Andy Rougeot: 3.25x to 5.3x on a Self-Storage Gate Repair Niche in Five Years

The Setup Andy Rougeot came out of Harvard Business School with an Army intel background and a rejection letter he wrote to himself about consulting. He picked geography over industry, running a self-funded search from the Denver Public Library with a team of interns cold-calling owners. The target profile was boring, cash-generative, and local. RG Maintenance fit. Founder Rick had started the company in 1999 after a career fixing ski lifts, then found a niche fixing gates and access control systems for self-storage facilities. By 2017 the business had roughly 95% share of Colorado's self-storage gate repair market, did $2.5M in revenue, and threw off $725K of EBITDA. Public Storage was more than half of revenue. The Deal - Closed September 2017 with SBA financing. - Entry: 3.25x EBITDA on $725K, roughly $2.4M enterprise value. - Revenue mix: ~75% recurring maintenance, ~25% tied to new facility construction. - Customer concentration: Public Storage >50% of revenue, but split across many district managers who each made their own buying calls. Rougeot treated decision-maker concentration as the real risk metric, and on that axis the account was diversified. - Transition: a six-month, military-style left-seat / right-seat handoff. Rick demoed, then watched, then stayed on call. Before closing, Rougeot asked Rick to journal how he spent his time. That surfaced how embedded the seller was in technical scoping and sales, which shaped the transition plan. Operating Moves Year one, Rougeot tried horizontal expansion. He chased industrial sites and apartment gates in Colorado. Different specs, entrenched competitors, no traction. He killed the effort after about twelve months. The pivot came from asking Public Storage a single question: where is your service worst nationally? Answer: Oregon. Rougeot launched Portland in early 2019 with one GM, one tech, one truck. The expansion playbook that worked: - Recruit military veterans, especially former Marines and crew chiefs, through veteran recruiting firms, as market GMs. - Train the new GM in Colorado for roughly six weeks before deployment. - Launch each market with a single truck and generous invoicing (bill book time, not actual hours, while the tech ramps). - Use the existing Public Storage relationship as a beachhead, then add Extra Space, CubeSmart, and other REITs once local density exists. - Add trucks and techs only as utilization justified it. Oregon did $300K in year one and contributed roughly $600K of EBITDA by 2021-2022. Bay Area followed in 2020, Washington in 2021, Arizona in 2022. Headcount crossed 40 across five states. The revenue mix shifted further toward recurring maintenance, which de-risked the construction cyclicality that had been in the original P&L. Where They Are Now Rougeot sold to a PE-backed strategic in July 2022 for $9M all-cash on $1.7M of EBITDA, a 5.3x exit. Two forces drove the timing. Rising rates were squeezing REIT financing and pushing the entire customer base to cut discretionary maintenance in lockstep, exposing a correlation the customer list hid. And Rougeot wanted to run for Mayor of Denver (he finished 4th of 17). Post-exit...