How Anthony Perera Built a $200M Company, Lost It and Bought It Back

24:29That's the time again post that. In 2024. End of 23, early 23, was against my wishes, yes. What did you say in that room? And was anybody actually listening? No, because, listen, at the time when there was$175 million on our balance sheet of debt, my voice was very limited. You know what I mean? but it was to find a new equity partner. The company was still very successful. It was$200 million, 220 of revenue, 30, 35 adjusted at EBITDA. We were a little over-levered, but most platforms at the time, even to this day, are pretty levered. And so the company was a solid company. And I felt that going to market so soon after not getting a process done in 22 would just taint the process.

25:12That's what it did. It came in and you had low offers and they were some dollars over the principal debt and it wouldn't have been a good outcome for myself or the other shareholders. And so I pushed back. I'm like, guys, I don't think it's the right time for us to go to market right now. Let's wait. Let's put our head down. Let's go grind for another year. Let's come back and maybe end of the year and revisit this conversation. And because we had that covenant fault, which was our leverage ratio was too high, they forced the process. Again, I don't want to talk bad about the lender. No, sure, I get it.

25:41You know, and, you know, they were, they, they did everything that they were legally allowed to do. And we acted in good faith and tried to be a good, you know, steward of the business with them and help. But, yeah, no, it was definitely a definitely eye opening time. You know, man, I am jacked up. LSU football is finally back in Death Valley is about to be electric. This season's even more fun. And because it's NFL stacked September on price picks, new promos every day, guaranteed picks every Monday, plus profit boosts and daily discounts all month long. I'm making my lineups, picking more or less on player projections, and I'm locked in.

26:21Download the app today and use code TDS to get$150 instantly in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup. Download the app today and use code TDS to get$150 instantly in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup. Prize picks. Run your game. For the audience, I want to be clear with you guys, for those of you watching and listening. This man built a company with his father and a bunch of other executives that was worth over$200 million. And like you said, a$35 million even. Our offers were in the half a billion dollars. It's insane, right? Yeah. So my whole point is though, when people start talking in these inner thoughts of I'm losing everything.

27:11Yeah. Like I can never do this again. For sure. You know, like you went through this. You stepped out as a CEO because you thought that's what was best. Yep. And then you were removed from the board. Yep. You know, and then you watched the company that you and your father built be taken apart piece by piece. And you had to sit there. Individual business by business. Yep. I mean, that's loss. You know, I look at it as yes. Is it lost? Is it with the outcome that we wanted? No. Do I think there's things we could have done different? For sure. I think it was a bad timing. But I think it hardened me as an operator.

27:49It taught me a hell of a whole lot, I'll tell you that much. I bet. Let me explain something to you there. But, you know, it was at the same time where, you know, wasn't the only company we were building at the same time. At the same time, we had inspected growing. And so with some loss, yes, there's an impact to that because it's just like any business you launch as an operator, an entrepreneur, like a child, right? Yeah, of course. You birth it, you bring it to life, you give it life, you give all your heart, sweat, blood, tears into this thing. And then watching it be potentially picked off piece by piece, all the companies that were sold are still operating today.

28:20They're still in business. The parent company that we had is obviously no longer, but it's not the outcome I wanted for myself or our other shareholders who rolled equity with us. But to be clear, and this is for their audience as well, everybody who sold into the platform made millions of dollars. They made millions of dollars and they took the gamble alongside of us. They took the risk. They knew what the risk was. But again, I have guys who still take me to this day of companies we bought who we changed their lives. Wow. See, I like what you just said there because people online are saying that people that bought into AirPros USA didn't make any money.

28:59What do you think? $175 million. That's what I'm saying. Up front. Up front. Exactly. You guys paid out$175 million up front. For these acquisitions. Come on, man. Yeah. Come on. Life-changing money for these people. I mean, dude. They made real money. I mean, there's guys who I know. I have frames on my wall still of wires that I sent out for$30 million to somebody. Like, real money. I mean, that's real money. Now, sure. Was it the turn or two that they rolled into the deal on equity or earn out that they lost out on? Sure. But listen, some of these guys who also didn't perform, right? Like post-transaction, these guys walk away and just say, okay, well, you run the company now.

