Alex Holly Networked 100 Meetings to Buy a $4.5M Waterproofing and Foundation Repair Pair

The Setup Alex Holly spent 15 years bouncing between technology consulting and small business management before a layoff at the end of 2023 forced his hand. He was 38, had two young kids, and wanted to stay in Louisville where both his and his wife's families lived. A friend floated a bourbon-industry startup idea. Alex passed. The gap between need and demand felt too wide for his risk tolerance at that stage of life. Two separate conversations in late 2023 and early 2024 pointed him toward acquisition. Both ended the same way: "Or you could look at buying a business from the generation of baby boomers looking to retire." One of those people told Alex to start telling everyone he knew that he was going to buy a business in 2024. He did. Friends later told him they had never seen him so locked in. Alex turned networking into a full-time job. Between January and mid-April 2024, he logged roughly 100 meetings. Some were with people he already knew. Many were with strangers one or two connections removed. He treated Fridays as scheduling days: if the following week's calendar was not full, he filled it. Louisville is a network-driven city, and Alex leaned into that. He was not cold-calling brokers or refreshing BizBuySell listings (though he did subscribe). His pipeline was people. On parameters, Alex landed early on the sweet spot between $500K and $1.5M of SDE. Big enough to support a family. Small enough to avoid competing with private equity. His banking friend helped him pressure-test that range, and the Acquiring Minds podcast confirmed it. The Deal A contact from Alex's networking chain suggested he meet a specific broker. That broker happened to represent the seller of B-Dry Systems of Louisville, a waterproofing company founded locally in 1980 as part of a now-defunct national licensing system (B-Dry was established in 1958; after arbitration, all locations became independently owned and operated). The previous owner had bought B-Dry in spring 2016 and added a Ram Jack franchise around 2018. Ram Jack installs patented steel piers to stabilize and lift settling foundations. The pairing was deliberate. B-Dry's revenue spikes when it rains: water enters basements through cracks and joints. Ram Jack's revenue spikes during dry spells: soil contracts, pulls away from foundations, and causes settling. The previous owner had built a counter-cyclical revenue profile. Monthly financials showed a mild rollercoaster instead of a violent one. The package included both operating companies and the building they operated from. Five-year average revenue ran around $4.5M with roughly 20% margins, putting SDE north of $800K. The seller had about 24 employees. Alex and his banking friend (who took a 10% stake as a mostly-silent partner) submitted a combined offer for all three assets. They did not break the price out by component, figuring the bank's appraisal would handle the real estate allocation. The real estate was just under half the total deal value. The seller accepted with minimal negotiation. Financing was complex. Alex created separate...