Sold A Generator Company And Acquired A Glass Business I Michael Summers I AO 30

Michael Summers didn’t start in the trades — he started on stage. A former theater major at Baylor turned tour manager for bands like Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, and Robert Randolph, Michael’s early career was all about storytelling, logistics, and making people laugh. Today, he owns Alamo Glass, a residential and commercial glass business in Texas — and his path from the entertainment world to blue-collar ownership is anything but traditional.

In this episode, JC and Michael dive into:
- The systems mindset Michael brought from tour management and church leadership into the trades
- Scaling a family business from 21 to 45 employees in under a year — and choosing not to acquire it
- What it really took to buy and operate his own business a year later
- Why communication and emotional intelligence are underrated tools in business
- The value of boring businesses with real moats — and what makes glass so resilient
- Lessons in leadership, operating, and building a team that maximizes you time

Michael’s story is a reminder that every operator brings a unique backstory to the table — and that ownership, at its core, about listening, responding, and helping others thrive.

Real stories. Real ownership. Real lessons from the field.
This is American Operator.

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Transcript

00:00:00:13 - 00:00:10:04
Speaker 1
Hard work. Real talk. No shortcuts. I'm Joseph Cabrera. This is American operator.

00:00:10:04 - 00:00:22:15
Speaker 2
All right, team, we got Michael here. Alamo glass, an Austin native. And if you're sitting here, if you're watching us sit here talking. You're tall. Dude, man I am.

00:00:22:17 - 00:00:24:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. You said six, five.

00:00:24:11 - 00:00:28:23
Speaker 2
Six, five. And you you said you don't. You're deceptively tall is what you were. Yeah.

00:00:29:01 - 00:00:51:21
Speaker 1
I feel like I'm right on that line of I'm tall, but I'm not, like, freakishly tall. Yeah. And so people often underestimate how tall I am because I just, I'm a bigger guy. So they recognize that I even was called, like, big Mike at some parts of my life, but I'm not, like, seven feet tall. Yeah. So it's like I'm not hitting my head on doors, but I'm also a pretty stinkin tall guy.

00:00:51:22 - 00:00:52:06
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:00:52:06 - 00:01:10:14
Speaker 2
Tall guy. I mean, tall guy. You. In fact, you're walking through the door. What is, Oh, yeah. Here's a former football player. And more importantly, here's somebody might be a little tough to talk to. I think you're approachability right off the bat is probably what makes you, I'm never. It's like. It's like shirt sizing.

00:01:10:16 - 00:01:31:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. We're small. Yeah, I am I go talks smaller than he is, you know, but I mean, in the best ways. Speaking of which, talking small and and being in front of people, we're going to get into Alamo Glass and how you got in the trades and that whole thing, man. But what I know to be true is that you actually started off with a heavy focus in theater.

00:01:31:03 - 00:01:39:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. So talk to me about how a guy goes from acting and being on stage, being the passion to now being in the trades man.

00:01:39:00 - 00:01:57:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a it's a pretty interesting journey and one that I definitely wouldn't have necessarily picked for myself. Not that I would change anything, but just it's kind of out of the ordinary. So I grew up playing baseball. So I wasn't a football player, even though I pretty early on had the size to play football, I chose baseball.

00:01:57:01 - 00:02:13:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, played baseball up until high school and in middle school jumped into theater, just as one of my electives and fell in love with it. And so I did that all in, in high school and actually, halfway through high school, dropped baseball to really focus on theater because I was like, man, I could I could do this.

00:02:13:12 - 00:02:19:17
Speaker 1
I was good at it. And I just really loved it. Found a really cool community there. And so,

00:02:19:19 - 00:02:23:10
Speaker 2
How did you even give that a try? Were you like, I need to pick an elective?

00:02:23:12 - 00:02:37:12
Speaker 1
It was like my brother did band. He's four years older than me. He did band and I was like, I'm not. I don't play any instruments. I don't want to be in band, which I get it. Like in middle school, no one plays instruments. That's like where they learn. So, but that's what was going through. My mind is like, I sing.

00:02:37:12 - 00:02:50:18
Speaker 1
So I was also a choir kid. And so, I don't know, I just was like, man, I was definitely the kid that performed like, I was the kid who at holidays is getting up in the living room with my family there.

00:02:50:18 - 00:02:51:21
Speaker 2
And you're the life of the party.

00:02:51:21 - 00:03:11:22
Speaker 1
We would we. I put costumes on and do that. But it wasn't. It wasn't something that I thought that early on was like, I'm going to do something with this. It was just like, I like being in front of people. I love making people laugh. I love, you know, just honestly being the center of attention at that point in my life that's phased over life, luckily with, maturity.

00:03:11:22 - 00:03:29:16
Speaker 1
But at that point in my life, that was definitely, you know, I love just being in front of people. And so when we got to pick electives in middle school, I was like, yeah, I'll go do theater. That sounds fun. Put on some costumes and make people laugh. And so I did that and really fell in love with the whole process behind acting.

00:03:29:18 - 00:03:48:10
Speaker 1
Because even at that stage there was I had a great theater teacher in middle school that just talked about learning storylines and how to memorize lines. I also had a just a natural knack for memorizing, so that was something that pretty early on, I was like, hey, I'm pretty okay at this. You know, even just the background pieces of being an actor.

00:03:48:10 - 00:04:16:07
Speaker 1
And so I carried that through high school, decided in high school to drop baseball and do theater, and knew that I wanted to go do it in college. And so, I was actually a theater major and, went to Baylor University and, decided to to major in theater. And, about halfway through school, I was like, yeah, you know, I love this, but I don't really want to do the New York LA struggling actor barista thing.

00:04:16:07 - 00:04:38:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. Plus, I was paying my way through school, and so I was like, I'm not gonna be able to afford that. I got loan payments starting. So I picked up a minor, actually, in marketing in college focused on entertainment marketing. So I, I very quickly went to Nashville after school. I lived there, worked in the, record industry, worked for a record label and marketing, and then did tour management.

00:04:38:19 - 00:04:42:22
Speaker 1
So I was doing day to day business for bands out on the road and traveling all around the country.

00:04:42:22 - 00:04:45:22
Speaker 2
Interest? Really? Yeah. And you know, any ones that we recognize.

00:04:46:00 - 00:05:14:23
Speaker 1
I was out with, Switchfoot. I was out with, the label that I was with was a Christian music label, and so like that was the natural relationships that I had initially. So I actually did, a stint with Switchfoot. Third day is another band, jars of Clay, if you remember them. They had they had like some crossover hits in the 90s, which was super fun because like, even when I was doing that in 2008, they were already the old guys like that had a hit when I was a kid.

00:05:14:23 - 00:05:20:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, but they totally embraced and were awesome guys. And then Robert Randolph in the family band.

00:05:20:21 - 00:05:30:11
Speaker 2
I mean, since. Yeah, I mean, you did some, so it's super fun. And you were using that. Was that hard to get into right away, like. Or did you like, did the theater degree help or did the marketing degree?

00:05:30:15 - 00:05:55:01
Speaker 1
I think the marketing was the was the direct correlation, but that was actually a pretty pivotal experience for me to really give some teeth to the it's who you know mantra. Yeah. Like every step that I took in Nashville was just like, I know this person, who knows this person, who knows this person, and they just give me a job because someone has vouched for me, because I'm a kid right out of college, like I don't have experience.

00:05:55:01 - 00:06:16:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. When I the initial tour that I went out, I went as an assistant tour manager because I didn't have experience. And the lady that I worked for, that was the tour manager, basically got me every subsequent job. She just was like, this guy is sharp. He's young, he's hungry. Probably not. When I was there was saying, he's cheap.

00:06:16:19 - 00:06:26:02
Speaker 1
You know, you can get him out on the road for nothing. And so I did that, for a few tours and, and, ended up coming back to Austin after that.

00:06:26:05 - 00:06:35:06
Speaker 2
What? And just last thing on that job there. What was the day to day? And when you think about entertainment marketing, what does that mean? Like putting up posters and stuff?

00:06:35:06 - 00:06:56:02
Speaker 1
Or so when I was at the label, what that was was us building campaigns, marketing campaigns for, artists who were coming out with a new album. So we were building the entire marketing campaign as a team, for these new albums. And so we were this was 2008. And so we were kind of on the verge of digital music becoming a thing at that point.

00:06:56:02 - 00:07:18:02
Speaker 1
Like, record labels didn't really know what to do when I was there working, which is kind of why I was like, I'm going to find another job to do in the music industry, because it kind of record labels at that time hadn't reinvented themselves. Streaming wasn't around yet, but digital music and you like buy, you know, iTunes music, and people aren't buying CDs anymore and they're, you know, just the the trends are changing.

00:07:18:02 - 00:07:40:22
Speaker 1
And so we had put these campaigns together to try to sell records. And so that was what I did there. And then the day to day in tour management was basically doing everything business related. So the guys in the band didn't have to. Yeah. And so I, you know, would wake up in the morning and I would do all of the kind of pre-work because we'd be on a tour bus heading to a location with the.