29:35Well, no, I'm buying into you as an operator. You're supposed to be here as a shareholder and run the business. And it just was one of those eye-opening experiences because, to your point, the online chatter we had post this whole thing happening was, oh, this guy took all this money, and I didn't take any of the money from the shareholders. Sure, of course. And we lost everything, but we also made multiple people multiple millionaires, like guys who I know who literally got, again, big checks. I mean, everybody who sold to us got paid millions of dollars up front in the transaction. In my humble opinion, there are no guarantees in life.

30:16Death and taxes. Boom. Two, it's all you got. Yeah. So when you're, I'm trying to wrap my mind around the mindset and the scarcity mentality around the individual stating that, you know, I lost out on this. Someone gives me a$35 million wire, real money. Real money. Like my whole life has changed, like generational, right? My kids' lives are changed. Their kids, their kids. I can't for the life of me figure out why anybody would have a problem with that. I didn't think about it, but it could have been more. For sure. And that's, but that's human nature, right? I always want more. I always want this.

30:54I always want a little more. I want a bigger, I want a bigger boat. I want, you know, more, more property. I want more houses. We naturally always want more. It's just how we are all programmed. Whether it be more pay from your job. But listen, I want to make sure we're clear that it wasn't everybody who'd said that. It was certain people who had just a bad taste. There's some guys, like I said, I have guys who still text me to this day who got tens of millions of dollars and who are elated. Wow. I mean, they're happy about it. I mean, listen, sure. Would they have loved more? Sure. We all would have loved more.

31:23I mean, listen, our family lost the most in this whole thing. We lost, we were looking at multiple nine figures of net worth that evaporated overnight, right? And so it was definitely eye-opening. Yeah. But it lit a fire inside me. Like, we didn't do anything wrong. We still built that company. We still established, we built the processes, we tracked the KPIs, we had the dashboards, We had a proprietary systems. We trained thousands of techs to our AirPros University programs. Like, in the grand scheme of things, I think it made me a better operator because now I'm a little more risk adverse than I used to be.

32:00Now, full transparency, you have to be able to take risk. You still got that dog in you. You don't lie, bro. You have to be here. You have to take risk. And I see it in your mouth. You're never successful if you don't take risk, right? Sure. But, you know, we've built some great stuff since then, right? And, you know, we had a great outcome on the inspected business. us. We exited that last year to Bayhawk. It was a great outcome. Multiple eight-figure exit there, and we still own a big piece of it. The company is now growing at 80%. Annually, it's insane. I don't know how it's even possible, to be honest with you, but a great team of operators there.

32:29We have a large roofing platform now. We own multiple other companies in the Exuma brand. So it's definitely helped shape who we are and who I am as an operator and entrepreneur, but I don't think it makes who I am. Does that make sense? No, of course not. It's just something that you do. For sure. I think that's a big distinction that I want to make for everybody right now. Yeah. It's like what I do, I'm not a podcast host. It's something I do. You're really good at it, though. Thank you, man. I work my ass. These guys are really elegant. Yeah, the guys back there are crushing them. My dudes, man, the great partners.

33:02Yeah. But when I look at that, our jobs, our careers, it is meant for one thing. It is to support our families. And if one day you can make enough money and you're able to support more people and give back to the world or however you want to do, whatever you want to do with it. 100%. That's great. But it doesn't necessarily or even at all define who you are as a person. You know, to your point on that, you know, we had a transaction I can't really announce yet that happened this week in the home service industry. It probably will come by the time this podcast goes, whatever it is, probably will be the news, right?

33:39And one of the greatest things that I get the pleasure of doing now as an entrepreneur and an operator and an owner of these companies is we gave away$2 million of equity yesterday. Wow. To people in the organization down to CSR managers, production people. We gave away$2 million of equity on this transaction. And it wasn't because, listen,$2 million extra in our pocket's great, but you want to incentivize the team to go out and be successful, right? And so if you make them all owners, as operators say, act like an owner. I want to make them owners. I want to change people's lives, right? A$50 ,000 equity check to somebody that maybe hopefully five, six, seven X's in the grand scheme of things, a guy who's usually making$25,$30 an hour, that's life-changing money.

