue to recruit men and retain quality staffing for our facility. The seller is willing to stick around for two weeks to offer training so they can retire. And that's it. So this is a rehabilitation center. At first, I thought it was drugs, but it sounds like there's a combination of things that they do.

Yeah, I mean, it very much could be drugs. What's interesting is, so if I'm hearing this right, they are at a 60% capacity right now, 60% of capacity, they have 40% of their beds open because they cannot recruit enough staff. They are required to have a certain staff to patient ratio at this thing. And they're unable to recruit enough staff to fill all of their beds. So they're literally this very, I guess, fixed cost, the facility is available. They can scale if only they could recruit some staff members. Seems like it.

Well, and maybe trying to figure out a bit more of where it is. I mean, this picture looks very rural. It looks like the picture of them actually helping some students. Well, what's interesting, Michael, is I think there's like an outdoors angle to this. So if you scroll down, they said they have this Alaska Adventures trip that they're doing, multiple athletic programs and a focus on outdoors and self-reliance. So, I mean, Utah could be the perfect place for this. You know, a lot of beautiful outdoors in Utah.

Maybe they do take them out to Alaska, you know, if they're progressing well. So I don't know if, like, is this like a camping facility? Like, or is it like cabins in the woods maybe? I don't get the sense that it's like an inpatient hospital where there is like hospital rooms. You get the sense kind of like more behavioral or, you know, where they're post-acute but not fully rehabilitated. Yeah. I think it's where you end up sending troubled kids who are of some sort, something going on.

And you send them there. you know, age 12 to 17, specifically boys. And it's kind of like a summer camp with, you know, basically the therapist there and take you through a program of probably cognitive behavioral therapy here, programmatic stuff and some peer stuff is what I would guess, is how they do it. But yeah, that's kind of classic, like send your kid away from all the bad influences and help them go kind of take a fresh start and reset stuff out of the middle of nowhere in Utah. So let's look at the financials on this thing. Revenue of 2.7 cash flow of 750.

I'd imagine the cogs are functionally all people, I would think. Right? I mean, you know, they own the facility, it sounds like, which is valued at $2.7 million. So this is basically a services business, right, where you've got to recruit. and retain counselors, and each counselor can bring on however many boys, and you've got to bill the counselors in your facility out at a multiple of what it costs to employ them. And the more folks you can recruit, the more boys you can recruit, and you make more money. Reading the listing, it sounds like recruiting the boys is not the problem. It sounds like they've got, you know,

a lot of applications, and they just literally can't serve all the demand because of people. Is this, you know, Michael, I've heard of like, you know, you can't recruit plumbers or HVAC technicians or nurses or, you know, people that need to be credentialed. You know, what I have not heard is, you know, I wouldn't, I don't know how credential you have to be to be a counselor at a boys camp. So it's surprising me they can't recruit people unless this place is really remote. It wouldn't surprise me if it's super remote. I mean, I think there's also a couple things going on with this type of deal, right? Like, first of all, this is a thankless job when you do something like this. I mean, you do get to see kids get better, but a lot of times these kids have violence

issues. You have to go through them coming through a program like this and, you know, recidivism or remission or whatever the right word for it when they go back and, you know, go back to drugs or whatever. Like, you, that happens probably the majority of times, right, where these kids go back home and you may, you may find out later that they, you know, killed themselves or something. And then I think the last two things going on here is it's remote. So it has the typical remote business problem.

We've looked into a lot, which is like your labor pool is teeny tiny. And then I suspect also we have some Baumol's Cost disease, which is my economics nerd topic of the day. Have we talked about Baumol's Cost disease? So I don't think we have. Why don't you explain to people the riveting? And I say the facetial, it actually is very applicable. Explain to people what Baumol's cost disease is. So Balmall was an economist, an economic theorist, and basically what he put forth was this idea of theory called Balmall's cost disease.

And it explains how innovation, especially technology innovation in certain areas of the economy can cause other areas of the economy to become more expensive. And so I think the way you look at it, for example, is, okay, you have a bunch of innovation and things happen great in one area of the economy. And let's say what's something that's benefited massively from technology, right? So suddenly accountants have become hugely valuable, right? And so what that does is it means that highly labor-intensive industries have to pay even more to try to compete for labor. And things like health care or things like colleges get even more expensive.