00:07:40:22 - 00:07:41:11
Speaker 2
Band, with.

00:07:41:11 - 00:07:59:16
Speaker 1
The band in the bus, and I'd be calling on the venue, hey, where are we supposed to park? Where are we supposed to wear the green? Where's the green room in relation to where our parking spot is? Are the showers ready? Do you have towels? You know, all of these logistical pieces? So that they show up and can walk off and I can just guide them where they need to go.

00:07:59:16 - 00:08:04:14
Speaker 1
And then I'm doing, settling up at the end of the night with the venue, who's having to pay the band for.

00:08:04:14 - 00:08:11:04
Speaker 2
Wow, man. I mean, what an action packed. I mean, being it was wild 21, 22 years old. That's, I mean, that's in it.

00:08:11:05 - 00:08:27:22
Speaker 1
It was crazy. And it was it was one of those things that I look back on it now, I'm almost 40. And to think about how long ago that was for me and to think about the responsibility that I had in that moment is crazy now. But in the moment I was just like, yeah, this is my job.

00:08:27:22 - 00:08:44:03
Speaker 1
This is what I do. I don't know how to do something. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to ask someone who's been in this before. Jen, who was my boss on the first tour, was an incredible resource to just she was so giving of her knowledge because she had been in and at that time for 15, 20 years.

00:08:44:03 - 00:09:06:10
Speaker 1
And so, just asked a ton of questions. Was really hungry to know what what it all looked like and how to do certain things. And pretty quickly became natural for me, just I didn't love I didn't do that because I loved the business aspects at that time in my life. I did it because I was getting to be out on the road and do this cool experience.

00:09:06:10 - 00:09:08:00
Speaker 2
You did whatever it took to be around it.

00:09:08:00 - 00:09:22:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, and just wanted to be around creativity. And if I had to do the not fun things to be around music for a while, that was that was totally okay with me and then ended up loving some of those responsibilities that I had.

00:09:22:09 - 00:09:29:23
Speaker 2
That sounds like it plays well into what you what you ended up doing. Did you see you guys get back to Austin and you get right into the trades. You doing something else for a while?

00:09:30:00 - 00:09:55:22
Speaker 1
No, I actually when I moved back to Austin, I worked for another marketing company that was based out of Waco, knew some guys from college, and, was working to open or kind of expand their markets into Austin from Waco. So they started out as the sorority and frat t shirt vendor. So any time sororities and frats were doing events and they needed t shirts or swag or anything, they'd go to this company.

00:09:56:00 - 00:09:58:03
Speaker 1
They were the stop in Waco.

00:09:58:08 - 00:09:59:07
Speaker 2
It's such a niche, man.

00:09:59:08 - 00:10:22:02
Speaker 1
Oh yeah, it was crazy. So they wanted to do that in Austin and specifically for UT, and they were doing the same thing in College Station at A&M. And so my role was really in sales to build a market down here. And, very quickly realized that I was not a work from home by myself all day making cold calls kind of guy.

00:10:22:04 - 00:10:41:13
Speaker 1
The company was super cool. My boss was great, but just the role itself was just not for me. Yeah. And so pretty quickly realized that I spent about two years there and, that about that time got an opportunity to come on staff in a church. And so that's where I spent the next 13 years, was on staff at a church here in Austin.

00:10:41:13 - 00:10:45:13
Speaker 2
Wow, man. What's the what were the jobs? All different kinds throughout that 13 years. Yeah.

00:10:45:13 - 00:11:06:14
Speaker 1
So I started, I started going I came in as the program director for middle school in high school. So they would do services for middle schoolers in high schools, and they'd have camps and retreats and all this stuff. And I would basically be in charge of doing all of the program for those events and for the Sunday morning services.

00:11:06:16 - 00:11:32:12
Speaker 1
So that, again, utilize my background in theater because I was doing a bunch of skit characters and I was doing, you know, I was getting up in front of people and, and, you know, having to give announcements felt very comfortable in front of, you know, 250, 300 kids. And so, I did that program director initially, and then right after that, became the program director for young adults.

00:11:32:12 - 00:12:02:17
Speaker 1
We started a young adults ministry for 20 and 30 somethings, singles. And, so I did pretty much my job for student ministry, but for young adults, and then most of my time was spent as the communication director. So in the in my 13 years there, the church exploded. We went from one campus to three campuses in my time there went from about 3 to 500 people to probably close to 7500 to 10,000 people.

00:12:02:19 - 00:12:18:07
Speaker 1
That's a church. I mean, it's crazy, crazy growth. And so I got a really cool front row seat to see an organization that was rapidly growing, that they had to really reinvent themselves for the sake of the growth that was happening.

00:12:18:09 - 00:12:30:00
Speaker 2
Wow, man. And you end up getting the ad, the ad to buy or get into your own business while you're at church. What was the reason that prompted you to start exploring that path?

00:12:30:00 - 00:12:54:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, I realized after being there for a long time that I loved my time there, but I've just had this kind of guttural sense that my time was coming to an end there. I didn't know what was next, didn't know what I wanted to do, and, started having some conversations with some friends and mentors on what, you know, what it looks like to get out of vocational ministry.

00:12:54:17 - 00:13:19:13
Speaker 1
We still go to church there. So it had nothing to do with the church itself or my leadership or organization. It really just felt like my time was done. And that's really as much as I could explain about it. And, so I started having these conversations and, before I actually bought Alamo, my first stop out of ministry was in our family business, which I was third generation.

00:13:19:15 - 00:13:39:23
Speaker 1
So my grandfather started a backup generator business in the 70s, and my dad took it over in 2000. And I joined, coming out of ministry at the church with my dad as operations manager, because we were in a crazy season of growth at that point. This was just after the snow storms that happened a few years ago.

00:13:39:23 - 00:13:41:09
Speaker 1
Everybody, everyone was just.

00:13:41:09 - 00:13:44:02
Speaker 2
Selling backup generators or installing.

00:13:44:04 - 00:14:08:05
Speaker 1
And installing. So on the, the bread and butter, the company historically was actually commercial generators. So pretty much every building downtown, every hospital, blood banks, data centers, anyone with large industrial backup generators, we had either sold them or if someone else had sold them to them. We were the main service provider in Austin, and so we would go and do preventative maintenance on all these large generators.

00:14:08:05 - 00:14:32:15
Speaker 1
And that was the bulk of the company for probably 30 of its 45 years. And, then the storms happened and Covid actually was the first spike in residential for us. And that's when homeowners started knowing what a backup generator was wanting one for their house. The snowstorms obviously just were a huge catalyst in that. Yeah. And it just went haywire.

00:14:32:17 - 00:14:58:02
Speaker 1
There was thousands and thousands of requests of people just like, I want a generator. I don't care how much it costs. I don't care how long it's going to take. Here's my 50% deposit. Let me know when it's coming. And so the time that I jumped on was right after that. And I came on twofold one, to see if I wanted to take over the business because I knew I wanted to be in trades.

00:14:58:04 - 00:15:27:01
Speaker 1
But I, I had thought being in the family business pretty much my whole adult life, not because I didn't want to be there, but just because it was like, again, my whole history was creative. So it was like, if I want to be in a trade business, I want to be on the creative side. I want to do all the marketing, branding, you know, my I even had thoughts of creating an agency that specifically focused on marketing an ad for trade business, because I saw the need was there, but I didn't want to be the guy in the operator seat.

00:15:27:01 - 00:15:52:16
Speaker 1
I wanted to be the guy helping the operator at that time. And so, I finally just kind of had a piece about this is the next step. And so I came in as operations manager with my dad and help him basically scale all the systems that were in place. So they went from 21 employees to 45 employees in nine months because of the growth, like as a response to the market growth that they had experienced.

00:15:52:16 - 00:16:01:12
Speaker 1
And so no systems worked, you know, none of the software that they used, if there was even software, there were still some paper form paper forms.

00:16:01:14 - 00:16:02:17
Speaker 2
The triple carbon copy.

00:16:02:17 - 00:16:34:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. A bunch of systems that they had just they'd outgrown them. And so with my background in the communications role at the church, I had done a lot of that in the growth of the church was scaling systems. And so I came in to help my dad with that. And meanwhile, trying to get a feel for the business, he did an awesome job of letting me sit in the driver's seat in certain ways, see behind the curtain from a business standpoint, so that I could get a feel for the business and decide if I wanted to, you know, take it over from him.

00:16:34:05 - 00:16:35:02
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:16:35:04 - 00:16:36:03
Speaker 1
And, how.

00:16:36:03 - 00:16:39:02
Speaker 2
Was it dynamic? Did you all kind of get along well in that?

00:16:39:02 - 00:16:57:14
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, it was awesome. It was such a great time for us because he knew that for I'd told him years and years ago now I don't ever want to go into it. Love it. So thankful for it and our family and the history that it has with my grandpa, my grandfather starting it and then dad taking it over.