34:26That's paying off a house. That's putting your kids into college. I mean, that's the kind of impact that I want to have with our team members and our business. I love that, man. the word impact for me is so important for sure you know that's something we shoot for here and and i'm sure you can tell by the conversation it's not like a normal show we really dive into the background we want to show the audience what happened in that person's life so that way when the comeback is talked about it impacts them yeah that's all we're here for and if we live our whole lives and at the end we're satisfied about the people we impacted that's that's great man because you can't take the money with you.

35:05I mean, everybody says you can't take your shit with you. For sure. What did you do here on earth to make everybody else feel like you gave a shit about them? It's definitely a question. It's definitely a question that I think about all the time. How many people have we impacted? How many lives have I touched? I have a partner of ours in Colorado who we supported on a new business launch. It's a company called Around the clock. Guy's a really, really close friend of mine, like family. He was my sales manager at other company we had during the AirPros day. He came to me after that whole thing happened, and he goes, hey, I want to open an HVAC business in Colorado.

35:43And I said, I 1 ,000 % will get behind you. Put the capital up for him, with him, and he launched the business a year and a half ago now. First year, the guy rips 10 million bucks off in one year, out of the ground. One of the best operators ever in my life, but because I took a chance with him, you know what I mean? Like, listen, this guy, I didn't know he's a good business operator. He's a good sales guy. Back to my point earlier, right? The best sales guys usually make great entrepreneurs because they're hungry for the revenue. And so, you know, but yeah, I mean, back to your point about impacting people's lives, like that company one day is going to be sold for, you know, tens of millions of dollars.

36:21And the guy's going to have life-changing generational money for him and his family. And I like doing that. I like giving back to that now. And if I can use my knowledge and my experience to help other people. It's amazing, dude. Yeah. When all this went down, like the fall, whatever, man, people can define it however they want. The shit. What is the one thing that you learned from that that you couldn't learn from winning all the time? that's a deep question man um hey can they give me some thoughts on that one um you know i think what what i learned the most out of that whole experience is loyalty means a lot and when your back's against the wall and you're fighting a big whether it be a demon whether it be a another a business issue whatever it is you got to make sure you have people loyal to you and around you.

37:15Yeah, man. So post this whole thing, we got the opportunity to buy back Florida, right? And so some of those dollars we gave away yesterday, part of that whole situation. And those people who have been loyal to me were loyal through that as well. And so if you can establish loyalty with people, and it'd be like, I'm going to go run through a wall for you, loyalty, but people who have your back loyalty, listen, a lot of bad things are being said. And And we knew when all that went down, who was loyal and who's not, who stood by me and who didn't. Right. And it's crazy because a lot of these people online who talked all that stuff, you know, I mean, what in front of you, they're your best friend.

37:56Oh, yeah. But behind your back, when you don't see them, they want to run their mouth. Right. So it's one of those things you just got to kind of, you know, take over the grain of salt. It's hard, you know, because when people start running their mouths about things or, you know, hey, you know, and you never hear it from them. You hear it from some. For sure. So-and-so made this post on social media, or his wife did this, or it's like - Yeah. It's hurtful because you know your intentions. You know what you were looking to do, and you know you did them right. And some of the things that happened, you just couldn't control.

38:24For sure. You know, it went hyperspeed and - Rates on the market went crazy. I mean, a macro environment shifted. It wasn't like something that I didn't do that. You know what I mean? The company, even when they filed for bankruptcy and they filed for restructuring in Chapter 11, the company still was doing, look at the filings,$200 million revenue with$25 million Vibita. It was still a profitable business. The companies that came out of that are still profitable companies and they're still around. I mean, you know, and sure, we didn't get the outcome we wanted, but it was definitely a business that didn't have to do what it did.

39:02And that's why have fought the whole process of it. I was like, we don't need to do that. Let's keep pushing. And we didn't come to terms on that view. It's one of those things, man, where you look back and like, did that happen? I really go through this. And one thing that kind of jogged in my mind when you were talking, you talked about still it's 25 million EBIT, but they didn't have to go through that process, the BK, everything. What's it like building something so big and then reading about it in court finally? Well, it's like building something so big it was scary as shit, I'll tell you that much.

