Who's Going to Buy Canada's Businesses? The Coming Ownership Shift (#210) — Transcript
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 210
Canada’s next ownership transition will be decided one business at a time. Dustin Serviss joins Matt Mitchell of Chenmark, fractional CFO Ryan Maarschalk and technology sales executive Andrew Devlin for a Capital Club conversation about succession, owner dependency, permanent capital and practical uses for AI.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Dustin Serviss: Alright, listener. This has never been done before on TPOW Labs or the Picture of Wealth. This is a panel style podcast where we've got multiple guests centered around capital and business, operating a business, investing in businesses, lending to businesses, all are part of something called the Capital Club, which is a mastermind we meet once a month, sit down structured, and have no real agenda other than talk about things that matter to business owners, people who invest, people who run businesses, people who are curious about money and wealth and growth. So what do we talk about today? It's adoption of AI and how much of AI that's out there are people
[00:00:41] Dustin Serviss: actually using and not just playing with AI integration. So strategic thinking around how we could use AI in our businesses, in our life to make a better life. Investment risk and macroeconomic considerations, big words, I know. But at the same time, there's... You know, at every intersection of money or decision with money you have where you could give one dollar to many different places. But what I posed as the question is interest rates are going up, GIC rates, what I would call a risk free rate of return that you could get is four percent roughly. And, again, you can find different amounts, but that's the gist. So if you're gonna get four percent on a GIC with no risk and
[00:01:25] Dustin Serviss: you could invest in a business, a building, you could lend money to somebody else and get, say, a little bit higher return but have more risk, is that a prudent decision? So we break that down. And then we talk a little bit about permanent capital and what permanent capital is because one of the individuals, Matt, is running a paint business, which is part of a family office. And I know that's a few steps there, but what the family office is a wealthy family who wants to deploy their money into actual businesses. And their time horizon is what we call permanent capital, which is long term never sell the business. So contrary to some capital models where they would buy the business, hold
[00:02:06] Dustin Serviss: it for five years, clean it up, put some lipstick on it, maybe grow it at a better rate, and then sell it. And that's the whole intention by buying the business. This group is about permanent capital. So it's interesting to hear him talk about how they value the business and what metrics they put a premium on, what they put a discount on. And so I'm excited to share this episode. Again, it's it's a little bit choppy at the start to get going. I had to get the intros out of the way. I was reading from a script, which was super annoying, but we got through it in about a minute and a half, two minutes, and then we get right into it. So without further ado, let's go.
[00:02:40] Dustin Serviss: Oh, no. I was thinking more about formula one for... On Sunday.
[00:02:44] Andrew Devlin: Right. Sunday formula one. Also, Sunday isn't the Seahawks and the forty niners playing.
[00:02:51] Dustin Serviss: Okay. You definitely... You've outstatus me on the sports because I don't,
[00:02:56] Andrew Devlin: Matt's sending me... Or Ryan's sending me little crib notes on what to say for sports, so I'm I'm covered. Oh,
[00:03:04] Dustin Serviss: Okay. So we're gonna try something a little different. I've brought together you three. We've talked about it. We've gone over the Kohl's notes, which were you're not supposed to be prepared for this. And I think I gotta get a a slight formality out of the way because listener of TPOW or the picture wealth knows myself. But now this is three new faces, three new voices. So first up, Matt Mitchell with Chenmark, a permanent capital company. I hate reading a script, but I gotta read this part. So a permanent capital company acquiring businesses to own them for the long term. How did I do, Matt? Pretty good?
[00:03:42] Matt Mitchell: That's perfect. That's perfect.
[00:03:44] Dustin Serviss: Great. Ryan Maarschalk, CPA, fractional CFO, who works directly with businesses and running the financial side of these businesses. Ryan, anything that that you think I should add to that? You're gonna unpack it. But
[00:04:02] Ryan Maarschalk: I would say I'm I'm I'm focused on bolt on m and a.
[00:04:06] Dustin Serviss: Okay. Well, that's great. So we'll... Listen, or don't worry about the jargon. We'll get into it, and I'll correct Ryan after. Andrew Devlin has spent thirty years in technology sales and leadership working with companies like Cisco, Splunk, Cloudfare. I assume those are big companies.
[00:04:25] Ryan Maarschalk: Yes.
[00:04:27] Dustin Serviss: Anything else that, you should add? No.
[00:04:30] Andrew Devlin: I don't think there's anything.
[00:04:34] Dustin Serviss: Listener, I'm Dustin Serviss. If you've never listened to this podcast before, I've spent a lot of time thinking about business ownership, capital, and what actually... All that... What makes all that worthwhile. See what happens when you read script is you fuck up and then it doesn't sound very good. So we're all here. We agree, that we're not gonna have all the answers for everything, but we're gonna have some fun, and we're gonna talk about some real decisions, real business decisions, and probably get into some funny parts about life. So I got something for us to chew on. Canada is a generation of business owners who are getting older. They are running great businesses regardless of what you think of the economy.
[00:05:20] Dustin Serviss: There's many small, medium, even large businesses we know that are well run, do great things for the world, and make good money. And that business owner is going to have to retire at some point. And we all know the baby boomers are coming. Who is going to buy that business? And I'm leaving this question quite general to just see what the first initial thoughts are that are coming up in the in the group.
[00:05:50] Matt Mitchell: I would say Chenmark, obviously.
[00:05:53] Dustin Serviss: Okay. Also, I'll preface it. So Matt's first. Do you wanna take a... Give us some input?
[00:06:00] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. I think there's a ton of great businesses in Canada that do great for the community, are profitable, and have no thoughts secession plan lined up. So that's kind of where we fit in a small business world. I think the business that I'm CEO of now, Kelowna Paint Supply, that was kind of the exact story. There's a couple, who had bought the business from another owner actually about ten years ago, and we're at a scale that didn't necessarily get the attention of large institutional buyers and had the question of what are we gonna do with this business after we're done? We're getting to retirement age. And they heard about Chenmark through their financial adviser.
[00:06:40] Matt Mitchell: And that's how we got to buy this business in twenty twenty one. So that's why, yeah, my answer would be Chenmark.
