00:00:00 Jordan Dubin
I think what you see in private equity a lot of the time is it’s it’s their way or the highway where they’ll come in, they come and this is for other people more informed than I am to decide with either you know the right opinion or the wrong opinion on how operations should change. But the one thing that that is true no matter which side of the debate you stand on is private equity is going to come in with a a very strong opinion on how the business should change. And sometimes that aligns with the previous or existing owner and sometimes not. And so that’s I think where you see tension where a private equity firm will come in and really push their vision, their value creation strategy onto the companies they acquire or or partner with. And so that’s that’s kind of I think a good segue into Gild how it’s different so.
00:00:53 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Welcome to the Kooler Lifestyle Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Kuehlhorn, and I’m excited to have you join me as I interview community members and business leaders from the communities in which I live, work and serve through my business, Kooler Garage Doors. We’re going to bring you highlights on characters in our communities. Why? Because community matters, and I want to know more about who is behind our business and leadership in order to understand and support the community fabric that our relationships make up.
00:01:22 Matthew Kuehlhorn
And collectively, we can build stronger communities that support our lifestyles, our youth and our health. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Kooler Lifestyle Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Kuehlhorn, and today I’m sitting down with a great friend, Jordan Dubin. He is an entrepreneur. He’s spent the last five plus years in finance and he’s launched with a couple of their partners, the Guild Garage Group, Jordan, I’m really excited to have our conversation.
00:01:51 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I want to tee it up real quick for the listeners. This is around partnership. This is going to talk about private equity and the differences in Guild and private equity and some of the changes in the industry. So this is going to have a focus. While we talk in the lifestyle podcast about Better Business living, longer community connections, today is going to be really around Better Business and a focus on trades industries, the garage industry in specific.
00:02:20 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Jordan, thank you so much. I’m jazzed.
00:02:22 Jordan Dubin
Thanks Matt, for having me on. That’s probably the best introduction I’ve ever gotten. So I’m going to have to make sure I bring you around to me, and whenever anybody asks my story and who I am, I’ll just defer to you.
00:02:36 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Also, I’m happy to do it and tell us where you’re beaming in from. Where you at right now?
00:02:40 Jordan Dubin
Yeah, So our offices are based out of New York at the moment. You know, as you can probably imagine, we’re on the road most days. I’m coming out of Boston right now. My lovely girlfriend goes to school here in Cambridge, MA, so I’m visiting her for the weekend. And so, you know, happy to be here and excited to continue the conversation.
00:03:07 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I love it. You and I connected. We have a little bit of a connection in Colorado. I’m curious, give the listeners a little bit of background. We can make this concise because I want to get into the meat of our conversation.
00:03:21 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Jordan, where did you grow up and what’s the, what’s the quick kind of summary into where we’re at today? Yeah.
00:03:27 Jordan Dubin
So grew up in New York City. My father born and raised Washington Heights, which is an area of New York, which is kind of north of Manhattan as you know it. My mother is from Sweden actually. So her entire family, my extended family still lives there today. Swedish was actually my first language despite growing up in New York and so while growing up in New York and and this is kind of to give the listeners a sense of how you and I first connected, we were lucky enough to be able to spend summers in Colorado in Gunnison Co specifically.
00:04:06 Jordan Dubin
And so you know, Gaussian, Colorado, very small town for the most part, everybody knows everybody. And so you know, when I was thinking about doing something within the garage door industry, the one garage door player I knew was Kooler because that was the one garage door company in Gunnison, Co And so Matt, again for the listeners, Matt was the first person I reached out to as a mentor, as a friend. And Matt has been instrumental not only to myself but our company as we’ve started over the last six or seven months in helping us better understand the industry and also just shaping the vision of what we want this to become. You know, I think that we can get more into it throughout the call. You know, we, we are outsiders coming into an industry that requires a ton of expertise.