39:43When did it start being scary though? When your payrolls are, you know, a million dollars or a million and a half dollars a week or whatever it is, or, you know, your Amex bill is$4 million a month. Like it's massive numbers. And listen, looking back now, it wasn't scary when you're in it, but as it was happening to you, as it was building up bigger and bigger, it became scary, right? But yeah, listen, it was hurtful, right? It was like anything. Even if you go see someone talking shit about your friend online, you get upset, right? So yeah, and like having my own child that we built, which was AeroPros at the time, was seeing it get drugged through that kind of bad PR and some of the hit pieces and some of these guys who put these articles about it because they just read a court file and you don't know the actual story behind it.

40:30I find it comical. I mean, listen, our president says it all the time. It's fake news, man. Like it's these guys just getting whoever they can do to go and get likes and views and they post fake stuff and it's, and, and sure, comical, hurtful, all in the same breath, but I kind of tuned it out. I put blinders on and said, I'm going to focus what I'm doing. And we're going to focus on, on, on making sure that when they do sell these companies, they go into good hands and help that transition. You can call the lender any day you want and ask him how I acted. I could have been a complete asshole.

41:00I could have gone in there and sued everybody and been a jerk and caused a bunch of ruckus. It wasn't the lender's fault. Yeah, sure, they make bad decisions. Of course. I mean, I don't agree with their decisions. It wasn't their fault. They trusted me with 175 million bucks or our executive team. I had a duty to them to give them back as much as we could of their money, right? And I think, listen, and we paid interest the whole time. It was never a monetary default. It was non-monetary. It was our covenant issue. We couldn't get our audit done 10 times. It was little stuff like that, right? And so I have to blame, I point the finger at myself because we should have taken better action faster, whether it be the executive team, whether it be whatever we had to prevent some of this stuff.

41:42but you know looking at it online and seeing the articles and reading the bad news that was coming out i just what why why focus on that yeah why why give negative energy more negative energy like i'm a big believer in positive energy i'm a forever optimist i don't care what happens i'm going to find i'm going to smile through it and figure it out but if you if you spend a negative energy on on something for too long you become a negative person and it it permeates your whole Everything you do, everything you touch, everything you think about becomes negative. And so if I get up every morning at 5.30 in the morning, I start with positive affirmations.

42:20My kids who are six and eight years old, when they brush their teeth in the morning, say their problems of affirmations, you got to have a mindset. Mindset is everything. Yeah. You know, I mean. Oh, dude. Everything. A hundred percent. My wife has our kids doing the affirmations. Yep. They wake up in the morning. They do that when they're brushing their teeth. Yep. Sometimes on the way to school. Yep. Right. They write their, they have a gratitude journal. Yep. I have a daughter. I love it. I have two daughters, right? And a son. I have a seven-year-old, nine-year-old daughter. Good. And a 12-year-old, almost 13-year-old son.

42:48My nine-year-old turns 10 like next week. Yeah. And they do that every morning. I love it. And then before bed, they lose their mark. Man, I am jacked up. LSU football is finally back. And Death Valley is about to be electric. This season's even more fun. And because it's NFL stacked September on price picks, new promos every day, guaranteed picks every Monday, plus profit boosts and daily discounts all month long. I'm making my lineups, picking more or less on player projections, and I'm locked in. Download the app today and use code TDS to get$150 instantly in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup.

43:29Download the app today and use code TDS to get$150 instantly in lineups if you win your first$5 lineup. price picks run your game same book other side they write down all the shit that bothered them that made them feel anxious I love that it's a whole point and my wife do like sometimes I feel like damn like I am an inferior parent compared to my wife right I feel like that every day dude fuck man it's a struggle yeah for sure I feel like I'm always in trouble for something like I didn't handle a situation with my daughters correctly yeah a lot of it is I'm I'm a man, and when I feel something is going on or I feel my daughters aren't being...

