Bootstrapped to Over $70M

Kory Mitchell: You make it sound easy, but that's a risky business. Chris Meyer: It was. It was fun. Kory Mitchell: You started at five or six million in revenue. Where do you get up to? Chris Meyer: We grew it to 72 million. It was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Kory Mitchell: Wow. Chris Meyer: It was an amazing ride. Kory Mitchell: Tell us about how you sold this business. Chris Meyer: I'd say both of us ended up being great winners. Kory Mitchell: What's the difference between risk and calculated risk? I think about this all the time, because on paper, Chris Meyer's story sounds completely insane, and just imagine. He's paying for materials he doesn't have a buyer for yet, take-or-pay contracts. He's expanding into markets where he has no customers, but the reality is he wasn't gambling. He was calculating. Exclusivity clauses before he signed a thing. Relationships with his suppliers that were so deep that in 2008, when everything hit the fan, his suppliers worked with him instead of against him. That's not reckless. That's preparing to meet the opportunity. Welcome back to The Turn. I'm Kory Mitchell of Iconic Founders. The Turn is where blue-collar founders talk about the businesses they've built, the value they've created, and what comes next after they sell. Take us back to the beginning. Where did the entrepreneurial itch come from? Chris Meyer: That's a great question. I was very fortunate. I grew up here in middle of Ohio and my grandfather was an entrepreneur from a farming side, and my father took that and really ran with it. He had a job as an accountant, and all of a sudden ... my mother was a home ec teacher ... and he read an article in a local newspaper that gave him an opportunity to start up a medical business, so he quit his job. They lived on my mother's teaching salary. Just got married, couple young kids, and they started up a medical business in a living room. And were doing billings at night, got it started, and he really transformed and grew that medical business. Got tired with raising a family and trying to run the business, so they exited. Two years later, they're sitting at a Christmas party and here they are, and one guy was looking to get out of the business and he wanted to sell his piece, so he got into the foundry business. So what did he know about the foundry business? Nothing, quite frankly. Just more of the willingness to learn, and then got involved with some other crazy different companies over the years. So I guess I've always had a great mentor with my parents and always had that itch, but just to be open with you, I really wanted to do my own thing, I guess, have my own course, and not to get in a family business. And something that's been instilled in me, and actually something I set up as my own personal why, which is very similar to my father, is like encouraging others to take calculated risks so that dreams may be fulfilled and celebrated. If you have that celebration environment and culture of a business, it's amazing how much buy-in you really get. Kory Mitchell: I feel like there are people that are built to be owners and there are people that are built to be entrepreneurs and create businesses. What made you realize that you were the latter? Chris Meyer: When I was going through college, my undergrad, I switched over, got a degree in marketing and finance. Why do marketing and finance? I just remember saying, if you know how to put the numbers together, you can understand what your margins are, what should you be looking at from operating a business. And the other side of the marketing is how do you sell your products, which is fundamentally the number-one thing you gotta be able to do is you gotta be able to sell, but you gotta be selling product at something you can sustain in to be able to grow a business. So when those two came along, actually it was a great program with Ernst & Young that is non-accounting majors, that they were looking for accountants during that Sarbanes-Oxley time period. So really the great program that they had set up, I was like, "It's hard to pass up not to go be an accountant." I'm like, "You know what? Throw me in all the industries. I just want to see as many different industries, may it be, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, construction." You name it, I was in it. I love just seeing the diversification of all the different industries. I always say I love understanding business models and how the different businesses are successful. I think early on, it was a great environment to learn. You work hard, you work long hours, you're around a bunch of smart, hardworking, motivated people. What a great environment to be in. And then it was like, all right, I was ready to go look for that next opportunity. Kory Mitchell: Chris didn't stumble into entrepreneurship. He trained for it, and then his time came. Chris Meyer: I was over at Ernst & Young, probably working 60-, 80-hour work weeks, and they had us hopping around, flying all over or doing stuff locally, or trying to meet the various deadlines, and I took advantage of when I had the nights, weekends, vacations. I was out there meeting with bankers, lawyers, accountants, business brokers for about two and a half years, while doing Ernst & Young. So during that time period, went through probably 400 business plans, just from startups to patents, to here's an existing business and some different avenues. And I'm like, "I'm just wide open." I had a list of criteria of what we wanted to say, what the business is that I was going to ideally look for. I really didn't care what industry. Kory Mitchell: Tell us what some of those things were you were looking for. Chris Meyer: I wanted