00:16:57:14 - 00:17:10:15
Speaker 1
But I just made it pretty clear early on, like, that's not for me. And so it was I think it was he wasn't out right about this, but I think it was pretty fun for him, for me to be the one that's coming to him and saying, hey, I think I want to come into the family business like he did.

00:17:10:15 - 00:17:27:10
Speaker 1
And when I came to him with, here's what I'm thinking, I want to do, you know, Austin Generator's really on the table for the first time. I didn't even know if he had a job for me. Like, I knew the growth that they were experiencing because of conversations I'd had with him. But I didn't know if what he needed was what I'd do.

00:17:27:12 - 00:17:34:16
Speaker 1
And so, we went to lunch and soon after he was like, you're actually exactly what I need right now, because I gotta. I gotta scale this thing.

00:17:34:18 - 00:17:45:05
Speaker 2
That's awesome, man. Yeah. I'm sure like, from a dads perspective, what do they say? Like, they know you did. You did. All right. As a parent of your kids, you want to keep hanging out with you outside the holidays? Oh, totally. Yeah. And now you're asking to come work with them? Yeah.

00:17:45:05 - 00:18:14:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. So it was. It was a lot of fun. We had a blast with it. We were able to we again, because of my background in the creative space, we actually took that opportunity to do a rebrand of the business. So didn't change the name or anything, but wanted to kind of give a fresh look to a, at that time, 40 year old company and kind of reinvent the the aspects of what was being put out into the world because we had this massive new captive audience in the residential space that we had never really had before, the storms.

00:18:14:19 - 00:18:17:14
Speaker 1
And so I got a lot I had a lot of fun.

00:18:17:16 - 00:18:24:18
Speaker 2
You right at points that you entered right at the point that was like at the height of that creativity. Totally. What's the name of the biz?

00:18:24:19 - 00:18:26:06
Speaker 1
Austin Generator Service.

00:18:26:06 - 00:18:27:18
Speaker 2
Austin Generator service. Okay.

00:18:27:18 - 00:18:55:01
Speaker 1
So we we did that for a few years. And I'm sitting on the fence. I'm going through these internal like, I love this business. I love the team. I'm having a lot of fun. But this that industry is just incredibly demanding. It's just one of those we were 24 over seven support, right. So if a Saint David's hospital calls and they need their generator worked on at 2 a.m., we go and not to say that I'd be the guy get into my truck at 2:00 am.

00:18:55:01 - 00:19:13:20
Speaker 1
We've got technicians for that. But I'm I know that the call came. I'm making sure that the on call tech answered his phone when they called, making sure that he's got the tools that he needs to be able to make the fix that because we're contractually obligated to make these repairs, because a hospital can't wait until the power goes out to realize that their generators not working.

00:19:13:20 - 00:19:41:14
Speaker 1
So, there was just a lot of pressure in that industry that was really bigger than the company itself was the industry that it was in. And I've got two young sons and a wife who also owns and runs a business. And I was like, man, I just don't I can't reconcile what this business would require of me if I'm sitting in the driver's seat so low and what I want my life to look like outside of work, and outside of owning a business.

00:19:41:14 - 00:20:00:14
Speaker 1
And so it's kind of having this internal struggle with that. And, and having really open conversations with my dad about it, which was really great. He was always so open handed with like, just tell me where you're at. Like, he made it clear through our whole adult lives, like, if you ever want to come into the business or take over the business, like, that'd be awesome, but I'm never going to push you to do it.

00:20:00:16 - 00:20:20:17
Speaker 1
And so when I'm having these struggles, I wouldn't even call them struggles, but just kind of like internalizing some of this stuff and having these conversations with him. We were just really open with each other, which was super helpful for me to be able to process through that. Yeah. And one day he, you know, came came to me in my office.

00:20:20:17 - 00:20:43:10
Speaker 1
He's like, hey, let's go get coffee. And, we go get coffee, because meanwhile, I'm, I'm not really making any moves and kind of comfortable, you know, I've got a good job. I've got a business that's growing. I just walked us through a massive rebrand that's been really fun to to work in and have that up. That chance to scratch the creative itch within a generator business.

00:20:43:12 - 00:21:11:05
Speaker 1
So we go to coffee and he's like, so what do you think in these days? And I was like, I really just don't know. I can't, I'm having some kind of some decision paralysis here because I see the, the pros, I see the cons. I don't really know. And he's a he just says, okay, well, I've got a, a buyer that wants to buy the business, and I'm at a fork in the road where I need to either cut off the communications or I need to keep walking down that road.

00:21:11:07 - 00:21:16:01
Speaker 1
And in that moment, I just had this immediate peace that it wasn't for me.

00:21:16:03 - 00:21:20:16
Speaker 2
That I would like offer. And that made you go, yeah, like, yeah, release it.

00:21:20:16 - 00:21:42:11
Speaker 1
It was crazy because we sat and talked. I will forever remember sitting on the patio at Starbucks having a coffee, and we sat there for four hours talking, and all of it started with him basically. Yeah. Setting out that baton and going, hey, it's yours to pick up, but I'm not going to make you pick it up. But if you're not, I'm going to give it to someone else.

00:21:42:13 - 00:22:02:02
Speaker 1
And, and in that moment, I just was like this in mind, like, this is I, I don't feel strongly enough to keep walking down the road towards a transition plan with him. And I know that he has a desire to retire and to to ride off into the proverbial sunset. And he bought an RV when he retired.

00:22:02:02 - 00:22:06:00
Speaker 1
And so I always I knew that, too. I was like, you're waiting to go get your RV.

00:22:06:01 - 00:22:07:09
Speaker 2
He's going to travel the country.

00:22:07:10 - 00:22:28:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, and so I just was like, yeah, this isn't this isn't for me. And so he, he just was like, I'm going to move forward with this buyer. And, and so I was all on board. And so we did we started he had already started the process, but, I jumped into that with him.

00:22:28:08 - 00:22:48:17
Speaker 1
So that was a pretty cool experience to get to sit on the sell side of an acquisition. And we had a pretty unique process with them. It was originally to a, singular buyer buying both the residential and the commercial side, but they didn't have residential in their portfolio. They were strictly a commercial service business for generators nationwide.

00:22:48:17 - 00:23:07:11
Speaker 1
That's basically going and buying shops like ours. But they my dad was like, I'm not selling half my business. Like, you have to buy the residential part as well. And so, they were like all in on that at first and they were basically going to just roll down the residential side, like, see out the rest of the work in progress and.

00:23:07:17 - 00:23:08:15
Speaker 2
Focus on partial.

00:23:08:16 - 00:23:33:04
Speaker 1
And focus on the commercial. And, part way through the process, they just, you know, decided they didn't want the residential anymore. At least it's a private equity backed. So the backers decided that they didn't want the residential. They saw it as a liability. They saw it as an expense. And so, they just didn't they they made that change midway, and he stuck to his guns and was like, hey, I told you from the beginning, I'm not selling half my business.

00:23:33:04 - 00:24:08:08
Speaker 1
So if you want to buy the commercial side, you need to go find me a buyer for the residential. I'm putting that on you. And they did. And they found another way that you don't stand a residential side. And so we that, you know, amplified the intensity of that process because you're going through simultaneous due diligence. So, you know, he wrote into the, you know, both contracts that if one doesn't close, the other doesn't close simultaneous close, you know, all of these pieces that just made the work, some of it overlapped, but it pretty much doubled the work, especially for him.

00:24:08:08 - 00:24:13:20
Speaker 1
And our our controller, who was doing a lot of the financial preparation of all these documents for.

00:24:13:21 - 00:24:23:12
Speaker 2
How long from him, talent from you all having that combo about, hey, I'm having this buyer fork in the road to closing and driving off into the sun to hell. Yeah.

00:24:23:13 - 00:24:30:23
Speaker 1
So we, we had that conversation in May and we closed in January. Okay. So,

00:24:31:00 - 00:24:31:20
Speaker 2
What is that, seven.

00:24:31:20 - 00:24:32:15
Speaker 1
To seven months.

00:24:32:20 - 00:24:34:01
Speaker 2
Six, seven months? Yeah.

00:24:34:03 - 00:24:55:17
Speaker 1
And so, yeah, we we and that, you know, closing got pushed a few times. We were initially supposed to close in July, that, you know, they had already gotten supposedly what they needed by the time he was bringing me into the fold. For him to make a decision to keep moving forward or not. But he had already prepared a lot of documents for the buyer.

00:24:55:19 - 00:25:10:12
Speaker 1
And then, you know, having the two separate buyers, we had to start that process over there asking for different things than what he had prepared for the buyers initially. Yeah, and all that. So it just it pushed the closed date back a few months and a couple times. But we ended up closing in January.

00:25:10:12 - 00:25:24:03
Speaker 2
Were you and your dad pretty savvy with the whole like obviously hadn't sold a business maybe before, but do you feel like y'all were very comfortable and kind of getting whatever diligence and stuff was needed from the buyer, or was that also just a steep learning curve?

