Brett Maxam Bought a Concrete Flatwork Shop Two States Away and Runs It in 10 Hours a Week

The Setup Brett Maxam spent ten years as a CFO inside PE-backed companies, leading four acquisitions and helping grow a business from $8M to $65M in revenue. He already knew how to run remote teams across multiple states and how to live inside a cash flow model. When he started his own search, he was based in the Denver metro and wanted something local. The Denver market was competitive, and a deal collapsed days before close. He widened the geography and ended up looking at a concrete flatwork shop in Vancouver, Washington, across the river from Portland. Morcrete Construction had been pouring driveways, garages, patios, sidewalks, and porches for production home builders for more than 30 years. Revenue ran $3.5M to $4M annually with SDE just under $1M. Thirteen employees, one of them a virtual accountant in the Philippines. The shop sat inside a tight 20-minute radius of seven to nine active neighborhoods, pouring 240 to 300 houses a year on 1-to-3-day project cycles. The Deal Closed February 1, 2024, at a price under $2M, sub-3x SDE. Structure: - 30% down, mid-six figures, funded via a ROBS rollover of Brett's 401k plus personal savings (no early-withdrawal penalty). - 70% seller note at a 5% fixed rate, amortized over 7 to 8 years, no personal guarantee. - Seller stayed responsive and engaged post-close. The seller-note terms are the quiet story here. No PG on 70% of the purchase price at 5% fixed is well below what an SBA lender would have charged in early 2024, and it left Brett's personal balance sheet clean for whatever comes next. First 100 Days Brett flew out in mid-January, before close, and met the seller, the 30-year foreman, the crews, and the builder customers. He came in having already mapped the seller's daily tasks so he could see what had to stay with a human and what could be moved off the owner's plate. Early moves: - Digitized a paper-based back office. - Pushed field measurements and job photos onto phones so invoicing could happen the day a pour finished. - Plugged into the builders' own scheduling portals instead of managing a parallel calendar. - Hired a full-time virtual accountant in the Philippines to own bookkeeping and admin. - Built a rolling 13-week cash flow forecast, the single tool he credits most for making the business legible from 1,200 miles away. The 30-year foreman kept running day-to-day operations. Brett did not try to install himself as the on-site boss. Operating Lessons - A 13-week rolling cash flow is non-negotiable in a business where builders pay on 20-to-45-day terms. You need to see the tight weeks before you are in them. - Variable cost structures forgive a lot. Labor is hourly, concrete and materials are pass-through, so when pours slow the cost base drops with them. Only two weather days lost in the past year thanks to the Pacific Northwest's mild climate. - Short project cycles (1 to 3 days) kill work-in-process risk. Compare that to...