44:18How can I put it? When I feel my daughters are being treated like shit at school, like, oh, bro, I want to go find the dad. For sure. I want to go find the dad. For sure. Dude, I want to bury somebody. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Especially daughters, man, because I have a daughter. That's the same way. Off the table. Yeah, yeah. Off the table. That's my princess. Don't even think about... Don't look at her. wrong. Right. Here's an interesting question. And I feel like after talking to you for almost 40 minutes, I feel like I already know the answer, but I don't think the audience does. And during all of it, everything you're going through, the hit pieces online, being kicked off the board.

44:55Yep. Did you become a version of yourself at home that you did not like? The answer, I think, and my wife may answer it differently than I would, but I... Call her. Put her on the phone now. No, I tried not to bring that negative energy home, right? Like, sure. Was I scared? You know, I mean, the bulk of my net worth was tied up in this company at the time, right? Was I nervous what to do next? You know, was I afraid of how I'd be received in my community for so long? Listen, I won Entrepreneur of the Year, you know, Regional Winner for Florida. I had 40 under 40, like, I mean, a 30 under 30, like, all the awards you can name because of my operations.

45:37experience with AirPros, I think that was more so my biggest fear was how the community would receive it after all that happened. I'll tell you now, three or four years later, two or three years later, no impact at all because I'm still the same person. We still have a lot of successes around what we've done and even post what we've done. But I tried not to bring that energy into my kids' lives. It's amazing. I tried not to have my kids impacted by that. As parents, you want to shield them anything, whether it be harm, whether it be bad news, whether it be whatever. Right. And so I try to kind of protect them from that.

46:12Full transparency. That's something that I'm trying to get better at. Yeah. You know, cause I never intentionally bring it home for sure. But if I'm, if I'm cooking, I do the meals, you know, I'm cooking dinner and I've got all this stuff going on in my head. Yep. And then something happens. Yeah. It gets loud in the house or my girls start finding because, dude, two daughters, seven to nine, going on 34 and 36 years old, they will trigger you. For sure. With their bullshit, right, or something dumb. She looked at me wrong. Well, I mean, because the problem is kids go to school. They're in school.

46:46If your kids are homeschooled. No, no, no, no. My kids are in school as well, and they have to be on behavior all day long. When they get home, it's their safe space. They just let loose, right? Whether it be freaking out, whether it be fighting with their siblings, I know your pain, man. My six and eight-year-old, although my son is my younger, they fight like they're cats and dogs. It's so funny because my wife and I always talk about this. Whenever we go to school for a conference or whatever, they always say, my seven-year-old is the most well-behaved, kind, loving, and she is. And you're like, where's that person at home?

47:25Yeah, hold on. So I'm like, she goes, she follows the rules. She's helpful. She wants to do great. She's a, she's a high achiever. I was like, what the fuck? Babe, when she gets home, she's an absolute like Apache Indian. Like she goes nuts. Like she gets mad. Yeah. Yeah. And my wife always says, well, you know, the things that I've been reading about, my wife reads a ton of parenting. Yes. And she said exactly what you just echoed. Yeah. you know, they're on their best behavior. And this is for parents listening. Like our children are expected to live in a box when they're at school, be in a straight line, walk through the hall, hold the bubble, keep your hands to yourself, eat your food, do your homework, put it in the box, line up for recess, do this, do that, do this, do that.

48:16Could you imagine as an adult being told 24 seven what to be and how to be it? It's crazy. It's crazy. Well, that's why we're entrepreneurs, because we don't want to be in. I had a six-month stint as an executive at a publishing firm. It lasted six months. Dude, I had many years in it. And I'm just telling you, sometimes it gets very crippling. Yeah, yeah. Because you're a grown-ass man performing, or a grown woman, right? And you're getting calls from your leader. Where are you at? Yeah. Where am I at? I'm working, doing something. I'm home. Yeah. It's 1 o 'clock. I'm like, yeah, but I've sold like this much and I don't have any meetings and I'm good.