00:25:24:06 - 00:25:54:12
Speaker 1
So, my dad actually had sold a business before. Okay. One before he had another business. It was the under the umbrella of his generator business that he sold a few years back. And so he had an understanding of the process. I was drinking from a massive fire hose. I didn't know anything about this process. And so that was a really cool opportunity for me to have a front row seat to that stuff, because when we're looking at documents that we're sending over, I'm looking at the documents going like, why do they want this?

00:25:54:12 - 00:26:23:00
Speaker 1
You know, I get I get these reports, but why this report? You know, we're talking a lot about valuation, you know, hey, why is this the valuation that they're saying on the business when we could argue that it's this, this and this and how do we come to the resolve? And so there was just a really a lot of information intake for me to, to, to, to learn that whole process because I really had never even tangentially known about what acquisitions look like.

00:26:23:00 - 00:26:31:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Because there's something to surprise you in particular. Like, was there the was there a thing that stuck out to you, good or bad, that you're like, oh, man, I had no idea.

00:26:31:23 - 00:26:51:22
Speaker 1
I think the thing that stuck out to me the most was the fickleness of the process like that, that was crazy to me that there were just these, hey, we've got paper sign that, say this, and then someone can just decide in the middle of the process, no, I want it to be this now, and we're not going to move forward anymore if it doesn't change to this.

00:26:52:00 - 00:27:13:02
Speaker 1
And I think that that especially when you're dealing with, private equity backed organizations the way that we were, you've got the the owner of the company and even the broker, and then you've got these kind of far off, you know, money guys. Yeah, that aren't in the process at all, but they just get documentation sent to them from the process.

00:27:13:02 - 00:27:28:12
Speaker 1
And then they make decisions and changes and all that. And so I think that's the probably the thing that threw me off and, and because I had never been in that before was the most frustrating because I was also a little protective of my dad. I'm just like, you need to get you spent your life building this thing.

00:27:28:17 - 00:27:46:02
Speaker 1
It is so valuable. It is a great company. They're they're lucky they had actually pursued him for, like five years previous to him ever opening up the conversations. Because they knew it was a great company and they wanted to acquire it, but he wasn't ready, and it wasn't the right time for either him or the company.

00:27:46:05 - 00:28:03:05
Speaker 1
One of the two. And so I think, you know, there was there was some frustration on my part for sure at times. And I'd vent with him like, what? Those guys are idiots. Like, what are they change in those four and I why didn't they say that four months ago? Like, why is this just now being brought to the table?

00:28:03:05 - 00:28:23:12
Speaker 1
And so I think that was the piece that was the most eye opening in the process. It's just how how much of a moving target it is until you sign on the dotted line, because you think as you get closer to the finish line, it gets more solid and more concrete out. Yeah. But it's almost like, no, you you don't, you know.

00:28:23:12 - 00:28:34:13
Speaker 1
What's the fat lady singing like? Do not count this as something that's done until it's done, because it can literally end at 11:59 p.m. when you're supposed to sign at noon. Yeah.

00:28:34:13 - 00:28:55:02
Speaker 2
We say it's, it's one of the last, probably transaction, bigger transactional things in America. That's still the Wild West. Yeah. You know, there is no I mean, even in real estate, you have earnest money and you have these semi binding things or extremely binding things. Whereas in this world, you know, it really is up to the, to the beholder.

00:28:55:02 - 00:29:17:07
Speaker 2
And you're also dealing with momentum or lack of momentum. So like there's things that you could probably make a big deal about. But is it worth your time and effort and all these things? What do you, I mean, it sounded like. It sounded like to me that if let me back up, we talked to operators here or aspiring owners, you know, quite a bit.

00:29:17:07 - 00:29:37:13
Speaker 2
And one of the things that we tell them quite, you know, quite frequently is because a lot of them are probably coming from a lot of them are coming from the like a financial background or have done investment banking or an MBA in the corporate world, whatever it might be. And a lot of the times they're kind of attacking it or approaching it like a math problem.

00:29:37:15 - 00:30:05:15
Speaker 2
And using kind of the, the Excel spreadsheet to kind of be the way they reason. Yeah. What I hear you just say is like it, which I think is perfect, is like I'm protective of my father. The in the effort that they've built this thing. What's something what's a piece of advice you'd give to somebody who, whether they're private equity backed or just a solo person coming in, what's the one thing that you'd go if you do nothing else, you know, to, you know, this is the thing you want to make sure you get right from the beginning.

00:30:05:17 - 00:30:12:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Just if there's a way to get this process to be as smooth as possible, like, this is what I'd recommend.

00:30:12:05 - 00:30:15:01
Speaker 1
Oh, man, that's a great question. I, I would.

00:30:15:01 - 00:30:16:03
Speaker 2
Say.

00:30:16:05 - 00:30:25:19
Speaker 1
Probably the thing that I would recommend someone just have from day one before they ever start the process, and you're talking from sell side or from buy side actually.

00:30:25:19 - 00:30:40:20
Speaker 2
From the buyer. Yeah. Like imagine maybe maybe another way said is like what's something that if that buyer walked to the door and kind of kept consistent the whole time, would have allowed y'all to just be just to feel maybe less protective because you didn't need to be.

00:30:40:22 - 00:31:06:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. I would say the thing that, being on the same page as to the mechanism that you're using to value the company, because I think that's where I've seen from buddies who have been in acquisitions from both sides before doing the amount of reading that I've done on it through the process of of acquiring my business now, and even in my experiences, it's where you're not on the same page when it comes to the value of the company.

00:31:06:15 - 00:31:39:12
Speaker 1
And what establishes that value. That's where things get messy, because I think especially in a in a historical, I won't even say historical, but like a legacy company, the way that our family company was or even how Alamo was that I bought. There's so much emotional, you know, tie to that business that they're adding to that value. And so from a buyer's standpoint and what I don't think that the the buyers of our family business really took into account, which not to fault them, that's their model.

00:31:39:14 - 00:32:07:09
Speaker 1
But I think a lot of the friction that was felt is like, you know, I put my whole life that's my dad, my put my whole life into this business. There's certain parts of the, the value of this company that are tied to the brand that I built, as well as whether you're working off of EBITDA or you're working off of cash flow or whatever you need to do, just get on the same page as to as far as like what how big those pieces of the pie are in your mind.

00:32:07:11 - 00:32:43:00
Speaker 1
Because as as I've walked through the process, I've realized, like when I was on the buy side, I kind of had to pick my battles from evaluations standpoint, like I knew what I was working off of. I established that clearly with the with the broker. And, and in that process, still, there were times when I think the it just got emotional for the seller because this is his life and, and, and I want to be able to recognize part of the value that I am buying in the company is all of that work that he's put into it.

00:32:43:00 - 00:33:04:23
Speaker 1
Like, there's a reason that I'm buying a 60 year old company and not going and starting a glass company, and it's because of the brand that he built, more so, not more so, but just in addition to the financial ramifications. And so taking that into account from a valuation standpoint and having those conversations openly, I think is so helpful.

00:33:05:01 - 00:33:30:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's it's it's the human part of it too. Just recognizing that the person across the table from you has an appreciate for what was built. And even if at some point maybe you land on saying, hey, look, Michael, like, I can't give you the extra because of that. Like, it just doesn't pencil for me. At least they know you're coming from a respectful place and not like just dismissive of 40 years of, you know, whatever, you know, might have come together.

00:33:30:22 - 00:33:37:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. So you see the business gets sold. Does dad ride off into the sunset. Oh yeah okay. Yeah.

00:33:37:16 - 00:33:40:17
Speaker 1
He's been to like six national parks at this point.

00:33:40:21 - 00:33:52:01
Speaker 2
On here man. Yeah. His goals right for you to look into. Yeah. Things that you got something to look forward to. So what what what was the next day you took a hiatus and figured out, or did you stay with the company or what happened after that?

00:33:52:01 - 00:34:16:06
Speaker 1
So I was on for 90 days helping my dad through the transition once we closed. And but that really wasn't there wasn't a huge amount of responsibility during that 90 days. For me, it was basically beyond call. If the buyers need access to this software, they need, you know, a document that I created for all of their paperwork, you know, be available for them.

00:34:16:08 - 00:34:38:12
Speaker 1
So it wasn't super common for me to, to be needed. I wasn't, like, in the office, after closing, I was no longer in office. I was just at home, basically on call for them and available. So 90 days of that. But that allowed me to start my process on figuring out what was next pretty immediately. So I didn't know if I wanted to go get a job.

00:34:38:16 - 00:35:07:03
Speaker 1
Did I want to start something? Did I want to? I know enough people in the entrepreneurial acquisition to go and explore that route a little bit, and pretty quickly determined that was what I wanted to do. I'm not a 0 to 1 guy. I never really saw myself as someone doing a startup, although I'd never wanted to take that possibility off the table completely because I was, like, scared of it or something.