a company that was profitable at that point. I wanted owners that were looking to transition for the right reasons, and they wanted to really be able to see their legacy continue and pass on to the right buyer at that point. And I wanted them to be part of that transition, especially at the time. It was a smaller business, so it was very important that we didn't want to lose that intellectual knowledge, the institutional knowledge that they had of the business, from the founding and what it took to get there. And I always say when we stepped into the business and we finally closed on a deal, we didn't want to change a lot of things, so I really wanted to understand what those changes are, and just from a cash flow, "Hey, here's a criteria. Here's the minimum I want to be able to see." I didn't want a complete different turnaround story when I was getting into the business. Is there a model that we could be able to expand, and what kind of scale, and was there an opportunity that you could do exponential growth with it. And if you're in a ... I call it just a cash cow business and it's just staying flat, it's kinda boring. You want something that you're going to wake up and say, "What are we taking on next? Let's go get 'em." Kory Mitchell: Totally. So how did you source them? I mean, there's so many people out there looking for companies today. What are your recommendations for finding a good one? Chris Meyer: It's a tough process. The biggest thing I was going to say is reach out there, because who are business owners that are maybe in that transition time period? Who are they talking with? And there's people that they're close with, of the bankers. They're usually aware of what's going on. The accountants that are out there. Go spend the time and meet with a variety of different accounting firms, and find the accounting firms that are dealing with the right size businesses that you're looking for. I mean, to go to an Ernst & Young would have been way outside of my realm, right? Kory Mitchell: Yeah. Chris Meyer: So you're finding the local ones, and even some of the attorneys, and get the word out. Business brokers. Get the word out and network. As you're at social events, I'm out there actively looking. And it's amazing of, I think you find with a lot of people, when you talk to them at the right time, when they're ready, like, "It's time for me to move on." If you say that at the right time, it's like, "That could be the right fit." Kory Mitchell: What kind of business did you find? What was Mintek? Chris Meyer: They specialized in taking byproducts of different industries. A lot of different types of like lime kiln dust, cement kiln dust, and had a core product called Calciment. That was our labeling that we put onto it, was a product that met a certain standard from a chemistry side. And at the time when I first got into it, they were getting a little bit into the construction environmental and the biosolid markets, and I'm like, okay. it was very more regionalized at the time, and as I started doing more research, I'm like, "There's an opportunity to expand growth geographically and with some of the applications of these different products." So what I knew about it, I didn't know anything, Kory. I'm like, I saw the business model, the growth, the opportunity to put more of some contracts professionalism to the business, put some of the knowledge that you learn from Ernst & Young into the business. And next thing you know, it was like, "All right, this is the right fit." And we hit the ground up and running, and you're reading chemistry books at night. That's what I was back to doing. Kory Mitchell: Amazing. So how small or big was this business when you bought it? Chris Meyer: So at the time, their sales, they were right at ... I mean, they were doing right at about five, six million at the time. Kory Mitchell: Okay. Five or six million. And how'd you pay for it? Chris Meyer: It's a great question. Met with the owners. I knew it was a one-night and that you've looked at a lot of businesses and this one piqued your interest. So I'm like, "You know what? We're getting an LOI done pretty quickly." So then it's like, "How do you pay for it? How do you put this stuff together?" And after meeting them with one dinner, we had an LOI drafted up that night, in their hands the next day. Kory Mitchell: No way. Chris Meyer: And we had them take back an owner's note on part of it that we set up as a consulting agreement, which was a great fit, so it was tax deductible. And then we were able to get into really working with the bankers at the same time and negotiating. I went to six, seven different banks, kinda laid it out. And they're looking at me saying, "All right, how's this young kid," at the time of call it 27 years old, but really the story of here's the avenues. I was great at putting a forecast together, the financials, the analysis. And at the time, back in '06, the banks were willing to lend a lot more. They were a little more aggressive than they were today. And I'll never forget the day we closed onto it, got the deal done, and I just loaded up and I told my wife. I said, "We are way in the hole, just so you know," because if ... we risked everything that we had, put everything on the line and then some, and I was like, "Okay." And a guy walked up to me, he said, "Run some debt like your hair's on fire." "Uh-oh, what did I just sign up for?" But I looked at that as that's an opportunity to have the motivation. When you know you had something you had to pay back, let's go deliver on it. And we never missed a payment to the owners during that time period, we never missed a payment to the bank, and it was a great fit. Kory Mitchell: Awesome. Thankfully, the owner was willing