because you have to pay more to get those people, but it's because of innovation happening elsewhere in the economy. And so how would it affect a place like this is, if you can find somebody that wants to do this thankless job, out of the middle of nowhere in Utah, you're going to have to pay them a lot of money, but maybe so much that you can't even afford to hire them, and you're stuck in this situation

where you're just between a rock and a hard place where you can't staff a business like this at all. I'm just fucking with you. Now it would be pretty funny. You'd Bill, just so you know. I was on mute. Oh, God. I didn't hear anything after I explained Bob Moll's cost disease in the most

convoluted way possible. And so I don't know what you said after that, but I'm sure it was great. Well, so so Balmose Cost disease basically means that rising wages in one part of the economy drag up wages in all parts of the economy. Much better said than I said. Because all employers compete for the, you know, are competing for the same labor pool to some degree. And similarly, those well-compensated tech workers now drive up the cost of living in San Francisco. And so even the waiter in San Francisco has to be paid more. So if you are a

restaurant in San Francisco, you are currently wondering why you're paying your waiters three times as much as you were 20 years ago. And it's because all the tech workers are making so much money, it's driving up the cost of all labor. Yeah. So that could be what's happening here. So I think that's why you see a lot of business. There's a combination of factors of why businesses like this. Plus, we have the demographic problem, right, which is, you know, America's getting more and more older people and they don't want to be out in the field, you know, dealing with teenagers who are drug addicted with troubles, right? So all that makes a business like this pretty tough. Now, the other side of it is a lot of these folks tend to create labor or find labor from

former patients who go through programs like this and get rehabilitated and they come back and give back to the next person. So I think you see that in a lot of, lot of people who are in the drug counseling and stuff like that industry, they're former drug addicts. So there could be that aspect of it. But, yeah, it'd be something to dig into to understand why these guys can't hire. And I bet it's combination factors. Yeah. And man, it's, this is the thing about service businesses that just must be so infuriating

to own where you've got people beating down the door to buy your service and you just can't staff it. But like, that being said, you would think, like, can't you just raise what, keep raising raising wages and raising the price. There's got to be some sort of equilibrium where, yeah, you raise the price, you'll get fewer applicants, but at least then you'll be able to pay more and maybe you kind of hit the bid in the middle. It's an interesting dynamic because you have to also deal with your established labor

pool, right? And if you start to pay people a lot more, let's say double everybody's salaries, then you have to double all of your existing employee's salaries because they figure out very quickly you paid a brand new person twice what they're making. and then suddenly if you start paying that rate, you're not just paying it for one person, you're paying it for everybody and you lose money. I've said this from experience.

It doesn't work. Yes. Brutal. But that being said, like this concept of business, Michael, where it's youth support or it's drug counseling or it's behavior counseling, is this a good business? Like, is this a business that people should want to be in?

Or are there negative dynamics here that you don't want to touch it with 10 football. I'm interested in your two cents on it, but I think here are the things I like about, you know, just being a business nerd about this. I think you are dealing with just like health care, life or death for these youngsters. And if you're a parent of means, you know, and I have a sick kid, right? And he's been sick for three years. Like we would pay, we would give it all away. Like every single nickel for him to be fixed, right? So, you know, just like if you have cancer, where people will pay anything not to die. You know, this is kind of the same thing here.

If your kid's on the wrong path, you would almost do anything to get them on the right path. So a business like this can tend to have enormous pricing power, kind of like colleges do, right? Where they just, how much can you afford? You're paying as much as we can take out of your wallet, right? That's basically how FAFSA works. It's just how much can you pay.

Yeah. So the same thing here. folks get into drug rehab programs and stuff like that. And there's been big problems in that industry. I don't know if you've tracked it, but like lots of like bad actors have gotten into that industry and preyed on parents who are willing to do anything for their kids. So in terms of maintaining your margin in a business like this, you have to love that just as a business nerd. I don't like the side effects of what it does to people, unfortunately. Hey, Michael here. If you're a leader in business, you don't want to spend hours searching for the best way to do things. You just want answers. And that's

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Use the code AAPod and you'll save $100 off your first month of membership. That's join scalepath.com and use code AAPod code for your first month discount. Now, back to the show. Yeah, I mean, I think this, you bring up a good point about your pricing power. I mean, you can do this, basically like luxury summer camp, but for corrective behaviors. You can charge huge spreads because you're not selling a week in the woods. You're selling corrective behavior for the child. or getting over your addiction of drugs or whatever the specific malady they're treating here is.

I mean, you can charge exorbitant money, but it has to be good. You know, you've got to actually deliver a high quality product. And that can mean a couple things. It can mean it's got to be observably good like when you come tour it. The facility has to be nice. The food has to be good. You know, the counselors have to be credentialed. You know, it has to be legit.

but then also, but not entirely, but also the outcomes have to be good too. You know, and I'm not sure what a good rate is here. I mean, you may end up fixing 20% of these kids, and maybe that is good in this industry, but that could be demoralizing over time. You know, you have 80% of customers who don't really get the outcome they're hoping for. I think for the right type of person, this can be a really good, good business. I also would wonder about the ability to pivot it to fill their capacity in other ways that don't require such difficult to hire staff. So if you're in rural Utah, like, why not do like a digital detox camp for two weeks?