00:05:03 Jordan Dubin
And so being able to lean on people like Matt and other great people we’ve met along the way to learn more about this complex industry has not just been helpful but necessary. So yeah.
00:05:17 Luke
Hey everybody, this is Luke from Kooler Garage Doors. Just want to take a quick second to talk about our sponsor, Sommar Garage door openers in our opinion. Sommer’s are the highest quality product on the market today. We recommend them for all of our residential garage door installs because of the variety of features they include such as Wi-Fi connectivity and safety features such as a fixed chain which moves along a secure rail to ensure your garage door opens quietly and safely. Click on the link in the description to learn more about Sommar Garage Door Openers.
00:05:56 Matthew Kuehlhorn
That’s awesome. All right, so tell us a little bit about Guild Garage Door Group. Yeah. Who is it? What is it?
00:06:03 Jordan Dubin
So Guild Garage Group is a budding family of garage door brands that we are in the process of forming. Again, myself and my two partners, Sean and Joe. We came up with this vision having worked for five, five years for me, six years for my two partners within finance, within private equity. And and what we saw especially in the last two to three years was the success that a lot of these private equity firms had by creating these platforms with residential and Commercial Services players. Platforms in the sense you would take a bunch of different businesses, a bunch of different brands and put them under one unified roof.
00:06:49 Jordan Dubin
And what you were able to do was have true economies of scale where multiple brands, multiple businesses could share back office functions. You could get procurement savings from the manufacturers. And what we saw and kind of the impetus for starting this was, you know, this isn’t just a question of, you know, we want to smash a bunch of stuff together, create something of scale, but you really do improve the underlying business models of each individual that brand or business when you do have consolidation, whether that be in again procurement, savings, you know, marketing and other things of the like. And so I think when we saw that we saw the success that businesses could have, we also saw the drawbacks and we also saw a kind of a dark underbelly of private equity. And so we wanted to find a middle ground that works for both parties.
00:07:53 Jordan Dubin
You know the, the groups coming together and the great business owners who have created these legacy businesses, legacy brands no matter what industry it was in and and create a system where all parties won together. And so we left private equity and we are now out on our own it it’s, you know, it feels great. It’s a true start up. We’re young and highly entrepreneurs and we are creating this platform where we just want to find a bunch of great business owners within the garage door space, give them the resources they need to achieve that next level of growth. And yeah, you know, it’s it’s been fun thus far.
00:08:43 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I love it. I have a number of questions bubbling up Jordan, but I want to kind of dissect some of the the verbiage and really get some clarity to listeners around private equity, what it can be, what it might do. I mean I think most of the listeners that are in this understand that you know A1 made it a significant private equity deal. There’s other private equity, you know, if anybody has a. Decent sized business and even a strong brand.
00:09:16 Matthew Kuehlhorn
They’ve gotten phone calls from private equity folks like it’s definitely moving in the garage door industry which is interesting to me. You know over the last eight years, it’s only in the last two years that this has started to to spike out. So there’s some changes in the industry. We’ll get to that in just a moment but private equity, so I’ll, I’ll jump in here and and share some maybe ignorance around what I know but. What I understand is private equity is is a group of folks, investors if you will that that put money into an equity type of account and then there’s usually a management that’s going to go out and leverage that money for a return to those investors.
00:10:03 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Let me know how I did. What other nuances need to be added in there? And then how is how is Guild different because you’ve mentioned that a number of times and. While you have private monies, it is different than private equity. So where’s the distinction there?
00:10:16 Jordan Dubin
Well, I’ll start by saying your understanding of private equity is pretty spot on that there’s really not much to it. You know, it’s you have these large organizations and again, you know, I spent five years in private equity, my partner spent six years in private equity, nothing against private equity. I’m not here to kind of throw shade at the industry that would make me a hypocrite share. It’s just a different model. It’s a different model that I think works in certain industries and doesn’t in others.