to roll with you on the investment. Chris Meyer: They were willing to roll with us and be part of that for ... I think we spaced it out over five years over the cycle. So they were very patient, which helped me quite a bit, and it was just as important for them to see the business succeed. And I think that's an important ... that's when I say when you gotta find the right seller to find the right buyer too. Kory Mitchell: You've just taken on life-changing debt that puts your entire livelihood at risk. That's pretty nerve-racking. What do you do to take the business from five or six million bucks and start putting some things in place to grow it and change it? Chris Meyer: When we first got in, I took the first six months and really didn't do anything, to be honest with you. I'm like, "I just want to see." They're making a certain kind of money and I just want to learn from the people, who we have, like who are going to be the champions. Who's embracing this, the transition and the opportunity to, "Hey," and I talked about let's grow it, but let's not do anything. Let's understand it. I was going to say, learn the industry. I didn't know anything about the industry, so you had to learn the industry. Who are the players? Who are the great customers? Build those relationships. So probably the biggest thing is it's just learning, is what I spent most of my time, and I'm like, "All right." I dove into the numbers right away and really worked with our controller at the time, and she still picks on me saying, "Why did you come to me first?" It's probably because I was most comfortable there and like, how do we start to better analyze what our margins are? How are we looking at our expenses? So that was something to me I called the low-hanging fruit to start to understand. At the same time, then diving in, and I spent a lot of time on the road just being with customers. Because if you really ... and I call it just asking good questions with your customers, they're going to tell you what you gotta do and how you gotta improve, especially the good partners that are out there, the ones that you see that are going to help take you to the next level. That's where I just asked questions a lot and just wrote notes. One of the biggest things that I learned from my grandmother, who worked at a community blood bank, and she had one of the largest communities and the biggest blood drives, she always took the time and wrote a thank-you note. So every time I met anybody new in business, I took the time. Within a day of meeting them, I wrote a thank-you note, put the business card, and I sent it out in a personalized note, just really appreciating what they've done and the opportunity to be able to work with them. The big part is building that trust. It takes years to earn and seconds to lose. Kory Mitchell: That's right. Chris Meyer: What are you going to do to build their trust as quick as possible? Those were some of the first things that I really started implementing. And at that point, then we're getting the team and start to pick up, saying, "All right, here's another territory or a new application where we can take our products where we might be able to get a little better margin." And a lot of times, where in our world, everybody was operating on dollar increments, I said, "What's wrong with 50 cents or 60 cents?" And you started spacing that out over tons of more and more volume out there, it all adds up, little piece by little piece. Next thing you know, you just ask customers the one simple question, "What else can we do for you?" And just be quiet and they'll usually tell you, and next thing you know, we were growing from just being really a Indiana, Michigan, Ohio company, and next thing we're going, expanding in ... we're bigger into Pennsylvania. We're in Virginia, we're getting into Tennessee, we're in Kentucky. And the company just started expanding and customers were organically pulling us into those, saying, "You did such a good job here. What can you do for me there?" Kory Mitchell: What were some of the challenges of working farther away from home? Chris Meyer: We were in a very unique environment. A lot of our stuff, as we were starting to expand, we had to go in and ... because a lot of our supply were byproducts in different industries, so you had to learn how, that manufacturing process, the consistency of what they were making, so building the relationship from a supply. And then you probably had no customers in those areas or maybe a couple that you could identify. And then we had to turn around and we did what's known as like take-or-pay contracts. We had to pay for it, whether we moved it or not. So we were signing up for liabilities to say, "We're going to move your product, and we believe we are the best ones to go do it," and they had a guaranteed revenue stream off of this. So by doing that, that was the motivation. Like, "We gotta break even here as we're continuing to grow it." So we really spent a lot of the time on the biggest challenges. So we're coming into new markets. How do we secure more supply, because logistically you can only take materials so far before the economics didn't work. So continuing to build relationship with suppliers as we're branching out, and then quickly adding maybe the right salesperson or stretching our existing sales team to tap into those new markets, and we were very fortunate. We were able to exponentially grow with only adding a couple team members at a time. That part helped quite a bit, as opposed to having to ... From a sales perspective, we didn't have to add as many people in order in the effort to grow. Kory Mitchell: I want to make sure I fully understand, because this sounds a little hairy to me. So you're getting