And so instead of like, you know, my son has diagnosable, you know, medical problems, it's my son won't put his freaking phone down and I want to send him to Utah for two weeks with no cell phone, you know, and do digital. detox. Like that, you just need camp counselors, right? So I would wonder if, you know, I got 40% capacity here. I would wonder if I could fill, and if my staffing is my constraint, how could I offer services that don't require such credentialed staff that would maybe be easier to recruit and I could get my capacity up? Yeah. It's a really interesting idea. Where this is located also has me suspicious that this 2.7, this 2.75 million in real estate value is just totally a mirage. Like I, you know, I assume that they're located somewhere around the southwest corner of Utah, you know, which is basically the interstate that goes from Salt Lake City down to Las Vegas. And like down by Zion National Park, there's just a lot of nothing down there.

Well, but what that could mean, Michael, that could mean this is 200 acres, right? It could be a ranch also. It could be thousands of acres. Thousands of acres, yeah. Yeah, this could be like a youth rehab ranch, which in that case is pretty freaking cool. Let's see. So it's down by St. George. That's where this is.

I don't know if you've ever watched this. I don't mean to get us off topic, but that's what I do. Here in Zion. Oh, this is in Zion. Yeah, I've been to Zion. Incredible. So there's a bunch of folks that love to soup up their. jeeps and stuff and go rock crawling have you ever looked at this hobby oh yeah I know

people to do it and then from that then if people do that with their jeeps there's people whose jeeps break down or gets stuck out of the middle nowhere so then there's a whole industry of people that go out to do towing and recovery out in the out in this stuff and so then you're like man that's pretty interesting well it turns out people getting stuck uh makes for really cool episodic television. And so this guy bought a towing company. This is him. His name's Matt.

He has 1.8 million subscribers. So basically what he does is he has him and his fleet. And each episode is them going out to recover somebody who is stuck out of the middle of nowhere around Zion and all that kind of stuff. And so then you're like, okay, well, like, off-roading Jeep, people get stuck. Oh, I'm going to be a YouTuber about off-roading. Then his business to monetize the YouTube is he has all,

he sells all this equipment, ropes and towing equipment and all this kind of stuff that he uses to go recover people. And he sells that to other folks. I love businesses like this where they're just making money coming and going, right? Like they're making money, creating the content because they're getting paid to tow these trucks. And they're getting, then they're monetizing content. I love this. So the other thing I like about this guy, Matt, I mean, he's just a nerd about all this stuff.

So here he is in his, here he is in his particular, you know, off-road recovery vehicle. And then he works with his kids. So, like, they go out to recover this side by side. And here's his towing rig. And, like, the lady you just saw talking, that's him. That's his son. Like, and they all go out. And it's just, like, the same schick every time.

And, like, will we get it out? That's his wife. She's like driving the car. And then that's it. Just like, oh, okay, well, I'm just going to do my hobby and then I'm going to make YouTube videos about it. And it's fascinating. It's fascinating TV. I highly recommend it.

That's awesome. Well, I would like to go to that camp. Maybe not the camp. I don't know if I want to go to that, not the camp for troubled boys. But I think there is, I think what you've got here is two things. you've got a ranch that's worth $2.7 million. And then you've got a business on top of that ranch that is generating $750,000. The tough part is you've got to sell both of these things together, right?

Because I don't think you can really do the camp without access to the land, that sounds like. And the land is probably worth a lot less without the cash flow from the camp. you know, looking at this picture or at least knowing where it is, this isn't like farmland. Like this is pretty dry. Like you're not growing corn on this land. You know, this is more like ranch land. So I just wonder, I wonder if this is the highest and best use of the land or I wonder if you could sell the land to someone else, lease it back to the camp. I bet the camper's footprint on this land is not, you know, total consumption.

You know, from the picture, they got 20 boys, tops. And maybe they're not running it all the time. And maybe you can keep the boys in, you know, relatively constrained to one corner of the land and do something else on the rest of the land. And so you can start. And if you can start doing that, you can start to show value in all of the pieces separately. But right now, I think they're kind of inextricably linked, which makes us tough to sell. And you may also be in a situation in which having this camp there with troubled boys, you can't have. There's some other uses you don't want to have there, right?

obviously you can't have like a bar right not saying somebody would but like you know you want to you probably can't have a gun range on the property yeah much better example thank you bill um so it limits what you can do with the property as well and who knows how and similarly you maybe can't have a daycare on the property either because those parents might be nervous about all the troubled boys being around right so it kind of goes both ways you know the incompatibility can run both ways i mean i think you would need like to lease it for ranching or something. You know, there's plenty of things that you could, that you could use this land for, um, that people that from that area would probably know better than me.