00:10:49 Jordan Dubin
But what you have is you have these incredibly large organizations that have massive amounts of money, massive or as they refer to it in the industry, dry powder. And within any given fund, you have to make between 8 to 10 different investments. And so you know if you have private equity firm XYZ and they say, hey, we want to build a garage door platform, we want to build a garage door business that is just one of 10 businesses they are going to be working on over the course of that four to five year fund. And so they might be putting a lot of money into it, but it is not their priority. It is one of 10 priorities they have and they give the attention it needs.
00:11:35 Jordan Dubin
But it is one of ten different businesses, one of ten different industries that they have exposure to on top of that. And this obviously varies depending on which private equity firm you’re talking about. But these private equity firms come with a massive amount of resources at their disposal, resources usually in the form of human capital. So teams at their disposal, whether it be paid third party consultants or in house operators. And so I think what you see in private equity a lot of the time is it’s it’s their way or the highway where they’ll come in, they come.
00:12:14 Jordan Dubin
And this is for other people more informed than I am to decide with either you know the right opinion or the wrong opinion on how operations should change. But the one thing that that is true and no matter which side of the debate you stand on is private equity is going to come in with a a very strong opinion on how the business should change. And sometimes that aligns with the previous or existing owner and sometimes not. And so that’s I think where you see tension where a private equity firm will come in and really push their vision, their value creation strategy onto the companies they acquire or or partner with. And so that’s that’s kind of I think a good segue into Guild how it’s different.
00:13:00 Jordan Dubin
You know we’ve been fortunate, we have a great investor group. So we’ve raised enough money to be as dangerous as any private equity firm in the space. Dangerous in terms of, you know, we have the ability to cast a wide net over with companies ranging from call it 200,000 of EBITDA at the low end all the way to $5 million of EBITDA on the high end. So you know, I’d like to believe that kind of covers the entire universe of garage door companies. There’s no company too small that we won’t consider and there’s no company too large that we won’t consider.
00:13:40 Jordan Dubin
The difference though is we’re not fund managers. You know we’re, we’re not private equity guys sitting back saying, OK, we’re going to diversify our investments. We’re going to have 8 to 10 companies. We like this industry. We like that industry.
00:13:55 Jordan Dubin
We’re entrepreneurs. We’re we’re we’re young, 27 year old entrepreneurs who have picked an industry that we are outsiders for and we acknowledge that. We don’t kind of come in and claim to be experts in the garage door industry, but we love the category. We love the category. And so we are coming in and building 1 great business centered around the basic premise that you have these unbelievable owners out there who have so much potential and so much to offer.
00:14:27 Jordan Dubin
And and all we’re trying to do is stand on the shoulders of those giants, be thought partners, be helpful to them where we can. But for the most part and you know I say this in in a positive way, but people may take it the wrong way, almost ride their coat tails give them the resources they need and let them lead a broader organization to the promised land. I think it’s it’s almost ignorant for people like us, outsiders coming in to assume we know better than people who have worked in the industry for 234 decades. And so that institutional knowledge, that industry knowledge is so important and and we not only honor that but we love that. I mean that is that is what we’re looking for.
00:15:15 Jordan Dubin
And so you know I’ve had conversations with a number of business owners, great business owners over the last couple months here and what you find it and I I say this to a bunch of people and and they sometimes believe me sometimes don’t is as much as we’re making an investment in a company, we’re making an investment in a leader and a leadership team. And so for us, you know you can, you can learn a lot about a company looking at the financials, looking at you know where the business is located, how many techs they have, how many trucks they have. But what does the team look like? What’s the leader look like? Are they hungry?
00:15:57 Jordan Dubin
Do they have a vision for the future that is larger than their current footprint? Is there buy in amongst the employees, not just the techs, the back office, the salespeople? And so, you know, I think that’s been one of the the most rewarding parts of this journey for us is meeting these unbelievable business owners who are so passionate about what they do. And you know, we’ve been very fortunate to just be able to learn from that. Even in these early days, 6-7 months in the amount we’ve learned from meeting with these business owners has been tremendous.