48:54So, you know, that's why I always love tying in the parenting aspect too with everything. And that's why I asked you that question. Sure. Because I don't think men do it intentionally, but sometimes we do bring it home. And I think it has to do with the pressures that we do feel and keep silent about how we're providing for the family. Are we doing enough? Am I good dad? Does my wife feel loved? Am I showing my son how to treat a girl? Am I showing my daughter how a man should treat them? Do you ever think about things like that? All the time, of course, man. Of course. I mean, everything we do, you know?

49:25I mean, listen, I'm blessed with two beautiful babies who are absolutely, you know, the light of my life, my wife's life. But no, it's all the time. Listen, they're a reflection of how you treat them is what I've learned, right? So, you know, how you behave. They see your interactions. I mean, they see how you act. They see how you treat your wife and their mom. They see how you treat other people. And so I do the best. Listen, we've been fortunate enough to be able to travel a lot and get them exposure into traveling. And we do a lot of vacations with them and they get to see cultures and all that kind of stuff.

49:56But yeah, I try to not bring home the work, you know, aggravations or the stress or pressure of that and show them the fun dad that, you know, that I want them to see. You know what I mean? I'm going to need to keep in touch with you because you're going to have to teach me how to do that. Because I'm like... I'm not the best at it. Listen, I mean, it's... I mean, I try hard. Right. I really try hard, but we're humans, right? You come home on a rough day and you're naturally frustrated about something. You've got one kid screeching or one toy slamming into a wall or you step on a damn Lego or something.

50:30It may set you off. We get triggered. Yeah, we do. But no, I try the best I can to not bring that home to them. And sometimes it's hard. It is hard. I mean, I'm not terrible at it. For sure. But I need to be better. We all do. And it's one of those things I love talking to men about it, especially high-level entrepreneurs. and who have been successful in business on their own because being an entrepreneur is a lot different than being a W2 employee. I don't look down on the W2ers. I don't. I really think - You guys should make tons of money at W2, man. I know you guys should make big money at W2 employees.

51:02I know there's a lot of people like on socials and things like that, that really rip the W2 earners. I think it's completely shallow. For sure. I have one of the smartest guys I went to high school with and he's the smartest guy I know in my life today, one of them. you know, works at a very large family-owned business. The guy doesn't like to have that kind of risk. Some people aren't wired that way, right? Like some people are wired where they can get up in the morning and just go and, you know, and not know where the next paycheck's coming from. And guys like, you know, you and I, you're entrepreneurs who can do that.

51:33Some people are just programmed differently. And it's nothing bad with them. It's just how they're programmed. They still provide great lives for their families and they're still living fantastic lives. And it's just different type of, you know, mindset. This may be a hard question for you to answer. because you didn't experience the corporate America right away. You were an entrepreneur first, and then you sold that mud life, and then you became an executive publisher for that company in a corporate situation. When I went from corporate America to this full-time, I felt like I was going to shit my pants for 90 straight days.

52:08I was so scared. For sure. I was so scared, but not to a point where it stopped me. was there any moment where you were like oh shit like this like this is sink or swim dude like all the time yeah all the time listen my early days i know the next next you know money was gonna come to pay payroll right how we had to go sell advertising to be able to print the next media the next copy of the magazine right even when you open the bar i mean there's times i first opened i had no knowledge of how to run bars and restaurants where i could make payroll in a week Got to go borrow money from an MCA guy, the mafia in New York, essentially.

52:45Oh, shit. Might as well be the mafia. I'm glad you're still here. But no, it's definitely for sure. You have it all the time. When I was first getting into it, even when I left the corporate America job that I had for the short stint that I did it at, it was nice having that guaranteed paycheck every week. It was like, man, I can kind of get used to this. I'm 22 years old. I was making$150 ,000. That's a lot of money for a 22 year. For sure. I made a few bucks before that selling the business. It was a good feeling. And I just realized that it wasn't, I couldn't go into an office where the next closest person of my, in what I was doing, was 40 years older than I am and couldn't log into Facebook.

53:28And so we, with the Mudlife brand, why we were such a valuable target for them is because at the time, we built the Facebook kind of page back in 2009. I don't know, was it eight, nine, 10 that had a million followers on it before you can actually like pay to get subscribers, like followers. Like we built a brand. And, and, uh, and so I, I remember the day I walked into the, uh, the meeting with the CFO of the company, it was called source of like media guy's name was John, John, uh, what's his name? John, John Bodie, I think it was. Um, and he's like, he walks in and he has these, he has, I have my magazine in front of me.