Um, but I mean, because right now they want $5.5 million for this business, but if you take out the two, the $2.7 million, uh, which is the land value, they only want $2.7 million for the business, which is, you know, three and a half times, which is maybe not totally crazy, right? I mean, I think it's a little high, but it's not like way out of bounds. But the problem is this looks like it's 7.5 times because you need to include the land, which doesn't really make sense. It's not going to make sense for anybody. Yeah. This is one of those situations where you want to call the broker and be like, bro. Like, this isn't going to work. And Brandon, you know, Brandon, the broker here seems like a nice guy.

And he has other listings. So it would make me wonder, like, you know, know, people are going to scroll past this when they just see this multiple. It's just very difficult to make it work. And it's not like this is a fire and forget kind of business. Yeah. I mean, I think this kind of goes to show you not picking on Brandon, but like the quality or lack thereof of most business brokers in the market, right? Like whoever owns this came to a business broker and was like, sell my business.

And the business broker was like, okay, what should we list it for? And the owner was like, well, you know, the bland is worth this much. And then the business broker was like, well, the business is probably worth three and a half times. And then he just added it together and posted it. Like it's just like very mechanical, you know, getting this business and now I'll post it on biz by sale without like the critical thinking of like positioning the business for sale. What's a buyer going to think about it? How do we tell this story? I mean, it's like not that much more complicated than paying somebody to post your business on biz by sale and like mechanically.

answer to the emails. There are just so many business brokers out there that are not adding a lot of value. Yeah. When I've talked about saying the praises of Clint Fiore multiple times, but like when we try to sell our coffee business, the first thing he did was be like, here's where this needs to be listed if you want to make a deal here. And like that was great. Saved everybody a bunch of time, you know, and we were fortunately, I think, more educated than a lot of other sellers just because we've, I have a podcast about buying and selling businesses, as you may know, but it was great. It's, you know, we got the deal done in six months. Like, we were just realistic about where it was going to be.

And he came with data. And I think, you know, anyway, that's, you and I still have that fallback. If things go horribly wrong, we can always operate the world's most entertaining business brokerage. So, I mean, you joke, but I have literally said that to my wife. I'm like, if this all goes to crap, I can always be the world's best business broker overnight. Yeah, I'm with you. Look, the thing I would actually, I've thought about this recently. The thing I would actually do.

Have we been having stressful years, Michael? Is that what you're saying? The thing I would, I don't know if you saw this, but did you see the, the interview with the Peloton CEO? I tweeted about it. So basically the guy, you know, he went to like billionaire status, leveraged up like crazy on margin, it seems like, bought houses in the hampton, Ferrari's, Lambos, like, started. to live that lavish lifestyle. And then the stock has come back down to Earth. And basically, he's margin cold like crazy on all that stuff.

And, you know, he should be worth $150 million, but he's worth negative $200 million because of margin. And he was, I saw an interview with him on Instagram. And basically somebody had him on a podcast. And he was just like so calm and at peace with the situation. He's like, I don't know if I'm going to declare bankruptcy. I'm selling everything. And then it was cool because he was just so excited about the prospect of starting over.

Like he had gone through all those cycles of grief already, all the stages. And he was just like, this is going to be fun. I'm working on my next thing. I'm calling people. I'm working on ideas. He was just like that was his coping mechanism. And it was pretty interesting. To see it, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

by people with that level of Zen. I really am. I mean, what a wild ride on Peloton, right? Through the roof during COVID, you know, this is the future of exercise, discussions with Apple about them buying you and then just stock drops 90%. And you lose everything you have. And you build a Peloton and you have nothing to show for it. Yikes. So my answer actually, business brokerage, I think there's an easier and better business to get in than all of that.

and it's recession-resistant, and it's high margin, and it just requires operational excellence, and it's staffing firms. Like, I just know so many people that just, it's low-cap-ex, it's got so much going on, and being a partner in one, like, I can tell you, it's really, do you have good business? Please hire withnear.com.

That's our advertising. Like, I seriously, and I have buddies that do domestic-only staffing firms, like, they just kill it. And it's, you. I mean, how many? That's what I would do before brokerage. Michael, like how many businesses have we looked at on the pod that cannot grow because they are not able to staff it, right?