farther and farther away from home and then you have this, what you're calling a take-or-pay contract. And just so I understand, the way I think I understand it is you identify some byproduct source, right? Some, whatever that is. So there's a pile of stuff out there that's a byproduct that you think you can move and sell somewhere else for more money than you pay for it. And when you take or pay, you're literally saying to them, "Whether I find a buyer or not, I'm paying you." Chris Meyer: Correct. Kory Mitchell: Is that right? Okay. Chris Meyer: Yes. Kory Mitchell: So that sounds scary as hell. First of all, did you ever get burned? Chris Meyer: When we would go in to get these contracts, the biggest part was we'd get exclusivity. That was something that was very near and dear, because as you build a market, you didn't want to have your customers come back and circumvent you, right? So I was going to say in the grand scheme of things, it was probably twice that that happened, but the majority of the people with the suppliers that we were working with, we built ... I mean, as the business owner, that's where I said that's where I had to spend the majority of my time, is really onto the supply side. Because if you had the right relationships, they continued to always work with us. And majority of them, we had some of the best, strongest relationships, and I couldn't say enough good things about those people and miss working with a lot of those people. And our sales team was dedicated towards the sales side, but I probably did a little bit of both, to be honest with you. Kory Mitchell: Okay. Maybe he never got burnt, but this is risky, betting you can figure it out before the bills come due, and then 2008 came. Chris Meyer: A couple of our suppliers went offline because they lost their demand, and we were scrambling like, "We have all this business, our customers, but we don't have the supply now." Kory Mitchell: Oh, wow. Chris Meyer: So out of that turn in '08, when I said never let a good crisis go to waste, that was a pivotal moment where I said, "You know what? We're growing. We're starting to grow outside the areas, because we had to." We had to figure out then the logistics. How do we even just supply our existing customers to ensure that we're a reliable supplier for them? Kory Mitchell: So that was actually a period of opportunity for you. So you took this crisis and you figured out, "Well, how the hell am I going to take care of my customers even if it's farther away," I guess, or were you able to find supply in the same geography? Chris Meyer: Usually it was like at that point we tied up our primary area where most of our customers, it was starting to go out geographically and to figure out more creative ways on how we could set backhauls up with customers in order to provide that similar pricing to meet the demand. So we worked very closely with a lot of our carriers. It was almost like we treated our suppliers, carriers and customers all like customers. Kory Mitchell: Well, that's exactly where I was going to take this, because I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm buying your product. I can't afford to pay you to haul it from New York City. The math's not going to work for me." So how do you handle dealing with that extra freight charge? Chris Meyer: When we went out there and you put a quote or something together, it's like, "Hey, that was our word." So sometimes we took hits because we knew in the long run, penny smart, pound foolish. We were going to deliver, but when it came down to the next project that they were working on or quoting, "Hey, we need a little more help here. We made sure that we got your hole, we took it, but how can we be partners together? And this is what I'm against, and understand what you're up against. So how can we make this a win-win for both of us?" So that was really the philosophy that we took. Kory Mitchell: I mean, you make it sound easy, but that's a risky business. Chris Meyer: It was. It was fun. The biggest challenge of it, and that's what started as you go to say the next level of risk where we started to go in, is if your supply went offline or your customers would slow down, you're like, "Where do I go with all this material?" Or your customers are peaking up here, but I don't have enough supply. That's when it really forced us to say, "We gotta look at storage," and you start putting in the capital expenditures of putting in large silo systems, or getting very creative on how can we partner with customers on their sites to put material, or storage pigs that are out there or remote silos, and signing leases in order to help meet those ebb and flows of the business. Kory Mitchell: The oil and gas boom hits. Drill rigs showing up in the middle of farm fields, but there's a problem. How do you get 80,000-pound rigs out to the middle of nowhere on a dirt road? But Chris had a solution. His product could stabilize soil. They were already using it on runways, building pads. Why not drilling sites? And so the customers came to him. Chris Meyer: "Can you guys treat the drill cuttings from every hole that they plunge? We need these to be treated because we can't be running liquids down the road, but we can't have it in large containers." And they're like, "Can you put them in one-ton bags?" "Yeah, we could do that." We didn't have any connections at the time, so next thing you know, we built out a bagging network where you put them in one-ton super sacks, and instead of taking 25-ton shipments. Next thing you know, the opportunity in that market just exploded for us, and they were doing them for slip repairs into the oil and gas industry as they were running the midstream, all the pipelines in, because how are you