Scott Crosby bought a $275K SDE HVAC shop in St. Louis and replaced nearly the entire team in year one

The Setup Scott Crosby spent nearly a decade running a trade association in San Diego before returning to St. Louis and landing in software sales. He had flirted with buying a business back in 2017, even signing an NDA with the broker who would eventually sell him American Services seven years later. That first search stalled when he detoured into producing an independent TV show (you can still find the pilot on Amazon). The second search fired up on a specific date: April 18, 2024. That was the night he discovered his employer had clawed back tens of thousands in commission he had earned the prior quarter. His wife told him he had not been happy anyway. He was on BizBuySell reaching out to brokers that same evening. His box was tight. Within two hours of St. Louis. Industry agnostic but biased toward B2B because his whole career had been relationship-driven. SDE between $250K and $500K. Self-funded, no outside equity raise. He had run a sub-$2M association with five to ten employees and felt genuinely comfortable operating at that scale. The Deal American Services was an HVAC, refrigeration, and commercial cooking equipment repair shop. The seller was an accountant in her later years, largely absentee, with health issues. Her son ran field operations as service manager but had zero interest in taking over the company and was terrified of the sales and accounting sides. The asking price was $1.2M. Scott ran the numbers through an acquisition analyzer spreadsheet he had bought off TikTok for $10, normalized the owner's $80K salary plus distributions, added back the cost of replacing the service manager's field work, and landed at $800K. He sent the offer with no rationale attached, the attorney's advice being to stay confident and not explain the math. The sellers accepted the next day. Capital structure: SBA 7(a) loan covering the bulk, $80K in seller notes split into a $40K full-standby note that counted as equity and a $40K note at a lower rate but on a five-year amortization. Scott now calls the short amortization a first-time buyer mistake. He brought roughly $40K of his own cash. The bank funded $100K of working capital inside the deal but offered no line of credit, a gap he felt hard once slow season arrived. Closing happened late September 2024. First 100 Days Week one delivered a $100K contract win with no deposit collected, meaning equipment costs came due before customer payment. That job stalled and eventually forced a $50K capital injection from his business partner via a low-interest company loan. Day three he told the landlord the smoke-filled office had to be renovated before he could work there. The bigger discovery was the team. The business had 4.5 employees plus the absentee owner. One apprentice was billing almost no hours. A key technician started skipping shifts within two weeks. Scott realized he had to replace nearly everyone. He leaned on a construction-industry partner for temporary labor through the summer, made a key technician...