[00:06:46] Dustin Serviss: What do you see, though, in the other businesses that you haven't bought that, you know, not a story about a specific business, but I'm thinking about who else is at the table. If it's not Chenmark, who is it?
[00:07:01] Andrew Devlin: Could I ask a color question that might shake your answer? Is that allowed, Dustin? Yeah. Hundred percent.
[00:07:06] Matt Mitchell: By the way, I I do just wanna point out the pun there. I do run a paint store, and so is asking a
[00:07:14] Dustin Serviss: colorful question. But that is the...
[00:07:16] Andrew Devlin: That is funny, because my house is covered in your paint.
[00:07:21] Dustin Serviss: I Won't go
[00:07:23] Ryan Maarschalk: there. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:25] Andrew Devlin: And there was no metaphor there.
[00:07:27] Dustin Serviss: There was...
[00:07:29] Andrew Devlin: When you think about the diversity of the companies that Chenmark owns, and they are really diverse, And then you think about what Dustin just described in the economy today with these very diverse companies, so much of the value is the owner of the company and their relationships and what they built. It's one thing for you to take over a paint company, a building supply company, something that sort of aligns vertical marketing wise that you can add value to immediately. But you're gonna look at anything that generates free margin. And when you do, my thinking is how do you protect that acquisition when so much of its value comes from the owner that's retiring?
[00:08:20] Matt Mitchell: I mean, that's definitely something that we look for. We won't just buy any free cash flow generating business. Owner dependency is, of course, like, always something that we're looking for. If the business goes to zero without the owner, that's not a purchasable business. And so that's kinda how we... That's, like, that's literally, like, one of the things that we evaluate is owner dependency.
[00:08:42] Dustin Serviss: Ryan, when you value a business or when you're looking at a business from a, like, CPA standpoint, how much of a lever is the owner dependency in the price of the business considered? Like, when you have all the levers to pull to come up with evaluation, how much of that is considered?
[00:09:03] Ryan Maarschalk: I think if the business is dependent on the owner, it's it's worth less than it would be if the owner had put some processes in place to replicate themselves or teach the management team how to run things. One thing I thought of in terms of, you know, when a company is for sale or when Canadian businesses are for sale and who's buying them. It depends on on the size of the business. For example, a retiree who is some kind of trade, like, very specific type industry knowledge, If their business is relatively small and and and a bit of a owner dependency, they might sell to the younger version of themselves. So say someone that is forty three years old, running
[00:09:58] Ryan Maarschalk: a similar business in a similar market, they can sell to that person because that person has the industry knowledge, and they might be able to... They might not be able to get, like, all cash upfront, but they might be able to come up with a pretty good vendor take back deal in a situation like that. Because one of the problems with businesses for sale is some of them are pretty risky. So when you have people looking at them, it's it's like, how do I know that? It's... And that's why I say it depends on the size. If it's, relatively small, like, they could be affected a lot by the change in the owner or their earnings could get cut in half just because there's some kind of downturn.
[00:10:38] Ryan Maarschalk: But the seller kinda likes selling to these forty three year old versions of themselves because they know that if they're gonna take a vendor take back, the the buyer has industry knowledge. And there's a much greater chance that new buyer is gonna be able to run that business successfully and pay them their vendor take back over time, you know, versus someone that doesn't have the knowledge.
[00:11:03] Dustin Serviss: Specific to that and specific to many towns like Kelowna, British British Columbia being maybe two hundred and fifty thousand people. You have a lot of businesses in, say, the two to ten million dollar range where a lot of people... That's like a a big line share of their nest egg. So you mentioned the forty year old who's got the experience. But if you got a ten million dollar business to do a vendor take back loan, that's, like, twenty years of payments or, like, you know, fifteen years of payments. So now you got a situation where a forty year old is looking at going, I'm gonna be paid off by the time I'm sixty, opposed to, like, a a twenty nine year old or a thirty year old saying,
[00:11:46] Dustin Serviss: like, by the time I'm fifty or forty five, and then they're really start making a lot of money. What would you kinda... Like, I don't know what there is to unpack there, but my... For a specific question. But you get where I'm going where there is a bit... I don't know what the right word is. Dichotomy of, like, separation?
[00:12:02] Ryan Maarschalk: Yeah. Like, how do how do they actually make it work? Like, I think that the forty three year old buyer has an existing business similar. Ah. And they've they've they've been running they've been running that for fifteen years. So they have fifteen years of experience, and they've built up a bit of net worth themselves. So they can come up with some money down because it'd be hard to do a hundred percent vendor take back. But to do some money down and a partial vendor take back, that that could work. The twenty nine year old who hasn't been running the business, it might be like a manager level. That's not gonna work for the seller because they're not gonna come up with
[00:12:38] Ryan Maarschalk: much of a down payment perhaps. They might, but, like, just... That... That's sort of the differentiator is that forty three year old that has built up a a bit of a network from running a similar successful business. You're gonna say something, Andrew?
[00:12:53] Andrew Devlin: I got a follow on question for Ryan. What about an employee purchase plan? Like, I'm thinking about the twenty nine year old. I'm thinking about him spending the last ten years with that owner and thinking that he can step into the shoes and take it over. I wondered what you thought of the risk to the to the owner of passing it on to their second in charge.
[00:13:18] Ryan Maarschalk: Yeah. Like some type of employee purchase plan. I think Canada is moved forward with legislation on that. There's the, I'm not an expert in it, but the employer ownership trust where there's, like, ten million dollars tax free to the seller if they choose to proceed with that kind of structure and there are, you know, a couple issues with it. But, just things to consider. It was, like, just adopted, like, I think last year. But, yeah, you gotta weigh the risk to the seller. Because in that situation, if the seller is gonna give up control and, the buyer is not coming up with enough down, then that's not gonna work. But... And it might not be one person.
[00:14:01] Ryan Maarschalk: It might be three. It might be a really good management team that's gonna come in. Maybe there's some interim type financing or something like that to to help as well. And that's not something that you kinda dream up in six months. There definitely needs to be some planning, in order to make that kind of succession happen. And so you look at the tax planning as as well as some of the capital planning. Like, you can start getting some equity to your management team and making sure that they're properly trained on all things to to run your business. But, yeah, like, that's a good... There's so many interesting things.
