Does anyone have experience in the service industry?

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February 09, 2021

by a searcher from Millersville University of Pennsylvania in Lancaster, PA, USA

For my first business I decided to not go the traditional Searchfund route and start a service based business from scratch. Due to the low barriers to entry, I decided on commercial cleaning. I immediately noticed that the majority of companies are focused on local markets, there are only a few that go after high value contracts (Fortune 500's, Department of Defense, Universities, etc.). Naturally, I decided to only market to high profile companies and in less than a year we secured $1mm in long term contracts. The only downside is that due to long term contracts governing the relationship, the sales cycle is very long.

As a result, I decided to look into potential acquisition targets with a similar client portfolio in order to maintain our growth rate. There are a lot of opportunities to acquire these companies at a steep discount (around 2.75x EBITA). They're not efficiently ran and their solid relationships with clients that have locations across nation offers the opportunity to significantly increase revenue as more companies are consolidated. There are also a lot of cost synergies to be created as well (centralized back office). All in all, the potential seems incredible and the large players in the industry are paying over 5x EBITA to acquire national/regional commercial cleaning companies. Has anyone had any success with this strategy, securing capital, integrating, etc.? I would love to connect.

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Reply by a professional
from University of Akron in Charlotte, NC, USA
I typically advise clients to avoid Commercial Cleaning, and I do have experience on the ownership side.For some it might make sense, but from my experience, I don't believe it's a good choice to build long-term, passive wealth.I would say scaling will be a difficult venture given the nature of the business model.Well, let me rephrase that.You can probably very easily acquire and scale your business.It's going to be the operational side that's going to be a nightmare.Why are there so many franchises?Because they don't want to actually operate the day to day.
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from Indiana University, Bloomington/Indianapolis in Chicago, IL, USA
How did you manage to service nationwide clients?I'd love to connect on this.My family has a residential cleaning company with years of experience but I am looking to expand that into commercial.
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