Turning $25K into a $3.2M HVAC exit in under 4 years

The Setup Corey Mullins spent two decades in HVAC. Trades right out of high school. Apprentice, installer, service technician, general manager. Florida state contractor license obtained in 2011. Previous decade and a half in his family's HVAC business. In December 2021, negotiations to acquire that family business collapsed approximately ten days before Christmas. He walked away with no immediate plan but with intact licensing and industry knowledge. The Two Simultaneous Moves (January 2022) In the same month, Mullins: 1. Launched Cool by Design with $10K personal capital and one truck. 2. Acquired McConnell Air Conditioning, a struggling competitor, for $100K. Asset value was primarily a 2020 Mercedes Sprinter worth ~$50K. Real value: a 1975 phone number and existing customer base. SBA 7(a) financing. Down payment: $15K (the 10% requirement). Total capital invested: $25K. The Build-to-Sell Philosophy From Day 1, Mullins operated with explicit exit-orientation: - Premium pricing positioning. "Price yourself properly, not for the business you are today, but for the business you want to be." Refused to compete on price even when 70%+ closing ratio was available as the lowest bidder. - Financial integrity discipline. "Keep your books straight, pay your taxes right. You might save 20-30% now through creative accounting, but could lose 6-8x the value at exit." Clean books from Year 1 directly drove the exit multiple. - Hard separation of personal and business finances to maximize valuation. The original financial target: $5M revenue / $1M EBITDA / $8-10M sale, netting $5M after taxes. Actual exit happened earlier, with $2M revenue. Year 1-2 Operating Approach - 2 technicians + 1 apprentice - Heavy reliance on subcontractors for installations and duct work - Deliberately low employee count relative to revenue - Minimized vehicle and insurance overhead - The original McConnell Air technician was kept on for 3 years, deliberately assigned to McConnell's original customers to maintain relationship continuity during the rebrand to Cool by Design The Critical Growth Lever An online marketing partnership specializing in trades. Per Mullins: "If you can't get the phone ringing, everything starts with a sale." Marketing was the constraint, not capacity. Year 3 Scaling and an Acknowledged Mistake September 2024: hired a field manager. Later in 2024: hired an office manager and an experienced operations person. These hires let Mullins transition from 80-hour weeks to working "on" rather than "in" the business. His direct admission: he waited too long. The business could have grown twice as far with earlier management hiring. Most trades-to-owner pivots have this exact failure mode. The technical operator over-trusts their own ability to handle operations and under-invests in management capacity until burnout forces the change. The Sale Process Early 2025: Mullins decided to explore a sale. Connected with Patrick Lange, a broker specializing exclusively in HVAC. Initial Facebook message; video call the next day. Asked $3M. Multiple offers received. Pattern: every searcher offer came in below every PE offer. One searcher Mullins liked personally; offer was not competitive. PE groups structured more attractive deals. The Decision Final price:...