[00:14:40] Andrew Devlin: Can I keep riffing with Ryan for a second, Dustin? First of all, it's important for your listeners to know that Ryan is the happiest guy I've ever met. He's always smiling. But when he's thinking, he looks so serious, it's actually intimidating. I'm kinda freaked out a little right now. But once I get over myself, when you think about what you just described in the employee purchase plan, and a group of employees purchasing it, Have have you ever run into an environment where the owner wants to continue to own it, but give up control and then takes almost like a franchise fee? I was once offered a company many years ago when I was a young man, and they said you're gonna give me seventy per...
[00:15:22] Andrew Devlin: Seven percent of the margin. You're gonna pay all the bills, and it's your company, no money down. Have you ever seen an environment like that? And do you think that would work with your CFO brain and your serious face?
[00:15:36] Ryan Maarschalk: What about my happy demeanor? Yeah. I don't
[00:15:40] Andrew Devlin: know where it went, so I'm scared.
[00:15:44] Ryan Maarschalk: Yeah. Like, I I think that that's the advantage of really good management teams is that there's a level of trust that's built up between the ownership group and the management teams. And you gotta remember the seller wants to sell, and they wanna sell to a buyer that's capable. And you sell into someone that's not capable if they're leaving money on the table, like, that's a high risk deal for them, especially if they're giving up any kind of control. But when you know the management team and you can, like, as a seller, kinda stay involved, maybe you're... You remain a board member, maybe you remain a controlling shareholder for a period of time until more is transferred over.
[00:16:26] Ryan Maarschalk: You can craft up those kinds of deals, and they're good deals. They're good for both parties, and they're all sort of custom.
[00:16:34] Dustin Serviss: Mhmm. Which That's the that's the point. In in twenty years of working with business owners, no deal has ever been the same. They have similar... And maybe you've seen this, Matt, with the private or the, family office space, but they have similar flavors, but there's always nuances and there's sort of a cycle. The last podcast I did was sort of the buyers the buyer cycle. You kinda get excited about it when you see it, then there's, like, the trough because your lawyer sent you something, and you gotta resell yourself on buying the business multiple times. I think you're bang on of of having that flexibility and getting your team in place to before.
[00:17:15] Dustin Serviss: So it's saying, have your accountant, have your lawyer, have your business friend, have your friend that's done it before talk to you just in confidential before even putting pen to paper or for sure before telling any of your management or staff kind of some of the ideas you have because that's another place where business owners say, this is what I'm thinking, and then go back on it, Not out of ill faith, but just they didn't know. And so their account says, we can't do that. And, you know, there's even structure things. They don't wanna sell, but you wanna get your lifetime capital gain exemption. Company needs to be pure for two years. Listen, you can look into that or check GBT it.
[00:17:56] Dustin Serviss: But that usually is a stumbling block for people where they wanna bring in a right hand person. Oh, you gotta wait two years till we get the company cleaned up to do that transaction. So getting the accountant involved early helps you get set up for when you actually wanna do something.
[00:18:13] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. I feel like we're getting into some really good stuff right now all under the umbrella, I would say, of execution risk. So when you go into a deal, there's obviously a lot that's needed on both sides for due diligence. And so one of the things that I think is always important is, like, considering the nonfinancial sort of aspects of the deal and execution risk, I would say, is a pretty interesting one. You don't wanna go down the path with someone. And to Ryan's point, these things can be quite volatile at times, and you definitely wanna know the person that you're signing an LOI with can actually complete the deal, and get it done.
[00:18:51] Dustin Serviss: So when you get in there to... Let's use the paint store. Do you just use the AI to just do everything for you once you get in there? The the management that was there, you know, you just... Or do you use AI? Or is that, you know, not? No. Not at all.
[00:19:07] Matt Mitchell: Not... Definitely not as easy as that. Like, one thing that I think is important to keep in mind is typically when we're buying a business from someone who's retired, like, they've spent their entire life building this business. It's not like we're just gonna step in and uncover some, like, massive opportunity that they haven't seen. And so I would say, at least in my experience, the first couple of... The first step is really just, like, learning the business, getting to understand the team. There's, thankfully, like, an amazing team in place here. And so it's more focusing on, like, learning the business and trying to take incremental steps to make the business better.
[00:19:42] Matt Mitchell: And then, typically, in doing that, that's when you can cover some of the growth levers.
[00:19:46] Dustin Serviss: Sales. Andrew, well,
[00:19:48] Andrew Devlin: I I wish we've been talking about the buy side of this equate... We've been talking about the buy side of this equation, and I keep thinking... I've... I'm working with some smaller companies now that are thinking about selling, and I think the questions are really important. And if you wanna use AI, I think a seller, that gentleman or or woman that you described that's sixty and wants to pass on their business, they don't have children for it. How do they look at this, and how do they create value to sell it? And there's so many great conversations to have. Ryan brought up earlier... I'm sorry. Grumpy pace Ryan. I should use this formal
[00:20:31] Dustin Serviss: name.
[00:20:31] Andrew Devlin: He brought up earlier his... The processes around has that owner built repeatable processes that give the company some ability to look around corners and see, is my revenue slipping? Is it growing? Where are my strong points? I... There's an old saying, I think, Dustin, you taught me if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So I look at it. What's the ability of that company to grow or hold their revenue line and manage their expenses. And when you talk about an interruption like ownership, it's going to interrupt the... Your... The customer's perception of that company. So how do I protect that and make sure that I'm not interrupting
[00:21:16] Andrew Devlin: it? Or in Matt's case, how do I grow it with all the marketing and all the additional, benefits a new buyer could bring? But a seller would be... They would be a good investment of time to to spend time in AI going, what are people gonna ask me? Where are my weaknesses? What can I work on? And Ryan brought it up. This isn't a short term thing. People should be thinking about selling years in advance and building processes. And I happen to come from software, and now I build software and sell it. And and it's really about that. How can the owner fortify the value of their company by building repeatable, visible, like, transparent processes, create a
[00:21:58] Andrew Devlin: history, and and make sure they're handing off something of value. I don't think anyone wants... In this equation wants to rip off the next person, but it worked for them. And I was working with a company that everything was spreadsheets, and they would actually change the file name to reflect the status of that project. We're waiting on something. So they changed the file name, and I'm like, that... That's not a sustainable process. We we have to make some changes, and change is gonna hurt, and it will... That doesn't work for us. You're gonna have to figure out how to accomplish what a seller needs if this company ever goes for sale. And, again, pointing at grumpy pace Ryan, it's gonna
[00:22:39] Andrew Devlin: take a long time because you're gonna have to change processes, teach everyone they're gonna have to be solid at it before a Dustin or Matt walks in and says, I wanna buy your company.