54:06He walks in with JP, with Four Wheeler, with Off-Road. He went to a big conference room. And he slams all of his magazines down on the table. And he goes, why are you beating me in stores three to one? I go, I don't know, because your magazines suck. I was honest with you. Hard truth, man. Here I am. I'm a guy. I'm 22 years old, 21 years old, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a Mudlife, like, Dickie's, like, mechanic shirt. You know what I mean? I'm going to need a picture of that. I used to wear white sunglasses. Total tool, man. Total tool. And so I'm sitting there having this conversation. And he goes, how did you get a million followers on Facebook?

54:37At the time, they're brands. I mean, these are big brands. They said, four-wheeler, off-road, diesel power, back in the day. Had 200 ,000 followers. We had a million followers on Mud Life on Facebook page. And I said, well, we built the brand. That's what we did. And we cared about the content we put out. We created a community of what we do. And that's what made them acquire us. That's awesome, man. Again, so many different industries, right? Great. And we saw you're in the capital private equity, right? So we're in a family office. We act like private equity, but it's our own capital we're investing.

55:10Okay. And so same similar structure as a deal. We buy companies, we help scale them, and then eventually we exit them. The only difference is we don't have a pool of third-party committed capital. It's our own money worth to put in these businesses. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Do you guys have any type of - Industry agnostic. Oh, really? We're about to close on a large auto dealership. I can't disclose the brands are drying, but it is a franchised auto dealership. I just whacked my chin on this thing, sorry. Oh, all right. Injuries happen, man. Yeah. Good thing it's soft.

55:39Yeah, exactly. But yeah. A branded auto dealership. I hope not. A branded auto dealership. It was just my best Michael Scott moment. Like, I had to throw the office in there, man. A branded auto dealership. We have technology companies now. We own a big roofing asset. Oh, yeah. About$100 million a year in roofing, residential roofing in Florida. and we obviously still have, we do passive investments. We made an investment in a brand company called R30. Okay. One of their products that they own is a company called Space Camp Wellness. So they partner with influencers to launch retail consumer products.

56:12Oh, wow. And so, yeah, we just literally actually, today or yesterday, they announced they went full chain CVS with a lip balm called Space Camp Wellness. Okay. So pretty cool stuff, man. That's awesome, dude. Yeah, a lot of fun. You get to see all kinds of different industries now, which is what I really enjoy doing. So with that, But what is your favorite thing right now? Because like you said, you're a family office. You're investing your own money. How much of that is, I don't want to say less stressful because it is your money. But it's actually more stressful. That's what I'm saying. But you guys also get to operate how you want to operate, right?

56:44Yeah. I mean, so we don't objective. Our objective isn't to be the operating partner. Although we do have operating partners on our team that help these companies scale and grow. We like to back entrepreneurs, right? It's kind of where we make a lot of our money. We find good operators. whether it be seasoned executives or entrepreneurs who've scaled companies before. And we back them and support them and help them grow. And that's kind of an exciting thing for me is obviously putting together a new deal, a new platform. I love that. I love deal-making. I love putting the structure together. It's a lot of fun to do that.

57:14But most things, biggest fun is when you sell the company. Yeah, absolutely. That's a lot of fun too. Absolutely. What's your guys' target when you take on an investment and you invest in an entrepreneur, like an auto dealership? or a media brand, or another roofing company, what are the frameworks of, hey, but by this time, we want this exit? So unlike traditional PE, which usually has a five to seven year fund horizon, we don't have a horizon, but we target three to four years typically. Our sweet spot of acquisition is we usually buy companies from two to 10 million of EBITDA, and then we hopefully exit them roughly at 2025, and we build what we call essentially a private equity starter kit.