00:35:07:05 - 00:35:31:13
Speaker 1
But I knew pretty clearly about myself that it's just I, I really like going into something and growing it and making it more efficient, making it better, you know, leading teams. And so the idea of going and starting something from scratch pretty quickly was like, nah, it's not for me. And so, decided that I wanted to go down the route of, finding a long standing business to buy.

00:35:31:13 - 00:35:59:07
Speaker 1
I knew I wanted to be still in kind of the trades blue collar world, but I didn't really have an industry in mind. I knew that I didn't want to be in 24/7 emergency services anymore. But I, I looked at all different types of companies marble and stone fabrication companies, flooring companies, Hvac, I looked at I went and explored CPG for a minute, which was pretty fun.

00:35:59:07 - 00:36:22:01
Speaker 1
Like pretty quickly realized I didn't want to go into that world, but it was really fun to explore it for a minute. And then meanwhile, in this process, I'm kind of trying to not use a broker. I'd been advised by some guys that I know that from the buy side, they're like, there's really not unless you're having trouble finding deal flow, there's not a huge upside to using a broker.

00:36:22:01 - 00:36:48:19
Speaker 1
At least that's what they communicated to me. If you can find an off market deal or a friend of a friend or someone who's in that space that can get you deal flow, then go do that. It's going to be a smoother process. And so that's that's what I was doing. I was trying to I was meeting with CPAs and bankers and lawyers, that were in the M&A space and building some really cool relationships and getting connected to some deal flow.

00:36:48:21 - 00:37:09:01
Speaker 1
But I went and had coffee with my father in law, who runs a business as well, and told him, you know, I'm of this is what I've been looking at. And, trying not to use a broker. And he's like, I get why you wouldn't want to use a broker, but I actually use this broker over here that, brokered the deal for my business when I bought it.

00:37:09:03 - 00:37:40:20
Speaker 1
And he did it the way he described it as he said, he does a really good job at playing Switzerland. And so he represents the seller. It's very clear that he represents the seller. But any time that I had, you know, questions or concerns on valuation or wanted to ask for concessions in the in the asking price, he always use or so open to having those conversations and he'd actually take them to the seller and they'd have their conversations and he'd come back and yeah, give the concession sometimes not give the concession other times, and they just talk through it.

00:37:40:20 - 00:38:00:06
Speaker 1
So he just spoke very highly of this broker, because I think that was one of the things too, that was offputting for me. And the idea of using a broker was like, what benefit again, other than deal flow, what benefit is to me, like you're trying to get highest price so that you can get your commission to the most of your ability.

00:38:00:06 - 00:38:22:15
Speaker 1
This is where my mind was at the time, and didn't really, you know, see a huge plus side. And so when he's talking about this and just how the guy that was the broker had been a small business owner that had bought and sold businesses over the course of decades. And so he just, he spoke highly of him and said, just go have lunch with them, see if he, he if he'd be a good fit.

00:38:22:15 - 00:38:29:07
Speaker 1
And he ended up brokering our deal as well. And is who introduced me to the to the former owner of Alamo.

00:38:29:12 - 00:38:34:12
Speaker 2
Looking back on it now, what are the benefits of having or are you glad that you used a broker on this?

00:38:34:12 - 00:39:14:08
Speaker 1
I am, I'm glad that I used it because I don't think I would have been connected to this opportunity outside of a broker like I don't. I didn't have any tangential relationships to him, to the owner or to the broker other than my father in law. But I did. Wasn't like meet him in passing. Yeah. So I think the benefits to me were the, the expedience of, of getting documentation, like, I think had I done the process that we went through, just me and the former owner and all the things that I'd be requesting from him and asking of him, I think he helped speed up that process.

00:39:14:08 - 00:39:21:08
Speaker 1
The broker did, and really guiding the seller, who had just been a glass guy for 50 plus years.

00:39:21:10 - 00:39:23:11
Speaker 2
That that person started it.

00:39:23:13 - 00:39:47:16
Speaker 1
He, his father in law started it, but it took over like three years into the company. So it's the majority of the history of the 60 year old company. Yeah. We're him. Wow. And so, I think he he really helped navigate that process for the seller. And that prevented a lot of frustration on my part going, hey, I need this from you.

00:39:47:16 - 00:40:06:16
Speaker 1
And he's like, I don't know where to get that, you know, I'll see what I can do. So the educational side on the seller, the sell side, I think was really valuable to me as a buyer because I was able to kind of come into the process. And the broker had already gathered a lot of that stuff before he took it to market.

00:40:06:16 - 00:40:26:18
Speaker 1
So it wasn't like we were waiting real time versus, hey, I meet this seller through a mutual friend, find out he wants to sell. He finds out I want to buy, and we're starting from scratch and process like I came in to here's a folder of all of this stuff that we already have. Yeah. Because I had needed to prepare it for taking it to market.

00:40:26:18 - 00:40:44:01
Speaker 2
Kind of prepared the environment for it to be can can be productive. I think part of the horror stories probably come from the, the non Switzerland types or the folks that don't add to it. Just like anything. It's like a real estate agent. Yeah, there's some great ones out there and this really bad ones out there. You just got to see who you pick.

00:40:44:03 - 00:41:11:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So yeah, I, I'd been given the impression that there was kind of this like car salesman kind of feel to brokers. I didn't really ever know any brokers. Yeah. So it's kind of taking it at face value of what I was told and recommended. And I think that a lot of that probably came from the fact that they are in that process to these guys that were recommending like lawyer, CPA, like they're just like, brokers just complicate things, you know, like, and I get that from their perspective.

00:41:11:15 - 00:41:22:15
Speaker 1
But I ended up having a really great process with him, and we had some back and forth. We actually pushed pause in the middle of the process for about two months, which I thought it was dead. I thought we weren't going to move forward.

00:41:22:16 - 00:41:25:06
Speaker 2
Who was the the owner of the broker did.

00:41:25:06 - 00:41:48:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, because basically we we came to them in the process and and I said, you know, I'm, I'm having a little bit of heartburn on the valuation of this company because of X, Y, and Z and the financials. And it was because they were just experiencing kind of some downturn in the quarter, which when we happened to be going through this process.

00:41:48:12 - 00:42:20:13
Speaker 1
So and when he'd send us monthly updates on the the financials, it started just kind of taper in a little bit. And I'm like, wait, is this like is everything okay? And so they they really just needed to kind of go back to the drawing board and put some of those numbers together again, re reevaluate some of the what they were asking for and what reality was versus I think a lot of that what we just talked about with kind of the emotional value versus the financial value, and how do we find that middle ground between the two?

00:42:20:15 - 00:42:31:21
Speaker 1
And so, yeah, they they came back a couple months later and, had actually dropped the asking price from what we initially had had been at, which put it more into the scope of what.

00:42:31:21 - 00:42:34:06
Speaker 2
I thought you worth.

00:42:34:08 - 00:42:50:14
Speaker 1
And so we kept moving forward and, ended up closing almost a year to the day from when we closed, our family business, so sold in January of 24 and then closed on this buy in January of this year.

00:42:50:16 - 00:43:07:10
Speaker 2
Would you say that you were particularly fortunate that it was that amount of time, like a year, or do you like, did you feel like it was long, or did you feel like it was short, just being able or right on the what right what you expected timeline wise to go hunting for business and actually get the keys?

00:43:07:10 - 00:43:07:20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:43:07:20 - 00:43:38:11
Speaker 1
I don't think I knew what to expect. I will say that when we when we sold and I stepped away from my day to day response abilities and was in kind of that 90 day period with them, my wife and I talked and basically were like, hey, let's give ourselves a year. And so it's kind of crazy that it ended up being almost exactly a year, because that was just something that came to mind of like, hey, I'd love to not just take a break for the sake of taking a break, but I also this is a big decision that I don't want to rush into, because we've set some kind of unrealistic timeline on

00:43:38:11 - 00:43:57:09
Speaker 1
ourselves and a year to find and close on a business felt at that time, pretty reasonable. Yeah. And so, I, we just said, hey, let's give ourselves a year. And if we're getting close to that year and we need to reevaluate or I need to just go get a job while we continue the hunt, like we can figure that out.

00:43:57:11 - 00:44:03:12
Speaker 1
But yeah, I gave ourselves a year from from when we closed on the family business to to find something.

00:44:03:14 - 00:44:18:21
Speaker 2
It's, what would you say happened that in addition to having convos with your wife and getting aligned on there, were there other things you felt like set into place to be patient with the process? And you guys have a huge nest egg? Like, I'm always curious because is one of the things we hear quite a bit folks get.

00:44:18:23 - 00:44:25:16
Speaker 2
We all get impatient and antsy about things. I'm curious what you did to kind of keep keep that year possible.

00:44:25:18 - 00:44:43:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that the main things were that I've got a wife who works full time as well, and and so we were in a place where I think if, if we were coming from a place where I was working in the family business, and then all of a sudden I'm not working and she's a stay at home mom, like that would have been a completely different conversation.