[00:22:48] Ryan Maarschalk: Andrew, Andrew, one thing I think of is that, it's... If you are thinking about selling your business, it's not necessarily, okay. I'm gonna come up with a plan now. Like, it is, but you should be able to sell your business at any point in time. That's a way of thinking about it. And so if you know that you have processes or people or whatever it is about your business that would make it unsellable, that means maybe you have an unsellable business. But... So if if at all the time you run your business as though you could sell it tomorrow, that's a good way of being prepared. The other thing that I would say is that, normally, the success that you get when
[00:23:37] Ryan Maarschalk: you grow your company are... Is a result of putting in processes. So, like, in... If if you're coming up against walls at whatever number is too low for your business, five hundred grand in revenue, a million in revenue, two million in revenue. Like, every time you break through that wall of a ceiling of a revenue level or profit level, it normally you make better processes. And so hiring out people to leverage those people, to expand your function and improve your customer service, improve your product is a result of making better processes. So, like, I think some of the things that you do in order to grow your business to a certain level, actually are the same processes that make it sellable.
[00:24:23] Ryan Maarschalk: But there are other things to think about when you wanna sell such as tax and succession and training up your management team and what you wanna do. And is it enough money after tax for you to retire on or whatever you wanna do after you're done with that business? Maybe it's to buy another business or maybe you just wanna get partially liquidated. Like, yeah, those are my thoughts. Yep.
[00:24:49] Dustin Serviss: I just did a podcast this week with Trent Kitsch, for any Klonoa people. They probably know the name, but he was... Started out with Sachs Underwear, founded it, sold it, and then Doja Cannabis and Kitsch Wineries. But he had a great line in the podcast where he said, before or as I'm starting the business, I'm thinking about what the value would be at the end or sale or transition. And so the the second thing that popped into my head while you guys were chatting is in the summer, I did a summer course from Oxford on private markets. And a lot of the course was looking at how private... So listener, public market is your public stock market, public stocks
[00:25:30] Dustin Serviss: you buy or an ETF. Private is, I'll say, institutions or people who would go pay money for a business and just buy it. It's not listed. Not everyone can participate in it. It's just someone makes a deal. We'll call that private markets. But there is a whole business of private markets where there's massive institutions who will come in, and we talked about who are gonna buy all these businesses. There likely will be private markets is going to participate in buying businesses that are about three million and up or four or five million and up in value. Likely in the future, there's going to be private markets buying. And what the torque... What the course...
[00:26:12] Dustin Serviss: What my takeaway what my takeaway was how a buyer looks at businesses, like, how serious buyers look at a business. But then I took that, and I'm acting with the seller. So when you go and you look at... Yeah. I'm gonna sell my business. And you look at... Okay. We already know or I know or a lot of trained professionals would know what a buyer is gonna look for. So over time, as you're implementing some of those things you know are gonna be key markers that drive the biggest value, You will start to... It won't be a big cumbersome task when you decide, I got a a healthy risk. I gotta sell the business. It's like you do it as you go. And, Matt, all of you guys have mentioned systems and process.
[00:26:56] Dustin Serviss: Every year, you get a little bit increase, new system, little bit of an upgrade, and then all of a sudden, you've got this this engine that is worth a lot of money with not a lot of effort. Andrew, you're agreeing with me, or you are wanting to say Yeah.
[00:27:11] Andrew Devlin: No. I was having a stroke. I'm very old. Just doing the math in my head. Gentlemen, today's my birthday, and I just added up all your ages, and I think I'm older than the three of you combined.
[00:27:21] Dustin Serviss: Oh, nice. Okay.
[00:27:22] Andrew Devlin: It wasn't a stroke. I was agreeing, and I was just adding on in my mind that you both said the same thing. Ryan basically said start with the end in mind. Constantly be thinking about the valuation of your company and how to protect it. You said the same thing. You think about it from the seller's lens and the buyer's lens, and you bring them together. And you've... You're in an interesting position, Dustin, because you can look at both sides of the equation, and you can truly try to find a real valuation. And you and I had a side conversation about that. But but back to your owner in in left right out Saskatchewan who owns his paint and tile company when Regina,
[00:28:11] Andrew Devlin: he's gotta be thinking about the value of his company. And there are some really big rocks around valuation that every sixty plus year old should know about their company, Like systems and processes, like having a history, like having identified Sorry, Matt. You should finish that because you've... You look at this every single day.
[00:28:33] Matt Mitchell: I was trying to... I just said recurring revenue. That was just one of the one of the levers.
[00:28:38] Andrew Devlin: Right. And recurring revenue specifically why I left consulting and got into software because I love that you build it, you sell it, and then the revenue just comes every month. And I also came from software, and those software companies that we mentioned, Cisco at one time, I believe, was the biggest company in the world, and all they thought about was the valuation of the company. And for any of us who worked for publicly traded companies, that's that quarterly steroid that you take every single quarter. Every... I once had a customer call me, and he said, every day can't be the last day of the quarter, Andrew.
[00:29:19] Ryan Maarschalk: Andrew, you make a good point because, like, one thing that I I think in general, especially with smaller businesses, is that people don't often know what their business is worth. So they they don't really have a good starting point, and they they might not understand what factors increase or decrease the value of their business. But to these processes, like working on your business is actually working on increasing the value of your business, which comes from, revenue growth, profit, debt, and sometimes it's timing. Sometimes it's a it's a matter of, well, this particular industry might be AI proof, in which case those multiples and the valuations of those private businesses may have gone up.