going to get a big truck up and down hills? You're not, so we'd bring in, delivering super sacks. That was kind of an interesting fit for us. Kory Mitchell: Wow. This business is really exploding. You've now got all these new service lines. You're doing everything for manufacturing, you're storing materials, you've got new service lines. You've really grown and scaled this business. Let's get to a point where you're thinking about selling it. I'm curious. First of all, you started at five or six million in revenue. Where do you get up to? Chris Meyer: Time we got out of this, and we grew it to 72 million. Kory Mitchell: Wow. What an amazing success story. Chris Meyer: It was an amazing ride. Kory Mitchell: So tell us about how you sold this business. How did the conversation start? Chris Meyer: We were approached at different times. Obviously the brokers are calling you constantly, or, "Hey, you interested?" And I'm like, "No, no, no. We're growing. We're having fun." But at that point it was like I had a supplier that reached out. We had a long partnership, even the whole time period I was involved. Even prior to me getting involved with the previous owners, we just had a good working relationship, that they said like, "Oh, you did a great job here. Hey, do you have interest in coming over here, and then can you come over here?" And next thing you know, we had a very wide network with them, and they're like, "Where are you guys going with all this? And what are you guys doing, and how are you able to do it?" So it was almost like a courting process of probably about two to three years before they would come up and we'd like to know more. And it was a real challenge between how do you tell your supplier what you're doing and here's my financials. Kory Mitchell: The courting process is different for everybody. There's so many ways this can go down. Sometimes you're getting a random phone call from a stranger that's a random investment banker calling, just phishing for information. Sometimes you're getting these robo emails. Sometimes private equity guys are calling you and you don't really know who to trust or what's real, and sometimes it's a strategic partner. Chris Meyer: So it was a game of chess going through it, but eventually we were able to come to the right price that I'd say both of us ended up being great winners, because the organization today is every year I was involved, we grew. And even today, they're continuing to grow and to take it to new platforms, and recently actually acquired our largest competitor previously. Kory Mitchell: Awesome. When you structured the deal, did you get all the money up front? Did you roll any equity? Do you still have any ownership? Chris Meyer: So I looked at it, I was probably on the conservative side. They offered an opportunity to roll some equity, but for myself, I guess it was probably more the unknown. So we did majority of it was up front and majority of the money was all up front. We did do a little bit of a note, a small piece of a note because they wanted to keep me tied in, and I did a three-year employment agreement with them that ended up being over probably three and a half years. And also they put a good carrot and incentive to say, "Hey, keep growing, doing what you're doing. So hold on, let's go." It was almost like in a bonus plan is the way it was set up. Kory Mitchell: And did you hit the bonus? Chris Meyer: We did. And I will say one of the proudest things I did ... and I take this from Clay Mathile and one of his books of, as he went through ... we shared. My wife and I sat down. We had a talk as we're going through the due diligence, and you know how you're just worn out and you're battling through those, working late at night and trying to grow your business, maintain it. We sat down and said, "We want to share some of this with our people." And we set some incentives and we actually took part of our exit and shared it with the entire organization, because we knew we would never have been where we were if it wasn't for that team. Kory Mitchell: Yeah, I love that. That is so cool. And look, your team is, I'm sure, incredibly grateful for your generosity through that, but I get it. They also got you where you are. Chris Meyer: I always thought that if I could take that team and we went into any other business, we would have killed it in another business, just because the way everybody was rowing in the same direction and everybody's on board, and I don't know. There's a lot of energy that I love, and the entrepreneurship of that group and organization. And even I worked to appoint a new president that took over after I left, and was able to pick that myself. So really our parent organization that acquired us allowed that to go through. And I love to see that what she's doing today is just as important. And some of the tools that we put in place, she's carrying that torch forward, which is awesome. Kory Mitchell: That is great. So how did your life change? I mean, you get this big check. What did that feel like? Chris Meyer: We were exhausted. I didn't even know. I mean, I logged on. The day you get it and you're just like, "It's there." Kory Mitchell: The money arrived. Chris Meyer: My wife and I were doing pretty much all the due diligence and on top of trying to maintain the business, and we were growing at the time. We didn't want to disrupt our team. It was very important, obviously, as we worked with a lot of different suppliers and our customers, we didn't that word to get out. So we were just exhausted. So what did we do? We did nothing. I knew I still had a three-year employment agreement after that, and I'm like, "We're going to take this organization and we're going to grow it." Because I