00:16:35 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Love it. I love the distinction there between private equity and. I think from what you just shared, what I heard is that private equity is going to make sure their risks are broad and so that 8 to 10 industries, 8 to 10 different, you know efforts is going to dilute some of the focus and it is going to be on an emphasis of return, which every entrepreneur should be on that emphasis for. But what I’m also gleaning is potentially and you had mentioned earlier you’d use A-frame like the underbelly. Ed, the underbelly of of private equity is potentially extracting some of the values, some of the cultures, some of the drive of the founding owner.
00:17:26 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Whereas is Guild is like an entrepreneurial partnership and Guild you guys are focused. All you guys want to play in is the garage door industry and be able to. Help owners drive even larger for their mission in alignment with Guild’s mission, and that’s definitely a distinction there. My question to you now Jordan is why the garage door industry now?
00:17:55 Jordan Dubin
Yeah, so before, before I answer that question, I would, I would like to kind of make one more distinction about Guild, how I think it it’s different. So you know, I do think that we are almost solving for a gap in the system right now, a gap in the system in terms of you’re a business owner, you want to realize some sort of liquidity event. But historically there have only been kind of two options. And by historically I mean in the last two or three years, I think if you rewind the clock five or six years and and Matt you would know better than I would, there were no kind of options for private equity. A1 didn’t exist.
00:18:39 Jordan Dubin
It was you know you run your business and you try to cash flow as much as possible. Now especially in the last two years this idea of being able to sell your business has become front of mind for a lot of these business settles. But I think there are two options. You know, there’s a one-on-one side and you know, I have tremendous respect for A1 as an organization, what they built. Obviously it’s been incredible for the industry.
00:19:10 Jordan Dubin
I I won’t get into what I think are some of the dark parts of that organization. But you know, if you were to sell your business to A1, I think it requires, you know, conforming to their model. You know you’ll likely have to rebrand to A1. Your technicians will have to be trained the A1 way. All your systems and processes will be done the A1 way and so you lose that autonomy and and so even if you stay on with the business, you’re just a clog in a wheel.
00:19:45 Jordan Dubin
Private equity, while they don’t always require you to rebrand, it’s much the same way where you have to start doing things their way. You have to report your financials the way they ask you to report your financials. You have to stay within certain cost cutting measures. And so you’re kind of boxed in and so again you have this, you know one side of the equation, large competitors A1, then the other side of the equation you have private equity. Why is there not something kind of in the middle that works for everybody?
00:20:20 Jordan Dubin
And I think that’s where Guild comes in and you know I try to say that in the most humble way possible, not that you know we are some savants coming in reinventing the industry. We have the solution, but we’re just trying to kind of bridge the divide where we understand that there are honors who have worked for years, if not decades, and they want some sort of liquidity event. They want to bear the fruit of their hard work. They’ve created these unbelievable organizations. But at the same time, these companies they’ve created, you know, they’re part of their identity.
00:20:59 Jordan Dubin
They might have family members who work in the business. They want to take care of their employee base and so is there a way to realize some near term reward while still continuing to run your business, be the face of your business? And that’s what Guild’s all about. Guild is about partnering with these business owners, taking a majority stake in the business anywhere between, call it 55% at the low end to 80% at the high end. Having the owners stay on, continue to be the face of the business, continue to run the business their way.
00:21:42 Jordan Dubin
There’s no prescribed way. Hey, you got to run it like we said. Because again, you know, we are a group of young entrepreneurs who are outsiders coming into the industry. Who are we to tell you how to run your business? There’s a reason your business has been so successful today.
00:21:58 Jordan Dubin
Keep doing that. And so we just want to be able to give business owners liquidity they might want, but also the resources moving forward they may need, whether that be capital for future growth, whether that be us helping you by taking all the back office functions off your plate. We have a great team based out of New York that can handle payroll, benefits, even marketing, if that’s something that’s of interest to the business owners we partner with. And so we kind of view it as bring in someone to be in your corner but not tell you what to do, have someone helping you along the way when you need it. But if you don’t need help and you want to continue to do it on your own, that’s fine too.