[00:30:14] Ryan Maarschalk: But I think it I think it would be a useful exercise for anyone who owns a business, particularly if you're thinking about selling in the next few years to try to have a bit of a pulse on the things where your business is at as well as what makes the value go up and what makes it go down.
[00:30:32] Andrew Devlin: Can I jump on that? You... I I expected to not say anything, Dustin, because you guys are all much smarter than me, and you're in a much better position. But
[00:30:42] Dustin Serviss: for it. Let's hear it. That...
[00:30:45] Andrew Devlin: You you said no company is AI proof, but
[00:30:48] Dustin Serviss: I have yet to see
[00:30:49] Andrew Devlin: a company that couldn't use AI to their advantage. And I'm not here to sell AI, but I had to see
[00:30:57] Ryan Maarschalk: I didn't say it was any company that was not AI proof. I said some businesses that are more, less susceptible to disruption from AI. That's what I was meaning.
[00:31:10] Andrew Devlin: Less susceptible to disruption from AI. But let me ask you a really direct question, grumpy face Ryan, which you're smiling now. So now I'm really confused. The... If I own a residential construction company and I have a lot of processes and I'm thinking about, tendering out the work to subcontractors, I'm thinking about running the estimate, I'm thinking about RFIs and change orders and submittals and everything that they go through. So much of that can be run by AI. And my question for you is don't you think that if you're using AI to, automate and manage some of those laborious and time... Laborious. God, I sound smart right now. Laborious and time consuming activities that it would add value to
[00:32:06] Andrew Devlin: the company. The seller's gonna look and say, I'm not relying on on, you know, the single man syndrome. Dustin's running everything right now. Now I know that I can pass that on to the next person. And as long as you can run a prompt, you can change, investigate, see around corners, and use AI to automate. Does it add value, or do you think it creates risk for a a buyer?
[00:32:34] Ryan Maarschalk: I think... I I mean, it... I suppose it depends how many administration type tasks within that maybe trades business could be... Like, how how much cost they're even incurring from it and what kind of an impact AI would have. What I was thinking was that, some businesses are gonna change entirely over the next three years. But, like, a residential construction company, unless they change how those... How homes are built, it's gonna remain relatively similar. But I could be wrong.
[00:33:05] Dustin Serviss: I'll throw I'll throw it out a different way. So many... You guys talk to lots of people. We're all in business, have lots of business friends. You always have a friend that, you know, brags and makes you feel like absolute... Like, you're bottom of the barrel for AI adoption, and I need to get going so much because they're so far ahead of me. But then I actually think after experimenting with with so many things, like, how much AI are you actually implementing in your own life? I don't wanna talk about theory. I wanna talk about some experiences in your own life where you had major breakthroughs. And this is the perfect time for me to thank Andrew
[00:33:48] Dustin Serviss: for dossiers. And we had that little brief text exchange and then a quick visit. Yeah. Game changer. So Okay. I I use that example of, like, the chat through... And, listen, I'm just gonna really brief this up. I was wondering, how do I get all these chat threads gone? Like, is this how people manage their AI? They go into chat gbt, they start a new thread, and they just... Or they have a chat thread that's, like, nineteen folds long, and then it gets slow and it doesn't work and it misses things. No. That's not how you do it. You create a file that lives in a in a linked drive, and it... You recall that file with your key details to start a chat.
[00:34:29] Dustin Serviss: And then at the end, you update the file Yeah. With the key things, and then you can delete the chat. So my chat g b t got way cleaner, and I only have a few projects going. So thank you for that. Open floor. I haven't heard from Matt, so I'm looking at you on the screen the most, but blank slate for who's had some major AI breakthroughs, real breakthroughs.
[00:34:55] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. I think AI has been transformational in our business in that it's enabled our team. So so it's enabled people who may not have the most experience working in Excel or modeling or putting together training plans and things like that to now be just as effective in those applications as I might be, or as anyone else might be because they're enabled to work with Claude or with whatever AI. So that's where we've really used it. It's, like, building tools, training programs, things like that for the team.
[00:35:31] Dustin Serviss: What does building tools mean? Because I hear this all the time, and I think, oh, Malek guy is so smart. He's building tools. But then what is a tool? And you're talking about the family office or you're talking about the paint store specifically?
[00:35:45] Matt Mitchell: I'm talking about our paint store specifically. K. K. Yep. So one example of a tool, is an inventory management model. And so this is a model that we'll look at. We've got twenty years of sales history. Our business also is a bit seasonal in terms of during the summer, exterior seasons here. We start selling stains. And so what this model can essentially do is, like, look back at all of the data that we have and forecast inventory needs a lot more accurately. It can give us better insight into where our overstock inventory is, where maybe we wanna put some items on sale, or maybe we wanna move some things. And so that, our general manager is able to work on and build
[00:36:29] Matt Mitchell: without having, like, any sort of Excel skills, or prior experience working there. I would say also on our assistant manager side, she's built, like, an entire onboarding and training program in a couple of days versus months. And this is, like, a really beautifully twenty page document that tracks someone from the time they start our store, to thirty day check-in, to sixty day check-in, to ninety day check-in, has all the relevant skills that they need to acquire in that time frame. And so, yeah, that's how it's been really helpful for us at the same time. You know? Hey. I can't talk to customers or build relationships or do a lot of the other core things that drive value at our store.
[00:37:12] Matt Mitchell: And so where it's been very helpful in some aspects, there's definitely still a human component that I would say primarily drives our business.
[00:37:20] Dustin Serviss: And just keeping you going for a little bit, is in your friend group or in your business associates in the connection of the family office, because I'm sure you talk to other people who are in in business, is there any other breakthroughs that you've heard of that are real, that are, let's say, like, general, but, like, the tools you built for the inventory is very specific for that. So for somebody trying to have a win in the week, what have what have you heard any other examples of, like, simple wins that are, like, cool things?