I mean, there is such a human capital constraint. And it's insane because there are more humans than there ever have been. And yet, you know, businesses have such a lack of capital and, or a lack of human capital, rather. And I agree, like, it's, you know, everybody has fallen all over themselves to do the international, you know, staff outsourcing. type stuff. But even just like, can you recruit mildly upskill and place camp counselors? That can be a whole business. Can you recruit mildly upsell and place medical billing technicians?

Like infinite markets for these things where you can bring people on, get them through like a two week training course and place them in businesses, it'd be a gazillionaire. Yeah. Well, I have a buddy that does light industrial. Then I know another guy. It was one of the smartest things I've ever seen. He owned a staffing firm, and what he would do is he would take his best recruiters, and he would set them up with their own company as a partner with him. And then he managed the financing and back office, and they were just like straight up partner. And he did this like 15 times.

And now all he does is like apparently sit in his house and watch Fox News all day. Like I just collect checks. It's just one of the most genius things I've ever seen. And, you know, it's kind of one of those like, for me, Bitcoin moments where like somebody, you know, bought $10,000 worth of Bitcoin in 2009. And I'm like, man, I feel really stupid. So he's basically franchises out his most successful guys so they don't leave him, right? Yeah.

Turns a bit of business partners. That's awesome. I love that. And that, there's no reason that wouldn't still work in, you know, in the industries like that today. Indeed. Indeed. All right. All right, back to this deal.

Back to this deal. Do we like it? Are we even getting the book? Or is it not even worth trying to disentangle from the real estate here? I think the one thing we haven't really talked about is I love businesses where you get to change people's lives for the better. And there's lots of ways to do that. We always talk about our fireworks business creates happy memories for people.

We have a happy memory guarantee that we want to create happy memories for everybody. And I think there's a level of really excitement about that. this business where you can make a good living, living out the middle of nowhere in Utah. But, like, you help people. Like, you are changing kids' lives. You're not always going to hit about a thousand, but, like, man, there's something I like about that aspect of this. Like, you're making the world a better place and you're making money.

To me, that's a huge win. I agree. Yeah, I love it. I think you're going to probably, the only thing that's a little bit of a bummer is that you're probably going to fail to help more people than you succeed in helping in this business. And so you're just going to have to kind of keep your. your eyes on the prize and be excited about the people that you do help.

This is the opposite of owning a triple net Walgreens. Like your hands are dirty and your hands are dirty and it's emotional. Yeah, but look, you only get one one trip around this, you know, around this whole life thing. And if you're going to spend a lifetime doing something, this is pretty worthy. It is hard to imagine the economics making sense at $5.5 million with a questionable $2.7 million were the real estate. So I think I would be thumbs up on the characteristics of the business and the mission of the business. I think the way it's priced seems like a non-starter. Oh, I didn't tell you this. I'm interested in your thoughts on the deal, but I didn't tell you

this. The fireworks story that we did 100 episodes ago or so, the one in Florida, they reached out to me, and I'm having a call with them next week to like advise them. They set up like a paid intro call with me. Wait. No. Because of the pod? because of the episode? Multiple people in the M&A space found out that evidently on

search funder.com, I'm known as the fireworks guy. So multiple people said to reach out. There's three different people that have sent them my way. Someone should make merch that says, I'm big on search funder. You know, as one does.

The market of that for that is like four people. Really, this is what Acquisitions anonymous merch should be, extremely nichey inside Joe perch. Eba, duh, but D-U-H, duh. Yeah. But anyway, so I'm having a call with them to advise them, but the way that deal ended up happening,

they ended up buying it for cheaper than the less price. So just as a reminder for people, list prices are just suggestions. That is a good reminder. List prices are very much suggestions. So what do you think? In closing on this one. In closing, I think if you could,

disentangle it from the real estate, this is not a bad business, especially if you could find a way to leverage that spare capacity. If you can disentangle it from the real estate and you think you've got either a solution to the staffing problem or a way to staff it with less qualified people and use all your capacity, then I think this could be a good business. Either way, you have to want to be in this business, you know, of helping trouble with use and probably live in or around this area. You don't want to be living in, you know, Texas and get a call that like the youths have set the building on fire, you know, in Utah or whatever.

You know, you probably need to be there for this business, which is also a little time. It would not surprise me if this guy in this chair here is the owner that's retiring. Yeah, I can see that too. I bet you that's him. Yeah. Cool business. Beautiful location. probably tough to buy with the land included.

Good luck. Good luck. All right. We'll see everybody next week. See you next week.