How Adam bought a $1.85M construction company

Happy Monday!

Today you’re going to hear a story about Adam, a manufacturing manager with a four-year background in construction franchising who wanted to add a second income stream without leaving his job.

Six months after closing on a 20-year-old exterior finishes company in Utah, he’s working 10 hours a week on the business, still employed full-time, and projecting over $300K in cash flow this year.

Before getting into Adam’s story, here’s a great success story from the Acquisition Ace community.

Leann bought a $1.3M sign company after joining Acquisition Ace, and her son now runs operations.

She went from program manager to business owner in less than a year.

👉 Want the foundation and knowledge to confidently pursue your first acquisition? Book a call with our team here.

Before the deal

Adam had spent most of his career in manufacturing management, with a stint owning a construction franchise that gave him a taste of what business ownership could look like.

When he started looking for acquisitions, construction was the natural target, as he understood the industry, the margins, and how to evaluate a deal.

He joined Acquisition Ace, built his search criteria, started looking, and five months later, he had a deal under contract.

Finding the deal

Stucco Tech had been operating for 20 years entirely on word of mouth from relationships the previous owner had built over two decades.

The owner had pulled back significantly from daily operations, with an operations manager and superintendent already handling job execution from start to finish.

Adam saw a business that was already largely systematized, in an industry he understood, with an obvious lever nobody had pulled yet.

He flew to meet the seller, liked what he saw, and submitted an offer.

(Inside Acquisition Ace, members learn how to structure forgivable seller notes - one of the most powerful tools for protecting your downside on any deal. To see how Acquisition Ace could help you acquire your first business, book a call with our team here.)

The deal breakdown

Purchase price: $1.85M

SDE: ~$500-550K annually

Multiple: ~3.36x

Financing: 75% SBA loan, 20% seller note, 5% buyer injection

Total personal cash out of pocket: 5% (~$92K)

Projected year-one cash flow after debt service: $300K+

What he’s doing now

Six months in, Adam is still working his W2 - Tuesday through Saturday - with Mondays dedicated to the business plus occasional evening calls and reconciliation work.

During the busy season, that averages about 10 hours a week, and in the current slow season, it’s closer to five.

His immediate focus is cleaning up the books, which were messier than expected.

He’s also hired a business development manager to pursue general contractor relationships and new marketing channels, something the previous owner never did.

The goal for year one: double last year’s revenue.

The key lesson

“Get support from wherever you can. People that have done it before. Being able to bounce ideas off people instead of getting in your own head and not knowing what direction to go - that makes all the difference.”

Adam navigated a five-month close, messier-than-expected books, and ongoing post-close negotiations with the seller, all while working full-time.

What kept him moving forward was having a community and coaches to run things by when the path wasn’t clear.

Ready to find and close your first acquisition?

Join the Acquisition Ace community with 2,000+ members who are learning to find, finance, and close deals just like Adam.

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