[00:37:59] Matt Mitchell: Simple wins that are cool things. I know another one of our companies... Again, it's similar situation, large database of data. The customer insights that we're able to pull by plugging in Claude to that customer database, I would say is extremely insightful. So an example of that might be, hey. This person comes to our store, and oddly enough, once a year, they purchase, and it's around this time. Like, that is a very small data point that would be pretty challenging pull if you're looking line by line. But now you can preemptively reach out and say, hey. You know, it's... We noticed it's your wife's birthday. We have these items for sale that you might wanna consider.
[00:38:47] Matt Mitchell: And being able to do that at scale, I think, is a pretty interesting concept.
[00:38:52] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Thanks. Right? Andrew?
[00:38:57] Andrew Devlin: Well, the first thing I wanna do is correct something that I told you because two weeks ago, the world changed. You talk about AI and what they're saying... I was listening to a futurist speak, and he said, what's gonna happen now with AI? No no one knows, and I'm not talking about it's gonna wipe out the human race or whatever. I'm talking
[00:39:18] Dustin Serviss: about was gonna take you off the show right in the
[00:39:20] Ryan Maarschalk: first episode.
[00:39:21] Andrew Devlin: I I I mean that you you don't know how fast things change. So you and I spoke, and I gave you my example of using anthropic and clod. And I talked to you about the different clauds. There's claud design. There's claud code. There's claud chat, and they don't necessarily talk to each other, which is why you talked about those project documents. Well, two weeks ago, they combined it all. So I can have one chat in perpetuity forever. It can be as long as you want, and it'll... You can reference the chat. That is a massive change in the way I work with Claude plus all the different Claud's talk to each other. So I never have to cut and paste or start a dialogue or give
[00:40:05] Andrew Devlin: it a file. Everything is shared. That was a... An absolutely transformational change, and your listeners may not get it. But think about this. You have an idea and you wanna automate a process in your company. It's... It is honestly a matter of hours for you to sit in front of Claude and say, talk me through the steps, turn this into an application specific to this, and you just say, I want... This is the result I want, and it will build it and publish it and put it on the web and give you cybersecurity. And you can have those functions automated for your entire staff or even your customer profile. That's what I did with my software. So it it is changing so fast that the hardest thing to wrap your
[00:40:51] Andrew Devlin: head around is, Dustin, you and I talked weeks ago, and then suddenly there was a change and everything that you and I discussed that you were excited about now wasn't even necessary anymore. So it's the... Just the the pace of change is daunting and it's exciting. And if I'm a sixty year old in Regina selling my company, I mean, it would behoove me to understand the art of the possible. Where are my friction points? Where are my large rocks in my valuation? And why don't I have a conversation with AI about that? And then how do I automate them and get some ideas? And I didn't want to start a software company. It just happened. And then I was solving customers' business problems, and it got
[00:41:35] Andrew Devlin: out of hand. It's it's like a bad hobby that turned into an addiction.
[00:41:40] Dustin Serviss: Do you have, so the... Where I do use the dossier idea of having a stored sort of... And all I have is Google Sheets, and my Claude and my chat gbt are both linked to that, is actually going between the platforms and doing similar tasks. So I'm working on... I find chat is slightly different. For example, for... In me, if it's like I'm writing script on podcast or I'm doing something, it it can be quite good. Claude is far superior when it comes to building a dashboard, building a a thing, but I sometimes like to use them for the same project. So would I still use that process of having one Google Doc with sort of all the instructions and all the key things that
[00:42:26] Dustin Serviss: are... One example listener is, like, when I do a podcast, the image that I put into my distribution channel that goes to Spotify, goes to Apple, goes... Has to be a certain size, three thousand by three thousand and under two megabytes. ChatGPT will make a great image of the podcast, but it never makes it that size. They always go to a one thousand by twenty four. It doesn't matter. But they'll they'll never make it specific. So in my dossier document about podcast production, it specifically says anytime you're asked to generate an image, these are the specifications of the image. So if I'm in cloud or I'm in ChatGPT and I'm doing that specific
[00:43:07] Dustin Serviss: task, it will call that document and know what to make that image. Is there other ways in that sequence, just to keep the listener with an example, that you think I could be making that process better?
[00:43:21] Andrew Devlin: So so first, your set of rules in Google Docs, you can point both Claude and Chat GPT to the same documents.
[00:43:28] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. Yeah. I knew.
[00:43:30] Andrew Devlin: It would... And then they update them, and so they're always current. So that speeds things up. The second thing I wanna say is you need to investigate the skills that you can attach to each one of the AIs. I'll use anthropic Claude for... As an example. There is a litany, Matt. That's a word Matt taught me, and I wanted to say that, look. I learned, and I'm using it. Litany of things that you can... Like, expertise a lot. That's... Yeah. I don't know. I never asked. I just was supposed to use it in a sentence. So you've got this plethora of of functions that you can add to your AI for your specific activity. So I struggled for years with Claude
[00:44:14] Andrew Devlin: and anything by design. It just didn't design things. Then they came up with something called Claude Design, which is a really sophisticated... If you wanna work on a logo or you wanna look on an image. So I added the skill of Claude Design, and it... It's kind of another Claude code. It's another Claude, but it talks to the other Clauds, and it creates the designs. And I get to proof them, and I get ten or fifteen or whatever I ask for. You pick one, you start to drill in. So it's got all these skills. Ryan, it's got a ton of financial skills that you can weave on. Matt, you can put valuation skills in there. And once you have all those, some really smart people, like...
[00:44:55] Andrew Devlin: And I'm talking geniuses are informing the AIs. You said something else interesting. I'll trust those guys more than I'll trust myself. How do I do calculations? How do I do this? I add the right skills, and then my AI is informed. And if you don't know how to add a skill for your listeners or you don't know how to set up exactly what you need for the output from the AI, ask the AI, and it'll talk you through, oh, there's a skill that does this and just add this. Once it has that skill, it's part of its knowledge base. I have dozens of skills that are added to my AIs. And what I think is really interesting is it will continue to evolve and change, and all those skills will continue
[00:45:43] Andrew Devlin: to evolve and change. But I just urge everybody to ask their AI what they're trying to do. Like, talk with the end in mind and and make sure in your prompts you're saying, think like a chief revenue officer of a billion dollar software company. Think like a Wall Street, hedge fund manager who's looking at impact, whatever it is, and then tell me what you need to make these decisions and get the AI to inform you on how to use AI. I I am not a smart man. I think I've made that really clear today, but I do know it's the same as a a buyer buying a company. It really boils down to what are the questions you're asking. Matt has spreadsheets and spreadsheets that he does when he does his diligence,
[00:46:29] Andrew Devlin: and we talked about it. And, all of those are really questions you're asking about the environment and constitution of the company you're looking to buy. Dustin, I'm sure you have a litany of questions that you need.