00:22:47 Jordan Dubin
You know, we’re here to help where we can, when we can, but we are certainly not here to take over your business and tell you how to run it.
00:22:58 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Love that. I love that and.
00:23:02 Jordan Dubin
In some of this, it is bolstering resources so owners could potentially move faster and potentially enjoy enjoy more of what they do totally.
00:23:15 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Because a lot of the folks that are listening are going to be similar to me where we started a garage door company either because we were installing or installers or it just like happened. There’s there’s a majority of owners that were.
00:23:32 Jordan Dubin
Not waking up and and like going through high school and be like I can’t wait till I open up my garage door company like totally.
00:23:39 Matthew Kuehlhorn
People people get under the industry because of a number of various reasons and and so you know a lot of times it’s an installer that is now an owner and there’s a certain skill set and. Any company is going to continue teaching and and give us new skill sets over time and and the folks that are really entrepreneurial are going to shift and and grow with that company in business. And there are things that I’m naturally suited for and there’s things that I’m naturally not suited for. And So what I’m hearing is Gild is going to be able to come in and just for the listeners like we haven’t done, there’s there’s no bias here and I’ll and I’ll talk to about. A little later in our conversation, like how I might be able to get ready for somebody like GILD that could also be good for listeners.
00:24:29 Matthew Kuehlhorn
But at this time, like what I’m hearing is that potentially there are great resources that can help me run my company faster, farther and I’m still holding the reins.
00:24:46 Jordan Dubin
That’s sad. Basically you you did the pitch better than I did. But that that’s exactly right. And you know Matt, you hit on something there where you said, you know bring in someone who can kind of fill in for some of the things that I’m not great at, fill in for some of the weaknesses, some of the pain points on the other end of the spectrum or other side of the table where we are. It’s the same way, you know, we want to find great operators.
00:25:12 Jordan Dubin
We’re not great operators. We’re outsiders coming into a very complex industry. We are great at some of the more you know methodical, not methodical but back office functions like payroll, like benefits and you know our background is in M&A financing and so you know let us help there and you continue to run your business as you have and together it creates a unbelievable team where we think both parties win. And so I think the last thing I’ll mention about Guild and then I owe you an answer on why Garage door is Guild is is not just about giving owners that near term liquidity that they deserve that they’re looking for but it’s also allowing them to ride this wave that private equity has picked up on that a one has you know successfully done last year when they when they sold to quartet private equity group which is there is a lot of money in the space and and there’s a large large reward for some of these scaled players. And and the reason being is because in the garage door industry today $13 billion category.
00:26:38 Jordan Dubin
I think the the latest I saw was there a 15,000 garage door repair companies in the US Of those 15,000 less than 1000 or over 1,000,000 in EBITDA and less than 100 or over 2 million in EBITDA. And so you have this long tail of garage work companies, but they’re, they’re few of scale. And so to the extent you’re able to create an organization that has scale, there’s immense scarcity value there. And that’s where you have these large organizations like private equity willing to pay, you know, ridiculous amounts of money. I guess it’s just, you know, businesses that have scale are so few and far between.
00:27:19 Jordan Dubin
And so, you know, we want to help businesses in the short term continue to grow, continue to get better at what they do. But we also want to help them get that second bite of the apple, which is arguably the juiciest part, which is let’s create something together over the next four or five years and emphasis on together where we can all benefit from what private equity some of the larger competitors are willing to offer for a scaled organization down the line. And so that’s why I really think of it as a partnership, because we’re not taking away your upside at all. We’re just helping you get there faster and more efficiently. And that’s the power here, where a business alone is valued at a certain amount, multiple businesses together is valued at 10X that amount.