57:57It's really cool. It's jokingly, we call them, but we come into a company, for example, the roofing business we acquired, we bought them. They were dispatching on pen and paper. They had zero CRM or any ERP systems in place, no sales process. And so we came in and put them on top of the line CRM in the home service world. We built the infrastructure around the business. So when I say private equity starter kit, I mean, we have the infrastructure in place, we track in the KPIs, they're on a CRM, they're integrated, they're ready to keep scaling. That's kind of our sweet spot. That's pretty awesome.

58:30So for the entrepreneur listening, and they're two to 10 million EBITDA, and they want to work with the Kazuma Capital Partners, right? I think I heard you say that there are some times where you guys can operate a little bit and help them. Correct. Right? You said if that entrepreneur has some promise, they're a good operator. They're a good operator, but they may not have the tools necessary to grow like that dispatching for sure situation, right? So you guys do help them with that. A hundred percent. That's our objective is to be a valuable resource to them, right? That's our goal. So that's awesome, man.

58:59Well, dude, it's been awesome having you on. I love the conversations. Dude, this is very fun and a lot of fun. We got to get together afterwards and, you know, keep in touch. And I think there's some things that we can do together. And dude, I just, dude, I love talking to you, man. A lot of fun, man. I have one more question for you though. It's probably the, one of the most important ones. Define determination in your own words, not the poster version, but the real version? Determination. The willingness to keep going when it gets tough. It's kind of my own version, right? Got to be determined.

59:31When I, you know, every company we've been in, it's funny, I had this conversation with one of the operators we had yesterday. We launched a new business for contractors called servicecall.com. And we're kind of bootstrapping it right now. And, you know, I'm talking to the COO. He's a great guy, great operator, brilliant mind. And we're discussing like, you know, capital and that we're, you know, we're burning cash and we're trying to grow this company and we're growing, but slowly. And, and I said, you know, what's funny is a lot of good businesses fail, not because they're bad operators or bad businesses.

1:00:03They don't have the staying power to keep going. There's so many companies that I know who, if they, they had knowledge, right. Or if they had even tech startups, they had knowledge or they had, they wanted to get access to capital. Like they would be billion dollar companies today, but they're not. You got to be determined, man. You got to be able to go out there and figure out a way to make it work. You have to. Right? It took on our inspected company, which we sold for multiple eight figures, is a business that we pivoted three separate times on. When I first launched the company, the use case failed.

1:00:33It didn't work. Second time, it didn't work. Third time, it finally worked and scaled, but we were determined to find a solution. And so, if I had to define what determination is, that's what it is for me. I love that definition because it is continuing to move on and move forward no matter how you feel emotionally about the situation at that time. Motivation is not going to be there. But if you can have the discipline and the determination to continue on when everybody's counting you out, nobody even believes in your organization that you can turn it around after the first try, second try, oh, third try.

1:01:06Okay, cool. Now it worked. But it takes a special person to continue to push, man. For sure. I know a lot of people in my industry that aren't around anymore because they didn't have the staying power. They couldn't figure out how to monetize their show. One of the biggest things in the podcast media industry is undercapitalization. There's a lot of great shows out there, but if they don't have the capital, we don't have what we need. We'd be probably one of the bigger shows on the planet right now because I can operate it. For sure. Great host. Thank you, brother. I used to suck. Ask them. They inform me.

1:01:43that they watched the old YouTube videos. I'm like, man, you sucked. I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, probably. And then I go back, I'm like, whoa, that was terrible. Actually, I hate watching myself on these things. Yeah, you're going to love this one. I still, you're going to love this one. I enjoy being here while we're having the conversation. I hate watching myself after. Well, then just listen to it. I'm just going to listen to it. Just listen to it. You know, it's all good. But dude, thank you again, Anthony. It was great to have you on and sharing your story with the audience. It's very inspiring what you've done and continuing to do and helping other entrepreneurs with what you needed help with when you were starting Air Pros USA, Mud Life, every other business that you've done.

1:02:18So it was an awesome conversation, man. And I appreciate you. Thank you. A ton of value. Thank you. And for the audience, thank you guys so much for listening. If you want updates on amazing guests like Anthony today, please head to thedeterminedsociety.com and put your information in and you'll get all the information on amazing people like Anthony every single week. And until next time, guys, stay determined.