[00:46:45] Dustin Serviss: Why shouldn't I buy this?
[00:46:46] Andrew Devlin: Right.
[00:46:47] Dustin Serviss: I tried... That's how I look at it. Why shouldn't I buy this?
[00:46:49] Andrew Devlin: How do I see around corners? What are the upside? What are the downside? As my father used to tell me, ask better questions. That's what it boils down to. Ask better questions, and you'll get better informed.
[00:47:03] Dustin Serviss: Ryan, you know? Oh, sorry, Matt. Give her I
[00:47:05] Matt Mitchell: was gonna say, I think when Andrew said act like you're a Wall Street executive, I think he meant act like you're a Bay Street executive in Toronto.
[00:47:12] Andrew Devlin: Right. Right. Right.
[00:47:15] Matt Mitchell: So some... Let's show some Canadian pride on this, on this podcast here.
[00:47:20] Andrew Devlin: Busted.
[00:47:21] Ryan Maarschalk: I'm gonna I'm gonna call you after this, Andrew, and and book you for thirty minutes of consultation. I'm gonna teach you about
[00:47:30] Andrew Devlin: how important your smile is. It changes your personality. Okay.
[00:47:35] Dustin Serviss: I do have something that I wanna close on, which is we all invest in different things
[00:47:41] Matt Mitchell: Yep.
[00:47:42] Dustin Serviss: Professionally, personally. As interest rates... And I... This isn't a economics, podcast by any means, but it's where my root of my question is is the decision making that three different, four different people make as you can look at a business to buy or look at something to invest in, and interest rates for a five year GIC are, say, four percent. Easy math. Some of them are more. But it's starting to be not just a low number. Don't worry about interest rates. Because that's always... In in my head for, you know, twenty years with clients, it was like, what's the risk free return? And then when you compare it to what they're getting, if we're looking at
[00:48:26] Dustin Serviss: a a competitive situation or our own portfolios and making sure the portfolio managers were doing their own... They were doing their job. We'd say could it get risk free at four percent? Well, when you look at a business, because this is for any of you guys, for the business you work with, is that creeping into the consideration when you look at businesses and you look at opportunities and we all get a little older and you know how much effort, Matt excluded out of that comment, you go, oh, I don't know if I wanna do that much effort energy for that return versus other returns. So is that... Is the interest rate situation... Can you be coming on anyone's radar, or is it still like, no.
[00:49:11] Dustin Serviss: We're going for double digits. It's not even on our
[00:49:17] Andrew Devlin: radar. Alright. I thought Ryan would go first for sure, but I've got some thoughts.
[00:49:23] Ryan Maarschalk: Go for it.
[00:49:25] Andrew Devlin: I sometimes get paralyzed by risk. I had the privilege of being an executive for these billion dollar companies like Cisco Systems, and I would do presentations on Bay Street, Matt. And I would be informed by this massive organization with all these geniuses and Nobel Prize winners in in science, and they would talk about disruption. And I'll give you an example because it's colorful for your listeners. Years and years ago, I did a presentation, and I said, think about the disruption of, automated dry... Automatically driven vehicles. All those years ago, the city of Toronto was already looking at their parking revenue, thinking about automated vehicles.
[00:50:12] Andrew Devlin: Because at the time, it was tracking that, you know, these self driving cars would... Picture this. They literally pick... You get in your car at home. It takes you to work, and then it drives home, plugs itself in, drives back to work to pick you up. You never park your car. It's almost like chauffeur driven. Think about short haul from from where we are in Kelowna, BC to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton. I may choose to drive because I can sit in the back seat, do some work, have a nap, eat four meals, which is what I do every time I'm in a vehicle. I can do a lot of things. And then what happens to short haul carriers? What happens to roadside motels.
[00:50:56] Andrew Devlin: So sometimes I get paralyzed by thinking I'm smart, and I wanna see around corners. And I may be looking for double digit growth, but sometimes it's a regulatory strike of a pen, and an industry can be decimated. Sometimes it's technology that can step in, and there's just no risk free, investment in my opinion. And I married someone way over my skis, but she's very conservative. So she'll take the interest often before the investment with the exception of, obviously, we're looking for a go kart team, someone... Something we can invest in.
[00:51:35] Dustin Serviss: Sponsor one? You just Yeah. One? Definitely. There's a guy just next door.
[00:51:44] Andrew Devlin: Yeah. Anyway, that that was my thoughts that, it's difficult to understand the pace of change and to consume it when... Like, I I think about Matt's job, and he has to not only weigh everything he's doing in his diligence, but also try to see around corners with the pace of change. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen with tariffs? What's gonna happen with technology? What's what industries aren't gonna exist, and what industries are gonna thrive and grow? It's, it's a daunting question.
[00:52:16] Dustin Serviss: So that's risk cover.
[00:52:18] Ryan Maarschalk: Yes.
[00:52:19] Dustin Serviss: Maybe go to opportunity. Someone else in the upper half of my screen, get on the opportunity wagon of the comparison between... And, again, I think there there is a risk free return, which is a GIC. Now if the bank goes broke, well, then I guess that's a whole another story. But fill us in on the opportunity side.