00:44:43:15 - 00:45:05:10
Speaker 1
So the fact that she had that stability for us, that we had, you know, just closed on a business, but a lot of the the money that we had from that was going towards the future, whatever it is. And I'd say we'd tighten the screws a little bit, sharpened our pencils financially as a family to be able to do that.

00:45:05:12 - 00:45:26:22
Speaker 1
To just figure out, like, how do we make this happen over the course of a year? But yeah, I think that we we basically just said, I think the, the, the idea of coming up with a year timeline for ourselves was just as much about the how reasonable it was, as much as it was what we could handle financially.

00:45:27:04 - 00:45:49:10
Speaker 1
So I think that that was also a part of it. Hey, how long do we think we could go to to allow us to do this search and do it right? And the year was just kind of what we figured out for ourselves. So we didn't have this huge savings. We didn't have any kind of like, preparation previous to selling where we were going.

00:45:49:10 - 00:46:03:09
Speaker 1
Hey, I know that the sale of this thing is coming up. Let's start, you know, tightening the screws now in preparation for that, we didn't do any of that. We just kind of said, hey, this is in our current reality, a year is a good time for us.

00:46:03:09 - 00:46:17:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Had let's say you had broke that year and got into a year and two months, year and five months. Do you think you would have found something and, and still were hunting, or do you think you would have. This may not ever came to true. Like looking back kind of. What do you think would have.

00:46:17:06 - 00:46:35:14
Speaker 1
Oh man, I don't know. I think I think I wanted to do it bad enough that if we had crept over a year, I would have just found a way to make money. Yeah. And keep hunting. Yeah. I've got a few buddies who've done that, and they've, moonlighted in moonlit. Moonlighted? I don't know.

00:46:35:16 - 00:46:45:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was using this word. You know, the word sink. I want to sink it with you. Yeah. I said to somebody earlier today. Yeah, after we sunk up, then I was like, is that a word to sunk?

00:46:45:12 - 00:46:50:21
Speaker 1
Sunk up. Let's go. Let's get some cup. We sunk up. Yeah. That's I don't know, makes sense.

00:46:50:23 - 00:46:51:15
Speaker 2
Texas word.

00:46:51:15 - 00:46:52:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.

00:46:52:11 - 00:46:53:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:46:54:00 - 00:47:09:06
Speaker 1
So I, I think that, I think that I would have just figured out, like, what do we need? What do I need to do to just generate income while we continue the search? But I don't think it would have stopped the search now.

00:47:09:06 - 00:47:29:15
Speaker 2
I mean, and just for my see, what seems to me this may or may not be true, but it seems to me that I think was probably really impactful in your thought process. Behind that is I mean, here's a guy that I'm watching that's, you know, observed on your family side and your wife's on, you know, on your side and her side owners and that what that life is.

00:47:29:15 - 00:47:45:22
Speaker 2
Then you worked in that business and then you're like, I'm gonna go do it for myself. So I think there's like this probably deeply rooted understanding of what you're looking and what you're asking for. Whereas I can I can see some folks that come through here and after like six months of hunting, it's just like it's too much, you know, I don't have the time for it.

00:47:45:22 - 00:48:09:23
Speaker 2
And I don't know, might be some indicators that may or may this may or may not be a fit for you then to go do this kind of thing with that line of thinking, I'm curious like the and I know this is a broad because the industries are CPG to glass. The folks who end up getting into owning and operating do you find especially with your buddies, do y'all find that there's a common personality trait or drive or something that some you can kind of go like.

00:48:09:23 - 00:48:12:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, it makes sense why that person's an owner?

00:48:12:10 - 00:48:42:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it's just I think the common threads, at least for the people that I know, are just kind of they're all personalities of just like, pull your boots up and like, let's go. Yeah. What's funny is the closest friends of mine who have who have either bought businesses or started businesses, they all have such different, skills as far as, like, I know a guy who bought a laundry service in Denver that is, you know, a finance guy was an oil and gas finance.

00:48:42:01 - 00:49:06:16
Speaker 1
Then I know another guy who has run an operations for a large cleaning company, and he ended up starting his own company in a different industry. And I'm obviously this weird background, like, I don't have, as least by trade or by schooling, you know, I didn't go to business school, I didn't study finance. I had a lot of these these gaps, if you will, of, what my background was.

00:49:06:16 - 00:49:25:20
Speaker 1
But at the same time, I had experience in running teams and organizations and being a part of stuff. And so I think all of the, the common wiring is just figure it out, like you're going to run into really great scenarios and you're gonna have to figure out what to do in that scenario, and then you're going to run into really hard scenarios.

00:49:25:20 - 00:50:02:14
Speaker 1
You're gonna have to figure out what to do in that scenario, like the growth that Austin Generator experienced after the storms was a great problem, but it was still a problem. We had to figure it out, like we had to reinvent the majority of the back end of our company because of the response to a market change. And so I think it's just all the personality of people, like even my father in law, who had who had done tech forever and then had his business in the trades, he had a huge, you know, season of learning and and taking the skills that he had with his finance background and going, how does this move into,

00:50:02:16 - 00:50:22:06
Speaker 1
you know, a trade business? And then you know, just seeing all of the different guys that I've known and gals that I've known over the years that have run businesses, they're all just yeah, let like just get up and figure it out kind of personality. Not too overwhelmed by the great times or the terrible times.

00:50:22:08 - 00:50:36:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. They're not like they're also, they seem to. Would you say they also seem to default to action? Yes. It kind of like I'm not gonna think about this too much and doing this. Yeah. You know, go. Yeah. Gotta go. So how's glass going? How long have you known it so far?

00:50:36:09 - 00:50:39:10
Speaker 1
About six months now. Okay. It's still really, really fresh.

00:50:39:10 - 00:50:45:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. So what are they? I mean, give me the. What's the.

00:50:45:02 - 00:50:52:23
Speaker 2
For folks who maybe don't know with the glass businesses, how would you give them kind of the, the, the quick synopsis of what the business does. Sure.

00:50:53:01 - 00:50:56:19
Speaker 1
So we're not a window and door company. I always start with that when people are asking.

00:50:56:19 - 00:50:59:07
Speaker 2
It's a good start because that's exactly where you would go. Yeah.

00:50:59:07 - 00:51:16:15
Speaker 1
So windows and doors are not a window into our company. We do everything with glass. So, we deal with window glass and door glass all the time, but we don't do anything structurally with windows and doors. So we're there's two sides of our business, a commercial on a residential. And on the commercial side, we're typically doing storefront glass.

00:51:16:17 - 00:51:35:23
Speaker 1
So that part we do fabricate and install frames, the aluminum storefront frames that you see on a lot of retail and storage unit places and, restaurants and, you know, even apartment complexes. A lot of time, the lobby areas will be storefronts. So we do quite a bit of that. So we have storefront on the commercial side.

00:51:36:01 - 00:52:00:09
Speaker 1
Also have repairs that are happening when, you know, someone comes along and takes a baseball bat to a big storefront, glass will go and repair it, replace it, all that. And then on the residential side, we do frameless showers, mirrors, decorative glass tabletops, window glass repair. So in that hailstorm blew through about a month ago through central Austin, we had tons of calls come in of just broken panes of glass.

00:52:00:09 - 00:52:18:19
Speaker 1
So we go and we can actually cut out the existing glass, put new glass in it and do all that stuff. So yeah, anything having to do with glass basically. Well, we'll handle the only I will say with the caveat we don't do auto glass. So, that's the only segment of the glass world that we don't, we don't deal.

00:52:18:19 - 00:52:22:15
Speaker 2
With is residential bigger or commercial just by revenue per revenue.

00:52:22:16 - 00:52:47:04
Speaker 1
Perspective? We're probably at about, 6040 to 7030 somewhere in that range. More commercial, more commercial. So volume of jobs is definitely higher on the, residential side we're doing we have a retail location. People are doing walk ins, getting, you know, picture frame glass replace that was broken by a baseball or whatever. Yeah. So we do that kind of stuff all day, every day.

00:52:47:04 - 00:52:56:10
Speaker 1
We have residential calls to people's homes all day, every day. And then the commercial jobs are larger jobs that we're accomplishing over the course of weeks or months.

00:52:56:12 - 00:53:04:12
Speaker 2
What's the, what's the parts of the business that either at the beginning attracted you to it? And even now, six months in that, are you just like, this is why I love this business.

00:53:04:14 - 00:53:05:14
Speaker 1
The simplicity.

00:53:05:19 - 00:53:13:04
Speaker 2
Okay. Really? Yeah. Then Sam's in front of me. Yeah, yeah, because you're like, we do glass, but it's not the two things you initially try. Yeah, exactly.

00:53:13:05 - 00:53:31:21
Speaker 1
We're not. Windows and doors are not cars. I think the simplicity in the sense of, we are a a needed product and a needed service that will not go away. That's something else that really made me fall in love with it is when I was going through the process and looking at all these different, companies.

