Tom Matter Bought a $525K SDE Nocturnal Hood Cleaning Business While Keeping His Tech Job

The Setup Tom Matter spent 12-15 years in tech as a solutions architect on a sales team. The pay was good. The work had long since stopped being interesting. He and his brother Dawson grew up watching their father cycle through businesses: sandwich shops, hardware stores, regional acquisitions. Entrepreneurship was always the plan. Tom just never pulled the trigger. Turning 39 changed the math. Tom started a part-time search, initially targeting professional services at $750K+ EBITDA. He built a broker list from the IBBA directory, cold-called relentlessly, and learned to handle proof-of-funds gatekeeping by showing a brokerage statement covering the SBA down payment. One broker eventually called back with a vent hood cleaning company in DFW. Dawson, meanwhile, had already run a vending company in college and a solo gutter cleaning operation after graduation. He was working as an HVAC operations manager when Tom called out of nowhere and asked if he wanted to run a hood cleaning business. Dawson said yes before Tom finished describing the job. The Deal Pro Duct Cleaning was a 12-year-old husband-and-wife operation serving roughly 1,200 restaurant customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro. Revenue sat right around $950K with an SDE of approximately $525K. That 55% margin was a red flag Tom investigated carefully. The explanation was straightforward: no management layer, no real office (a 400-square-foot room in a parking lot), no gas cards for employees, no CRM beyond Google Calendar. The owners did everything themselves. Tom acquired the business for $1.75M, a 3.3x multiple. The capital structure: 85% SBA loan, 10% seller note on full standby for two years, and 5% buyer equity injection. Tom took 85% ownership and personally guaranteed the loan. Dawson received 15%, structured below the 20% threshold to avoid a second personal guarantee and preserve his SBA borrowing capacity. The brothers agreed that Dawson's stake would double to 30% after the loan is paid off and certain performance thresholds are met. The bank required one non-negotiable condition: sign a commercial lease. The previous owners had been operating out of a parking lot, and the lender would not close without a real space. Tom signed a lease, closed the loan, then waited two months for a certificate of occupancy because the landlord had never submitted plans to the city. First 100 Days The transition was brutal. Tom planned to handle the office manager role himself while keeping his 40-hour-a-week tech job. The seller's wife claimed the office work took two hours a day. That turned out to be fiction. Day one, a technician quit with no notice, cutting the crew from six to five. Day six, Tom woke up to 11 missed calls and 20 texts from a restaurant owner whose kitchen had filled with smoke after a wiring failure during cleaning. The previous owner showed up to help and immediately insulted the customer. Tom realized that the seller's poor customer skills had been capping the business for years. Tom was working 18-hour days for the first six weeks, toggling between...