Own a $4MM rev commercial printing biz. Tweet about SMB and being a sober Dad and Husband. Always working on all three. @KelloggSchool alum. Ex @MarsGlobal.
Joined April 2020
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13 Jan 2022
In the recovery community we have a saying that goes “you get sober with your feet, not your head.”
This lesson applies to so many other areas of life.
Stop thinking and planning - take action.
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The market treats "commercial printing" as one monolithic, declining industry.
It isn't.
Big-volume offset faces real headwinds. Web-to-print - B2B online storefronts - grows ~12% a year.
Same NAICS code. Completely different dynamics. The market prices them identically.
That gap is the whole opportunity.
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Jun 11
I caught up with a few former coworkers the other week and it was a great reminder of what I don’t miss about corporate.
A lot of smart, ambitious people who are great at what they do are also really entitled and complain about minor inconveniences at work.
It was great catching up with old friends (the fun part) but also listening to tons of complaining (not fun).
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Jun 8
Are “we don’t use a lot of leverage” and “we’re people first” even differentiators in PE now? Literally everyone is saying this. How can I short this positioning?
First of all, how is the low leverage claim even possible mathematically unless your IRR and MOIC are worse than other funds not approaching this way?
Also, “people first” is great but only if you live it. I actually think most people respect honesty about your priorities and objectives than platitudes.
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Jun 5
One of the underrated benefits of owning a business of any non-trivial size is the seat you occupy.
Over the past year or so, I’ve really sharpened my skills on playing the “game within the game” of business, which has to do with being the one who controls capital allocation.
Many of us as individuals and as business owners think of ourselves as passive participants who have to accept conditions that are given to us.
As a business owner you start to see that any position you occupy - as a customer, tenant, employer, etc. give you things beyond equity upside that allow you to play pieces on the chessboard.
You’re not just a “tenant,” you’re a source of income for a real estate owner with rights, options, and leverage.
You’re not just a “customer,” you’re a source of revenue for a vendor. They need you too.
You’re not just an “employer,” you’re someone who can shape incentives, allocate resources, and unlock potential.
When you view positions from this framing everything changes. And it’s way more fun.
The economic upside potential of being an equity holder is great, but it’s just one of many things that’s awesome about owning a business… if you have the stomach for it.
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Jun 5
I never provide a follow up intro or resource I soft commit to in person to someone who met with me after seeking my advice/help on something (ETA, b-school, local connections, etc.)
Your willingness to follow up with the concrete ask is the final gating mechanism I use to determine whether I trust making the intro or providing the resource.
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Jun 5
Two random and unrelated but interesting moments in the history of my relationship with my wife that stick out to me as reasons why I love her so much.
1. When we were first dating I was prepping for the GMAT and wasn’t testing out at the score I wanted to toward the end of my prep window.
I was telling her about how I was worried and how I needed to perform better to get into the schools I wanted to go to and she just goes “can’t you just take it again if it doesn’t go as well as you hope?” It was so disarming. Simple, reassuring and obvious advice that took all the pressure off.
2. About 12 months into operating TPA in the middle of a brutal cash crunch I was stressing in the kitchen one evening and spiraling about how I was gonna fail, what was I doing, etc. blah blah. She goes “babe I have a job and make money. We can survive on my income if we need to.”
It was another example of something obvious that resonated from someone who just supports and loves you. Like I had built up this whole narrative and immediately she comes up with an idea that would help if we needed to use it.
Truly grateful and blessed.
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Jun 3
Running a small business is like a mirror for all your best and worst qualities. Want your attributes (good and bad) magnified at scale? Own and operate an SMB.
My experience? 3 years in the business is abuzz with energy, enthusiasm, ideas and growth. Less abuzz with structure, order, and clarity.
Working on the latter with the help of others is my primary focus, but man is it humbling and a journey in personal growth to do this.
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May 21
When I was a kid I remember hatching a plan to make summer break last longer by staring at the clock as much as possible like I did in school so that it would feel like it went by slower.
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May 19
One of the cool things about becoming an entrepreneur for me is that it has totally resolved the question of “what do I do for my career?”
I don’t know if it will be what I’m doing currently forever, but it’s like there’s no escaping who I am professionally. Whatever I do, it will be building something actively in an ownership seat.
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May 16
One of the biggest grifts going these days is your friendly neighborhood PE backed plumbing/HVAC/electrical business.
May 16
Home services has gotten wild.
My kids flushed a toy down the toilet a few years ago and it cost me $600 to have them take it out.
One line item for a site visit on the iPad where they took my payment. I did have the option to become a member for a trial period which discounted it. I cancelled the next day.
A few months ago I had a leak that my wife called an urgent plumber visit and the team told the $300 fee was to confirm there was a leak (we knew about the leak!) but that they couldn't remediate anything unless we paid $700 more. I found out before that was allowed to happen...