00:53:31:23 - 00:53:52:08
Speaker 1
A friend of mine mentioned, businesses that have a moat around them as a valuable thing about that business, meaning it's something that, is simple, but not something that you would see, like a truck in a truck be able to come and undercut you pretty easily, like the scope of projects that we're doing. Yes, there are, Chuck.

00:53:52:08 - 00:54:09:08
Speaker 1
And attracts, but not in the way that you see, like electricians. Like I can go work with this huge electrical company, or I can work with this electrician who just works for himself. And he's probably going to be way cheaper than that company has zero overhead that exists in glass, but it's not super prevalent. You mostly have companies that are dealing with it.

00:54:09:08 - 00:54:30:10
Speaker 1
I think because of safety regulations, access to ordering the types of glass, specialized glass that we need for a lot of our projects. And so I think the simplicity of the the product and industry, in the sense of that, it's very clear people need this, we provide this, we get paid. Yeah. Like that's that's the simplicity of it.

00:54:30:12 - 00:54:52:14
Speaker 1
We're not dealing with service contracts. We're not dealing with we deal with warranty issues, but very minimally. So we're not a heavy warranty based company. We're not I think a large part of why we've never gone into the glass auto glass space is because of dealing with warranty, warranty, and insurance companies, auto insurance companies where you're doing claims through them and you have to go deal with them all the time.

00:54:52:14 - 00:55:11:11
Speaker 1
Like I think our company at one point did auto glass. And they stopped doing it because it was just a hassle. And so the simplicity of the business is what I fell in love with. And then just a long standing history, like I knew from the beginning of my search that I was not going to buy a business that had been in existence for five years.

00:55:11:15 - 00:55:32:14
Speaker 1
You know it as successful it is as it could be, there was something that was invaluable to me about a business that had stuck through everything, because that was true of our family business, and I saw the value in that. So to, to come into a business that had the foundation of lasting through, you know, for this company, they went through a ton, you know, they went through okay.

00:55:32:15 - 00:55:53:20
Speaker 1
They made it. They went through Covid, they made it. They went through the 80s and the the spikes in the economy over the course of those years. And I think part of that is because of the stability of the industry, because, again, glass isn't going anywhere. But I think it was also the stability of the market for, a business that provides something like this.

00:55:53:23 - 00:56:13:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, you know, I tell people all the time, like, I isn't going to replace someone putting in glass, you know, it might make our lives easier. It might make manufacturing better or cheaper or whatever, but it's not going to replace us. And so that that was what I fell in love with. With the business.

00:56:13:09 - 00:56:18:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Is the, just for my education. Are y'all making the glass to you or you're not? Okay, we.

00:56:18:22 - 00:56:26:23
Speaker 1
Just order from. We've got vendors and larger cities, Dallas, Houston for, San Antonio. And, we just order our glass.

00:56:26:23 - 00:56:29:21
Speaker 2
What you need from them, and then you guys are going in there and your installation and.

00:56:29:21 - 00:56:59:01
Speaker 1
Start installing it. We've got a whole glass cutting shop at our location in town, so we're actually the only shop in town that'll cut glass for you while you wait. So a lot of people will cut glass for you, but it's going to be you come back tomorrow and we'll have it ready for you. Yeah. So, yeah, I, I just, I, I think that down the road there, there's a possibility that I could explore moving into the manufacturing side, because I think that could be a cool part of the, the growth trajectory.

00:56:59:03 - 00:57:02:01
Speaker 1
But right now, it just makes total sense for us to outsource.

00:57:02:01 - 00:57:15:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. To get it. Yeah. Get in there. What are the things that currently I know it's still early days, but right now maybe keep you up at night a little bit about the business outside of the normal owner. Things like yeah, you know, given this thing moving, I'd say.

00:57:15:22 - 00:57:35:04
Speaker 1
The pieces still to me are I because I'm not an industry veteran because I'm a really a first time solo business owner outside of co owning with my family. I think the thing that keeps me up the most is like, I am only as good as my people and that will always be true. Even if I'm 25 years into doing it.

00:57:35:04 - 00:58:00:19
Speaker 1
I'm only as good as my people that are working for me. Yeah, and so the things that probably keep me up at night is people leaving and having not to say that they're not replaceable, but it's just the, the hassle that you have to walk through and staffing and we'll go through growth staffing. But in these first six months, I think the, you know, sit up in bed sweating kind of thing is like a bad dream about showing up on a Monday.

00:58:00:19 - 00:58:06:05
Speaker 1
And there's a note on the door that's like, we all quit, you know? But they haven't done that yet. So yeah, that's great.

00:58:06:07 - 00:58:07:07
Speaker 2
But we like the new guy and.

00:58:07:12 - 00:58:27:18
Speaker 1
We've got a great team. And I when I was looking at businesses, that was another huge part for me because I knew I wasn't going to go into something that I could be the guy doing all the stuff that I needed to have a really solid team. But that's another weird dynamic because none of them knew that I was taking over until the day of clothes and I walk in, I'm like, hey, I'm the new owner, you know?

00:58:27:19 - 00:58:53:18
Speaker 1
And so there's, there's a great team in place and there's some adjustments that they've had to make to having me as the owner instead of the former owner. And I've tried to be really open with that stuff, be really communicative and really clear on what my expectations are for where we're where I want to take this company setting a vision for where I want to take this thing, and just giving them the opportunity to decide for themselves that they want to jump on board or not.

00:58:53:18 - 00:59:21:17
Speaker 1
And but with that trajectory and with that vision comes potentially some new expectations on accountability and quality of work and communication and all these different aspects that are just a part of the everyday business that I, I have to be unapologetic on where I want to take this thing, but also realize that there's there are people, not robots, that are working for me, you know, that have lives and families.

00:59:21:17 - 00:59:42:14
Speaker 1
And I want to be really graceful with communicating to them when we're making changes on here's why we're doing this. What are your thoughts on doing this? What are you know, you've mentioned before in some of your videos about the best things you can do in the first 30 days, and I was I watched that and I was like, it's kind of cool.

00:59:42:14 - 00:59:47:14
Speaker 1
I did that stuff. That's and I was totally like, swing and blind, you know? So it's just.

00:59:47:20 - 00:59:48:06
Speaker 2
Natural.

00:59:48:06 - 01:00:09:21
Speaker 1
And it was just like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like it's really important that you let people know who you are, that you care about them, that they're heard, and that you really communicate clearly because I think I tell a lot of my people the best thing that I can do for you is let you know what I expect and give you the, the tools to accomplish it, because then we're not on separate pages.

01:00:09:21 - 01:00:27:23
Speaker 1
And there I think a lot of the rifts that come in new ownership in these transitions is like new Guy comes in and he's distant and he's got his expectations on what this thing is going to look like, but he's not communicating it with his people. And so I've tried to as much as I can, really communicate clearly, like, here's where I want to go.

01:00:28:01 - 01:00:55:03
Speaker 1
I believe that you can be valuable parts of of getting us there and be a valuable part of this team, but it's going to take X, Y, and Z in this new season. And, you know, realizing that that I'm not the former owner and I need to realize that for myself and they need to realize that of me and I need to be really graceful with with how I communicate that and not just be a bull in a China shop.

01:00:55:03 - 01:01:17:19
Speaker 1
And, you know, new owner, new direction. Get on board or get off. Yeah. You know, there's some times that I kind of have that mentality in my head. Like you, you got to get on and get off. But I'm not going to communicate it that way. I'm going to be very conversational with people because they're people, and they want to be a part of something that they're feel like they're contributing to and valuable with.

01:01:17:21 - 01:01:43:06
Speaker 2
It's always in how you can. It's how, right, here's where we're going this way. I think it's in the best interest of the company. Love for you to be on. But I also understand if you don't, you know, this doesn't fit you. And I think that's it's your that's the part that leading owning operating. It's the part in the job description, so to speak, that they don't always you don't that's not always the first reason you get into it, which is that you get paid to make the hard calls.

01:01:43:06 - 01:01:56:00
Speaker 2
Right. Speaking of hard calls, are you having I guess you don't you would not consider glass 24/7, right? So that's probably the thing. That's probably a nice thing. Part of the business is that you don't have a tech on. Call it 2 a.m. installing glass.

01:01:56:00 - 01:01:59:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Someone calls us on the weekend. We'll get to your call on Monday morning. Yeah.

01:01:59:10 - 01:02:01:22
Speaker 2
Get in the meantime, put it back. Yeah. Tape.

01:02:02:00 - 01:02:18:03
Speaker 1
Like, you know, figure it out. There's some key commercial customers that might have access to us that shed like a car drive through. Yeah, we'll we'll send a guy out tomorrow to or tonight to come boarded up for you. Yeah. And then we'll talk Monday to figure out what the long term solution is. You know, those kinds of pieces.

01:02:18:03 - 01:02:41:10
Speaker 1
But those are so few and far between. And I love the fact that, that I have that bandwidth with my family to be able to be all in running this business, pouring into it, growing it, taking it on a new trajectory and also be a dad and also be a husband. And that that was so valuable to me moving into this process.