00:28:12 Jordan Dubin
And so not only do we help your individual business grow, but you’re joining an organization that overnight grants you a higher valuation because you’re a part of something bigger. And so that’s another big part of the equation, which is come play the, I don’t want to say longer game with us, but come join an organization that will give you the ability to really realize a pretty crazy, immense reward at at the end of the tunnel.
00:28:48 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I love it. And I guess I want to state, you know, for anybody listening like this is a play for an entrepreneur, not an owner operator. And what I mean by that is when I started Cool Air, like I started it to sell. Not everybody starts their company or business to sell. There’s a different mind shift in there.
00:29:11 Matthew Kuehlhorn
So what you’re referencing is the potential partner and for the right owner, for the right entrepreneur, there can be an immediate like short term equity event while that individual stays on to become part of a larger pie. And there’s another event down the road because in the industry now and we could talk about some of the other shifts, but there’s technology that’s disrupting it. One is a bit of a disruptor. I think we’re modeling an HVAC model and we could look at the two industries and say, OK, HVAC is more consolidated now, right now than the garage door spaces. And because of the garage door spaces non consolidation that is where this potential valuation of a larger entity can really be a play.
00:30:08 Jordan Dubin
Totally, no, that’s totally right Matt. And I think that’s an important distinction to make.
00:30:17 Matthew Kuehlhorn
That’s cool. What else do you see in the industry as an outsider that’s creating shift and change and that gets you excited.
00:30:28 Jordan Dubin
So I think it’s a good question. I think that you know ERP systems like Servicetitan have been tremendously helpful for business owners and so Servicetitan has been around for I think five to seven years now, but really is starting to make inroads within the garage door industry over the last one to two years. And so you know we’ve been fortunate to meet with close to 100 business owners and seeing those business owners who do have Servicetitan and are able to really understand not just surface level how it can help you, but really be able to engage with it with their technicians, with other people within the organization, they really stand to benefit it. It’s a pretty amazing program when you understand how much it can help your business. And so that that’s been one of the big shifts I’ve seen again as an outsider.
00:31:32 Jordan Dubin
I think the other thing is kind of seeing the impact that a one has had and that private equity has had. I think people now are thinking they need to box themselves and change their business models in order to conform to a stereotype or profile that makes them more or less attractive to private equity to A1. We don’t view it that way. I think we’re just looking for strong, healthy growing businesses. And so you know, rather than think, OK, you know we were a 7030 resi commercial split, but a one is 100% residential.
00:32:17 Jordan Dubin
So do we need to completely shut down the commercial part of our business and put all our resources to residential? You know, we don’t view it that way. I think that as any great garage door business owner will tell you, there are a lot of merits to having commercial side of the business. There are a lot of merits to having you know, X percentage of new installation versus maintenance and service versus new construction. And so we never try to kind of come in and say, hey, we’re only looking for businesses that play 100% residential or hey, we need maintenance and service to be at least 60% of the revenue mix.
00:32:54 Jordan Dubin
We’re just looking for healthy growing businesses and I think you know the message we’ve gotten from a lot of business owners is everyone does it differently. Different things work, different regions, different scales, different sizes and and that’s the beauty of the industry is you have so many different players. That’s also the beauty of coming together in a broader organization whether it be Guild or or any other type of organization is you know you stand to benefit from some of the resources we offer. You also stand to benefit from the connection you make with these other successful business owners. It’s it’s kind of like the greatest CEO group you can be a part of.
00:33:32 Jordan Dubin
You know at our annual off site, business owners are able to come together, talk about best practices, talk about what works in their markets, what doesn’t work, share strategies and you have this kind of awesome partnership amongst all the owners because it really is a rising tide lifts all boats scenario. When you’re a part of a Guild garage group or any group for that matter, you want to help the other businesses in that organization. So that’s been a pretty, pretty awesome thing to see.
00:34:05 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I love that, man. I feel like we could go for another hour.
00:34:10 Jordan Dubin
I’m going to do my best to start putting some bow ties on this thing, and I want to.