I legitimately go out of my way to find the ones who don't use ServiceTitan!
Fun fact my wife worked there thru the IPO...
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May 15
Something that’s really annoying that some searchers do (I feel you broker friends!) is that they will send you a laundry list of industry questions where each one could be the subject of an entire textbook.
I’m happy to help and provide my perspective on my industry but don’t try to monopolize my time otherwise I feel like I need to charge you. Distill it down to 1-2 things you really feel like you need clarity on and set up a call to ask me. Don’t make me do the work of simplifying for you.
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May 14
When you run a growing business, you actually add more value by making fewer decisions. And the stakes of those decisions get higher.
For example, we are moving next year. If I get our new location right, it could set the business up for success for the next decade. If I get it wrong, it could kill the business.
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May 9
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times. I have never met an entrepreneur who wishes they had starred later.
Earlier you start a business, the "worse" you can be at it & still make a ton
If you start at 22, you can grow slowly & still end up with a huge business
You have people age 30 saying "I'm *thinking* about starting a business". Hate to break it to you, but time's running out
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May 8
It’s crazy how frequently my virtual meetings in my corporate job were camera off? I haven’t had my camera off on a virtual call in a really long time.
I feel like the expectations are totally different in middle and lower middle market vs. large corporate settings. Anyone else notice this?
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May 7
Is retail ice cream the hardest business? Like all the hard parts about restaurants but on super hard mode: product that is temperature sensitive and spoils fast, lower average ticket size, narrower window to make money relative to fixed rent expense.
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May 4
I have never understood customer avatars. What does Suzy customer’s marital status have to do with her company’s print needs?
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May 4
I was at my niece’s birthday party this past weekend at an indoor kids gymnastics place, and I was loving the business model.
They have two parties at once, customer has to set everything up themselves, and they give all the kids who attend a free trial class card at the end.
The customer is literally paying their own acquisition cost. I love it. I imagine the insurance is through the roof, but seems like a great business model if you have the right piece of real estate.
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May 1
This is commonly misunderstood about what we do as it relates to online ordering portals for our customers. It is reoccurring via a tech stack we own and creates stickiness. One of the massive value drivers in the print industry that the market completely overlooks.
May 1
In ETA and SMB world, recurring revenue gets all the attention. Reoccurring revenue gets overlooked.
Project-based gets passed on.
But that's how some of the best deals stay on the table.
The window covering (blinds, shutters) SMB I acquired looked project-based on the surface. Single transaction, big ticket, customer goes home with shutters and you don't see them for a decade. Most acquirers price businesses like this as lumpy project work with no annuity underneath.
But what I learned is it's actually reoccurring in disguise. And that reoccurring revenue is carrying our business.
Here's the stat: 42% of our orders came from repeat buyers in 2025, in a project-based category most people buy once every 7-15 years.
That timeframe is the average between full-house projects. But every year hundreds, if not thousands, of our previous customers cross into a reorder cycle:
-Redo one room
-Add a Florida or sunroom
-Replace shades the Carolina sun killed at year 6
-Upgrade from a condo to a house
-Move into a newly-built home
Each customer doesn't come back monthly like a subscription. They come back on their own clock.
That's not recurring. It's reoccurring. And it compounds.
We acquired a 30-year-old company with ~20,000 customers in the database. The previous owner ran a phone-rings model. Strong word-of-mouth, no outbound reactivation system. And the business still sustained itself on repeat revenue for three decades without anyone systematically working the database.
That tells you the gravitational pull of an aged customer list in a project-based category is real, even when nobody's pulling on it.
But now we're pulling on it.
The reactivation cost on a customer who already knows our crew, our pricing, and our install quality is meaningfully less than a cold lead. They skip the trust-building, the competitive estimates, and most of the price negotiation.
We're at 42% repeat in year 2 and I expect it to keep climbing as we work the database with more intent and the reorder cohorts keep stacking.
If you're searching, don't dismiss project-based businesses as "no recurring revenue."
Instead, ask:
-How large is the customer database?
-What's the repeat-buyer rate?
-Is anyone systematically harvesting past customers?
A project business with a 30-year customer list and no reactivation system is one of the most under-priced setups in SMB!
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May 1
It never ceases to amaze me how much better results are for specific asks vs. general ones.
It particularly applies in a search context, asking for referrals, etc.
Got a referral request the other day and after following up with questions about ideal customer profile and getting non-specific details, I probably won’t be that useful.
Vs. others where someone knows their ICP cold, I might not have that person in my network, but if I do, you’re getting a high value introduction.
Be specific and results improve dramatically.
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Apr 29
Putting together a project, brokering an introduction or orchestrating a deal where everyone involved makes money and the customer gets a better outcome is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.
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