mean, one, there's another piece, that if we hit some other bogies, there's another payout opportunity, and let's go have some fun and really expand it. And they're giving us more materials, additional support, things that we didn't have at the time. In-house counsel, different things that as you're going through [inaudible 00:29:36] follow me, some CEOs are like, "I just can't do it." I really flipped the switch, because it's a challenge as you exit and you're working with people and are like, "Take on this challenge and make the most of the opportunity. You got three years. Let's see how it goes, and let's see this thing succeed." And we grew the company like crazy during that time period. Those three and a half years, it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, so it was really exciting. It was a lot of fun. Kory Mitchell: Do you regret that you sold too early? Chris Meyer: No, the reason being I knew where the organization was at was probably at the point where it was going to take another significant large investment when we're talking storage capabilities, and the territory that we had and some of really our competitive environment, I took it about where I could get it. Otherwise, we were going to have to make a big transition and hop into some new frontiers, and it was the right fit. I mean, I think it was the right timing. Do I wish in hindsight? Everybody wants to be a Monday morning quarterback. You wish you rolled equity. But it was a clean break, that the two of us were both happy with an exit. And at that point in my life, I wasn't looking to sell the business. I didn't want to, but I knew what was right for the business if we're going to continue to, one, take care of our people, have the presence, maintain our office, and this was a good purchaser. And post acquisition, we did a lot of promotions. They told us, "Go get a bigger office. What else can we help support you? How do we pour fuel on your fire?" Kory Mitchell: Yeah. So how's your life changed since you exited? Chris Meyer: I probably reprioritized my life. I was running 80,000 miles a year in a car, traveling. You're getting the statuses with the airlines because you're flying as we were growing. And mostly east of the Mississippi, some stuff we were doing out west too, and we're just constantly on the road, and I hate to say that. We had three children, and my oldest, it was like a flash. And I look back and like, "You know what? I want to reprioritize," and I looked at that. "I want to spend time with my family." I look at kind of at that golden age where our kids were healthy, my parents are healthy. I wanted to spend some time with them. And I've been able to do some trips with both my wife's family, my family. I've done one-on-one trips with my father, my mother, my spouse, and really just continued to each one of our kids to have that special relationship. And one of the other big things I was going to say of trying to be a better friend, because I was gone. I was just running wide open, and what else has changed? I stepped back and I had a good friend that was with NYPO that approached me. He goes, "Obviously you got a great business experience, but could you take those skills and go put that in a different avenue?" I'm like, "Like what?" He goes, "Hey, we got a Boys and Girls Club over here. We got a new CEO. I think you would be great if you were to join the board," and really put a lot of effort to saying, "Take all those skills that we learned and figure out how we can give back to other communities, to be able to put the time, the effort, and the skills, connections that we've been able to build over the years into our community," and really proud of that as that comes online and watching the organization grow. We added to the board. Just giving back and having that presence again. Kory Mitchell: That's great. Well, listen, you've given our listeners and viewers a lot of wisdom. I think there's so much that we can take away. And so I certainly appreciate you making the time for us. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for you, and I'm hoping to have you back on the show in 10 years so we can talk about the next one. Chris Meyer: I appreciate it, Kory, and great questions, and thank you, Kory. Kory Mitchell: Here's what I love about how Chris sold Mintek. He didn't run this traditional investment banking process where hundreds of people were making a bid on him. The buyer came to him. This was a supplier, someone he'd known for over a decade. They spent two, three years courting. This wasn't a transaction, this was a real relationship, because once you've built something real, you know the difference between a good opportunity and the right one. This was never just about Chris. His grandfather was an entrepreneur. His parents started a business at the kitchen table. And when he and his wife built Mintek together, it was a partnership. And when they sold it, they shared with the team. I'm Kory Mitchell. Thanks for watching The Turn, a podcast by Iconic Founders Group. I'm a guy that's just like you. I had a blue-collar business, I sold it, and I learned a lot along the way. So now I support blue-collar founder businesses that are making over $2 million in profit, and we take it to market and sell it to get the best value. If you want to figure out what your business is worth, reach out to us at theturn@iconicfounders.com, because I love it when the good guys win. The Turn was produced by Nate Tower and Chief of Staff at Iconic Heidi Heckler, with executive producer Aaron McIndoe Sproul, video editing by Jeremiah Flo Flores. Sound design and mixing by Ben Crannell at Lower Street Media. Make sure you follow and subscribe to The Turn wherever you get your podcasts. Let's win.