00:34:20 Matthew Kuehlhorn
You know, in the industry, Jordan, you probably have seen this historically. The garage door owners have been very closed close to chest with information. Yeah. And I think I think Tommy’s done a bit of this where he’s a very public profile. He talks about raising numbers, sharing best practices, and it’s also technology.
00:34:44 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Technology can make things more transparent and then you add in. Just this eye opening experience that we all had through COVID days where the garage door industry trays in general kept moving, where a lot of other industries shut down for that temporary time frame. And I think that brought a lot of awareness like, oh man, here’s a quote, UN quote, essential business. And that was some of the terminologies and some of the codes and regulations that were. Coming down in those days and I think what that started to do, not just raising eyebrows from private equity and how money likes to move, but also puffed up a chest, if you will, of a garage door guy was like, Oh yeah, I am essential.
00:35:36 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Oh yeah, I helped the world move. Oh yeah, there’s value in the garage door. I still think even as prices have have doubled and maybe even tripled over the last. Handful of years the garage door is one of the more neglected areas of a home and undervalued area of a home. And so that also sparks a change in the industry where now some folks that are holding on to the the, the older paradigm, if you will, the devaluedness of a garage door, the devaluedness of a tree, they’re starting to get left behind and and I call it a disruption in the industry.
00:36:18 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Where there is now a new school, old school, whether it’s, you know, the A1 model or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s about using technology to purified service to a homeowner, to up level the value of a garage door. There’s new technologies that go into the door itself and into the operator and talk about remote access and all this stuff that’s happening is happening quick and it is creating a disruption. That might just be my monologue. I don’t know if that brings up any other thoughts in your mind or not.
00:36:52 Jordan Dubin
It’s a really good point Matt And and I think that you see this in a lot of industries but especially garage door where change technology it can be a great thing. It’s not just about disruption leaving behind, you know, owners, mom and pops if you will. To the extent owners and companies are able to and willing to lean in to some of the new school, the new technology coming, people really stand to benefit. So you know, my partner and I were at the Ida conference last or two weeks ago and we were blown away by some of the new technology coming into the space from some of the manufacturers. I mean some of the stuff that Lyft master is putting out there is incredible.
00:37:42 Jordan Dubin
You know that remote access, being able to do everything from the palm of your hand checking on your phone via an app, the security systems embedded within the the motors means it’s incredible stuff. And so it’s funny because I actually view some of that technology and the modernization of the garage door industry and some of the parts as such an advantage to the business owners, to the technicians because it makes their skill set, their knowledge that much more valuable. You know, one of the interesting things about garage door repair versus other services categories is there, there is a very little ability to do it yourself. You need to have it done for me by professionals, by certified technicians, because one, it’s a dangerous job to do. And two, it’s a complex job to do.
00:38:39 Jordan Dubin
And I think that as you see more technology being rolled out in the space by the lift masters of the world, by the CHI overheads of the world, the need for qualified strong technicians is just going to increase. And so I think for business owners that could be an immense advantage for them where they are able to own a market, own a niche that requires a lot of institutional knowledge and very, very technical training. And so I I I’m glad you brought that up Matt, because there is a bunch of change going on again as an outsider looking in bunch of change, but I wouldn’t stiff arm that change. I think that change is such an advantage and one that will continue to carry the industry both further and higher.
00:39:32 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Yeah, yeah, I love it, man. All right. There’s, there’s a question I’m going to tee up for another conversation, Jordan. And this is like how does, how does a company get prepped to be able to partner, whether it’s with Guild, whether it’s to to sell their company. I mean, we’ve got a lot of owners that are nearing the time of life where they flip the next chapter and they want to completely exit.
00:39:59 Matthew Kuehlhorn
We’re not going to get into all the nuances there. What I do want to ask is kind of this final question is. Who are you looking for and how do people get a hold of you?
