Buying a $1.2M SDE General Contractor and Grinding 21 Months to Stability

The Setup Jan Roll and his wife built a real estate investment portfolio before looking to buy an operating business. The rental work gave them exposure to trades, budgets, and the way residential construction actually functions on the ground. That exposure mattered, because they ended up targeting the category most searchers avoid: project-based, cyclical, high-ticket discretionary spend. The thesis was simple. If the multiple was cheap enough and the SDE was real, the category risk was priceable. They found Victoria Renovations on BizBuySell. Georgia-based residential general contractor. $1.2M in SDE. The asking multiple was roughly 3.5x, which is where GC businesses trade because buyers discount the lumpiness and the trade-coordination burden. The Deal Purchase price landed near $4.2M based on 3.5x $1.2M SDE. Jan and a partner co-acquired. The financing stack was the usual self-funded searcher shape for a deal this size (SBA-heavy, equity from the operators, seller participation where it fit). The headline risk was not the price. It was the operational surface area. Residential GC work touches roughly 30 trades. Electrical, plumbing, framing, HVAC, drywall, tile, cabinetry, countertops, painting, roofing, flooring, windows, and more. Each trade has its own scheduling logic, margin profile, and failure modes. The seller held that coordination map in his head. First 100 Days The first 100 days were not a playbook. Jan described the first year as 'one giant ambiguous ball of figure-it-out.' Three things compounded at once: - Georgia took multiple months to transfer the state contractor license. Until that cleared, the business was operating in a constrained mode. - The co-acquirer partnership broke down and ended in litigation. A partner lawsuit in year one pulls attention out of the operation at exactly the moment the operation needs the most attention. - The 2024 election cycle compressed residential discretionary spend across the market. Homeowners delayed remodels. Revenue fell 25% year-over-year. Jan worked more than half his weekends in year one. He woke up at 4am regularly from stress. The pipeline at takeover was $1.5M. It did not grow on autopilot. Operating Moves What eventually worked was boring and repeatable: - Rebuild the trade bench. Thirty subs means thirty relationships. Jan had to re-underwrite which ones were reliable, which ones were overcharging, and which ones the prior owner was carrying out of loyalty. - Tighten estimating. In residential GC, margin leaks happen at quote time, not at job time. Any estimator who systematically underbids will bury the P&L before the jobs even start. - Stabilize the front of the funnel. Pipeline grew from $1.5M to roughly $3M. That did not come from a new channel. It came from showing up, closing the lawsuit, getting the license, and being present in the business long enough for referrals to compound. - Accept the cycle. Year one of a GC acquisition in an election year was never going to be the steady-state number. Pattern-matching year-one revenue to a deal thesis is a trap.