01:02:41:12 - 01:03:02:23
Speaker 1
Is I wanted to do both. And I don't think we've kind of bought into the idea that you have to sacrifice one or the other. And and I think that's true sometimes, depending on what you're doing and how you're wired. Like, I think some business owners are just naturally wired to be so excited about this thing. They just go all in and kind of neglect pieces outside of that business.

01:03:03:01 - 01:03:27:07
Speaker 1
But I kind of came into it with this foundation of, I've got a friend who uses a phrase, and she actually uses it in the context of parenting, but I've actually had it as a mantra in business ownership. And it's, start as you mean to go on. So when she was talking about it in the context of parenting it, it was like, I'm not going to do these things when my kids are two that I don't want them doing when they're seven.

01:03:27:09 - 01:03:43:15
Speaker 1
So start now as you mean to go on. And so, like, if I don't want my kids to be eight and still coming into my bed at night, I'm not going to introduce that idea to them when they're a kid because they're crying like, I'm going to start now with rhythms that I want it to look like years from now.

01:03:43:15 - 01:04:10:16
Speaker 1
And so I've, I've had that in this business venture has been I want to start as, I mean to go on. And the way that that's looked for me is empowering my people. From day one, I didn't want to get, I knew that there was a certain level that I needed to get involved in the business, to learn, to learn the people, to get familiar with processes so we can make changes that need to be made so that I can get more familiar with the financial goals day in, day out, so that we can make tweaks to make ourselves more profitable.

01:04:10:18 - 01:04:42:08
Speaker 1
But I wasn't willing to get so in the weeds that I saw people start relying on me for things that I don't want them relying on me for six months to a year to two years from now. Yeah. And, and that's been really cool. That's been really life giving because I think it's given empowerment to my people who maybe if I came in and was holding everything really tightly and people were relying on me, I think that could be some of the nerves that are in these transitions for employees is they go, man, if he's going to start doing that, like, am I even need it anymore?

01:04:42:10 - 01:04:58:22
Speaker 1
And I just I'm kind of the opposite. I'm like, no, I don't. You need I'm paying you to do this thing. You need to do this thing. And I'm here to provide you with the tools that you need to do it. I'm here. My door is always open. Call me 24 seven. That's fine. But I need you to do the job that you're here to do.

01:04:59:01 - 01:05:18:01
Speaker 1
And I need to focus on being, like, working on the business and not in the business. And so, it's been cool to see, you know, after the first six months that I've got a good team and they they're crushing it. Yeah. And, and they don't need me to come in and start grabbing things from them, you know?

01:05:18:03 - 01:05:30:07
Speaker 1
But I still get out in the warehouse and carry around glass and help guys load stuff on trucks and get get out there. And, you know, to a certain extent, get my hands dirty. I just actually sliced up my hand yesterday carrying some glass.

01:05:30:07 - 01:05:30:13
Speaker 2
Right.

01:05:30:14 - 01:05:34:10
Speaker 1
So that guys are giving me grief. They're like, you're in the club now. Like, I know.

01:05:34:15 - 01:05:52:03
Speaker 2
You got your you got your battle scar me to prove it. Exactly. Me and my God, this is. Yeah, I think that's, And probably great note to end on, actually, is what? You took it right out of my brain, which is like, how does that kind of match with family? Actually, I'll, I'll ask you this because I think you probably have even a deeper perspective on it than what you just mentioned here.

01:05:52:03 - 01:06:15:08
Speaker 2
So I ask the question anyways, because I've heard a lot of owners say something to that effect, which is it does give me the familial life that I was looking for, which seems counter intuitive because you're like, wait a minute, you're the owner. Doesn't that make it like harder to do or whatever than that corporate gig you're working or whatever just for folks and kind of like as we close out today, like what?

01:06:15:10 - 01:06:23:02
Speaker 2
What does that mean? Like, why does it give you more flexibility, ownership, whatever that might be with the things that are important to you outside of work?

01:06:23:02 - 01:06:57:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think predominantly because I have a killer team. Like I think if I'm just a person who's doing a job for an organization, I am I am fully at the mercy of whoever says my schedule looks like this. And so what I've the way that I've found that freedom for the things outside of work is I, it's kind of the, the two sides of the coin, like the success or failure of this company is the most impactful on me.

01:06:57:07 - 01:07:24:17
Speaker 1
Yes. Like, should this company crumble? Which I don't think it will, but should it do that? Like people could lose jobs, but I lost a business and and I lost a lot of things from that. The hours and years that I put into it. Not to say that that's not true of people who are just working, but I think what I'm trying to say is you are your business is only as successful as you allow it to be.

01:07:24:22 - 01:07:53:16
Speaker 1
And so a lot of people think that that means I got to be there, always making sure it's successful, because I'm worried that if I don't, that it's not going to be. And I would counter that by saying no, you actually can make it more successful than if you're there in the weeds. If you just have a really good team of people that are running it and doing the day to day and allowing you to be spending your time on the things that you need to be spending it on and not spending it on the stuff that you don't need to be spending it on.

01:07:53:18 - 01:08:13:12
Speaker 1
And so I just established for myself early on, like, I think the benefit that I had was I came in if on day one, I didn't change a thing, we didn't grow revenue, we didn't change any processes. It was a profitable business. So just don't blow. It was kind of my mentality going into it. So I had that benefit for sure.

01:08:13:14 - 01:08:34:17
Speaker 1
But at the same time, like, I don't want it to be that I want to grow it. And so I want to be focusing my time and effort on the growth and not not just on the changes operationally. Because again, if I don't change a thing operationally, it's a profitable business. So where do I need to be spending my time?

01:08:34:17 - 01:08:54:08
Speaker 1
For me, it's business development. It's brand recognition, it's marketing. It's a lot of my background and I want to be putting my time and effort to that. And that doesn't rely on me sitting in a chair in an office from 8 to 5 every day. I can do that in the schedule and what it what it needs to look like for me and what makes the most sense for the business.

01:08:54:09 - 01:09:17:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, the catch 22 is that you got to be able to create those systems and power and set it, you know, which I know can be tough for folks. Michael Mann I, what a wealth of just nutrient rich information. What's great is having someone like you on the on the show that, it's kind of seen this full cycle of life, and particularly from a background that I think was unexpected.

01:09:17:10 - 01:09:28:14
Speaker 2
What would you say is that maybe the last thing I'll leave you with or ask is like, what would you say is the number one trait from theater that you use every day in the business?

01:09:28:16 - 01:09:33:13
Speaker 1
I think what theater did for me in a lot of ways was allow me to talk to anyone.

01:09:33:17 - 01:09:35:08
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:09:35:09 - 01:09:58:11
Speaker 1
I feel comfortable with because I kind of view life as the story that's being told. Well, there then that makes us all characters in the story. And I just love characters. I'm still a huge movie guy. Like, I go see an absurd amount of movies and I love story. And so, for me, people are characters and they are part of this story that's being told in a part of my story.

01:09:58:11 - 01:10:26:21
Speaker 1
Anyone that I meet becomes a part of my story. And so that's always just allowed me to be able to kind of see differences in people and value differences in people and, and be able to communicate well with people, over the years. And so I think that the whole acting piece, I don't know if you've ever heard the the phrase acting is reacting like it's way more important for me to listen when that other person sang their line than for me to just say my line and then not listen.

01:10:26:21 - 01:10:48:15
Speaker 1
It has to be responsive, and that's life. Like, it's so much more important for us to listen and to know what is is what makes people tick. And so I think the most valuable thing to me as I'm trying to build a team, grow a business, build relationships with customers that may have been with the business for 20 years, but they don't know me from Adam.

01:10:48:17 - 01:11:02:00
Speaker 1
I want the ability to be able to talk to all these various different types of people and connect with them in a way that I think acting provided a lot, a lot of value and resource for me to be able to do that and just basically connect with anyone.

01:11:02:02 - 01:11:09:22
Speaker 2
I can see that. Michael, thanks for coming in today. So good catching up. Best of luck with it. Maybe we can get get out there and check out the operation. We'd love to see it.

01:11:10:02 - 01:11:13:06
Speaker 1
Yeah we are. We're in an old cool like airplane hangar, so we'd love to have.

01:11:13:10 - 01:11:21:17
Speaker 2
Well, then I count me in, man. So, yeah, I love it. And great name, by the way. Sometimes you don't always get so lucky with the name of the business, but Alamo Glass is about as Texas as it gets.

01:11:21:17 - 01:11:23:16
Speaker 1
That's a great one. I want to keep it forever.

01:11:23:16 - 01:11:25:18
Speaker 2
So they give me. Thanks for coming.

01:11:25:18 - 01:11:27:01
Speaker 1
Up. Yeah. Thank you.

01:11:27:01 - 01:11:53:07
Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in to the American Operator Podcast, where we celebrate the backbone of America small business owners and operators like you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss out on more of these stories and insights from people who keep our community strong. Until next time, keep building, keep operating and keep America moving forward.