00:40:08 Jordan Dubin
Yeah. So we’re looking for for anyone and everyone to an extent, you know, unlike some of the other players in the space who are looking at partners. So again, private equity and A1, there’s no company too small and there’s no company too large. And so we like to think about it as, you know, the the smallest. We will go is in terms of number of employees versus like a a EBITDA number or revenue number.
00:40:43 Jordan Dubin
So we, we like to look at it as, hey we we’d like to see at least three technicians within a company. And and then again that there’s no kind of too large of a business obviously in a in a industry like garage door repair, there are only so many larger companies. But we are looking for businesses of really any scale now outside of scale. What we’re looking for are owners who are not ready to retire, toss in the reins and and kind of be done with it. But owners who are hungry and motivated and.
00:41:25 Jordan Dubin
You know, might be looking for some near term liquidity, but are more so focused on that second bite of the apple, being able to join an organization that not only makes them better in the near term, but allows them to reach this kind of unprecedented valuation level in the medium term. So call it four to five years due to being a part of a scaled organization. So I think what that kind of boils down to is owners who are. Hungry owners who understand the potential of joining a larger organization and and owners who are team players, team players in the sense of you know, want to be part of something larger, don’t just want to be a a standalone business, but are willing to kind of share best practices and are open to helping out other owners where possible.
00:42:21 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Awesome. And how do those potential authors find you?
00:42:26 Jordan Dubin
Well, you can go to our website guildbarragegroup.com and and I think we have, you know, a contact us button on that website. But what I’ll do Matt, if it works I can share my e-mail with you. You can put it on the link. Also, I am a massive texter and my girlfriend gets very mad at me, she says. I’m constantly calling and texting with Barrage group business owners all day.
00:42:52 Jordan Dubin
But to the extent, Audrey, you’re letting me do this, my cell phone number is 347-342-7929. So call, text me anytime and again I’ll give Matt my e-mail. Hopefully we can toss it on the screen when they added this thing. But please, even if you think you’re interested but not sure, you know to hop on the phone with me or my two partners or anybody within our organization. You don’t need to be ready to do anything.
00:43:23 Jordan Dubin
We’re here as resources, even if you want to learn more about some of the things we talked about on on podcast today. Matt, we love talking garage door business owners. We learned so much from them and so and if it’s just, hey, want to pick your brain on this, want to tell you what we’ve seen to get your perspective, we love that, we love that, and so do not hesitate to reach out. We’d love to hear from anybody and everybody.
00:43:54 Matthew Kuehlhorn
I love that We’ll definitely include links into our show notes And for the listeners, I would encourage you to take Jordan up on his offer of having a conversation because it’s going to be informational, It’s going to be educational. I’ve had multiple conversations, Jordan and I. We’ve spent a lot of time together and what I appreciate about you Jordan, is the authenticity. You’ve got a good breadth of experience of how equity moves and you’re seeing an opportunity in this industry that’s a real opportunity for some of the owners that have been grinding. And there is an opportunity to up level value for the homeowner, for the garage door industry, for the garage door owner.
00:44:43 Matthew Kuehlhorn
And a lot of it just comes with education. And so for anybody that’s still listening to this longer conversation, a really kudos to you. B, information and education is the is the game. And when things start changing, like how do you find more information so you can stay with that change. And Jordan’s an awesome resource.
00:45:05 Matthew Kuehlhorn
So I encourage you to reach out to him And Jordan, I really appreciate your time, man. This was a fun conversation. There’s a zillion more rabbit holes we could go down. We’ll we’ll call it good for now, but bad. I really appreciate you and thank you for your time of.
00:45:24 Jordan Dubin
Course, man. Take care, Matt.
00:45:27 Matthew Kuehlhorn
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to the Kooler Lifestyle Podcast We count on your subscriptions, your likes, your shares and I encourage you to do that now. If you’re watching on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe. Lower right hand button. If you’re on audio, download this, share it, and we look forward to having you on the next one.