Search Funder Thanks and My Story (My first acquisition) - Part 1

Good morning, Happy Wednesday everybody! My name's Erik and I've been on the SF platform for 3-4+ years, mostly in the background but occasionally making posts and interacting with folks. I've met a number of folks and became friends with a number of folks where we were made aware of one another from the SF platform. A little about me: I was in the military for a bunch of years and then went the startup route (in manufacturing). I exited that business in 2019 and spent a number of years working W-2 jobs in various industries while loosely looking at businesses to buy both alone and with various groups. Since the search was truly a passive afterthought (while having kids, a wife, and a day job) it was never successful because it couldn't be - I wasn't fully committed. Early last year I met a group of local guys (from Searchfunder) who were buying a small business and needed an operator as they both had other careers and young kids. We both took the leap of bringing me on to run their business and I've enjoyed the challenge of being back in the operators seat - they've been great guys to work for and we've learned a lot since they closed the acquisition in April. Because of the challenge this presented me, I shut down the search completely and focused on time with my kids (coaching little league, as an example) and being home at a reasonable hour with less stress than I've had in years. I committed to ending the 4-5 year period of my life where I had been gathering all the intel I could on deals, businesses, multiples, financials, CIMs, brokers, etc. - the good and the bad! I didn't have a background in finance nor an MBA from a top-10 school - I was a guy who loved working in SMB focusing on operations, sales, systems, etc. As luck would have it more times than we can all count, I wound down my own search early in 2025 and by mid-2025 I had been presented with a deal that fell in my lap that aligned so closely with my personal loves (of being outside, having bonfires, camping, etc.) that it was uncanny. The seller was desiring to retire and the company had always been ran as a side hustle which lent itself well to me and my life. I reviewed his financials, wrote a LOI using Grok (that was really advantageous to me with some shreds of being fair to the seller) and went back and forth on the business operations, growth strategies, the documents he gathered, and flying to visit with him. I used it as an exercise to show myself what I've learned and treated it as such....but then the conversation kept moving forward. All of that said, as of September 26th, 2025 I got my first deal across the finish line. It's a small deal (high-$000's in average revenue with $100k in true free cash flow annually) that many of you would never even look at but it's a historically profitable company that fits my life. I effectively paid 1.5x and the seller financed it along with a small roll over component (I'm hesitant to mention the seller finance piece of this as there's enough 'sharks' out there preaching how to this if you pay for their class - it doesn't work in most deals but it did in this case). 8 weeks after closing and things are going well, I learned a lot about expectation management - I thought I'd come in from day 1 'guns blazin'...but, as it turns out, those first weeks were overwhelming in just the sheer amount of information and data you need to gather and consume quickly...oh and it took me 3 weeks to get email (I bought it from an older guy who had been taken advantage of from an IT company for years so trying to get systems/platforms/email changed over was not an easy process). I learned a lot of concepts and what to look for from this platform - it wouldn't have happened without the Searchfunder community and platform and I am thankful for the assistance and collaboration with all of you, even if you don't know it. In case you are interested in the business, www.waldenbackyards.com is the acquired business (not trying to advertise).