[00:52:41] Ryan Maarschalk: Dustin, I was thinking, for a lot of entrepreneurs, the rate of return is not always something that's important. It's, doing what they wanna do is important. And the last thing that a lot of entrepreneurs wanna do is just put everything into the GIC or into a market and not do anything. So they'll do some of that, if they want or they'll get in... If if they like real estate, they'll be in real estate. Or if they just... They wanna start or run a business, that... That's the reason that's what they wanna do. So a lot of the times, they're, sort of like vision or or ideas on on how to create or pave a path or create something new. That's what gives you, like, massive growth because it's
[00:53:33] Ryan Maarschalk: it's creative. It's new. It's normally, the the people driving the bus on something like that are very passionate about what they're doing. And, they normally lease to, like, high returns. But, like, if you were seeking... If you were just an investor seeking where you wanna put your money, like, I think that that's a different conversation. I think, yeah, like, interest rates and tariffs and AI, like, those types of things are very disruptive to where it could go. So I suppose it depends if you're an investor or if you're an entrepreneur, like, reinvesting your cash or building businesses?
[00:54:12] Dustin Serviss: I think, like, some of the... It's not not all, but some of the the people that I've worked with in the past get to a point, and I guess it's probably my natural market, mid forties. You get to a certain point. You've got a bucket of savings that's... Call it safe, call it blue chip, call it whatever you want. But then as new money comes in, do you still take that same mindset of... But obviously just goes in the same bucket, and you absolutely nailed it without even, like, a bump set spike pre email to say what you said. But the entrepreneur's purpose and there's something else that drives them to to wanna do that and put the money into something
[00:54:54] Dustin Serviss: is such a big understated thing. And so I think for someone who gets analysis paralysis to overcome that or to be able to talk to your spouse and say, we gotta do this. There's no reason that we shouldn't. We've got the safe bucket. And in that example, it's like we got the safe bucket. We got new money. If it all goes to zero, well, we got the bucket still. So when you look at the business or the project and the and the returns, if the energy and the effort is there, the returns likely would surprise people over a long enough time period, notwithstanding some of the risks, Andrew, you brought up or even Ryan, if an industry goes broke, maybe you saw it, maybe you didn't.
[00:55:39] Dustin Serviss: But on that topic, Matt, finalize us with resiliency in when you buy a business and you got to, you get into the weeds and you need to be resilient around the investment and power through to get it going.
[00:55:57] Matt Mitchell: It is very hard. It is very hard, which is what I think highlights all of the work on the front end. And kind of to your point when you're assessing risks and all these things and you're assessing what return you wanna get, I definitely would keep in mind, like, it's all hard. Buying a small company is really hard. Buying a large company is really hard. And so whatever you decide to do, make sure that you have a chance at the outcome that you want, and that's gonna be able to sort of sustain you. So that's... That would be my two cents, and I personally am really passionate about operating companies. I think it's really fun. It's all I've ever done in my entire career.
[00:56:42] Matt Mitchell: And so I think, in general, if you're able to buy a private company and work on it and improve it for the long term, you're gonna do pretty well from a return perspective, especially if you pay a good price for it. And so that's kind of the world I live in, and and that's all I've really ever done.
[00:56:59] Dustin Serviss: Listener. So Chenmark is a family office. You can look into it. But the the idea behind permanent capital or what permanent capital means is you are buying something and you're not going to sell it, it, or the goal is not to sell it. So in in the in the world of other private markets, you would buy a business, you'd repackage it, you'd try and sell it for a profit within, say, five years. So, Matt, on that sort of backdrop, how do you guys analyze or what's the mandate of the family office when you look at a permanent thing that that they... The family knows that there's permanent interest or that there is sort of... Or it just it just find a great business, run it like we're running
[00:57:40] Dustin Serviss: it forever, and that's like... There isn't that much. It goes back to Ryan's comments about the founder of the family office and the family have a vision. They laid it out and don't overthink it. Is that as simple as sort of
[00:57:53] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, I think it's definitely, like, a simple but challenging to execute thing. One thing I think is pretty unique about our evaluation is we actually don't, include exit multiples or any exit valuation in our initial modeling. And so the idea is that you buy a cash flowing business that is durable, and you run that business into perpetuity and use the free cash flow that that business fits off to then grow either that operating company or redistribute it back to the holding company, and buy more businesses. And so one of the things that we look at is free cash flow yield, and that's the primary metric that we that we look at.
[00:58:33] Dustin Serviss: Just not... It's not as... So when you look at it... So think of a building, like, many listeners would resonate. This is like a commercial building, spits off a yield. You're not gonna redevelop it. You're not gonna do a subdivision. It's literally just how much money does it pay you and then roughly forecast what you think that increase in revenue is gonna be or, like, not revenue, but earnings.
[00:58:54] Matt Mitchell: Earnings. Yeah. Take. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
[00:59:00] Dustin Serviss: You think that other buyers of that business that have different motivations would pay more than you'd pay?
[00:59:09] Matt Mitchell: I think it completely depends on the industry. It completely depends on the type of business, and it completely depends on the situation. I would say not always. There are certainly more flexible options that we can provide. It's it's all very nuanced. So it just completely depend on the situation.
[00:59:26] Dustin Serviss: Okay. I I ask that because I think of, okay. If I was gonna try and, in my head, dream up a optimistic strategy where I was gonna out market you or do more marketing or whatever and grow the business faster and then sell it in a shorter period of time, I might put a factor on my buy due diligence of saying, I'm gonna offer more for this business because I'm gonna get more out of it. And I guess where where I was going my head is that sleeve of the premium that I'm gonna pay for it versus you because I envision something not more creative, but something that's not proven. Like, yeah, I'm just... I'm thinking I'm gonna do with something. How much do people put in on that premium?
[01:00:11] Dustin Serviss: And I know it depends on the business, depends on whatever, but it does kind of show how people make decisions when valuing or thinking about buying a business, a building piece of property.
[01:00:24] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. I think if those same growth opportunities exist though, you know, and we spot that, that's a great opportunity for a vehicle like an earn out, which which Ryan's very familiar with. But it's essentially like, hey. Great. We think there's this great growth opportunity in the business that we're gonna pursue. Okay. We'll pay you the the owner, like, a portion of that growth if you're able to stay on and sort of help us achieve that. And so that situation is where when you have a big gap in valuation and maybe an owner is like, oh, hey. Actually, I think my business is worth this much based on these things. It's like, okay. Great. If those things come to fruition, we're happy to pay you for that.
[01:01:02] Matt Mitchell: That makes a ton of sense.
[01:01:04] Dustin Serviss: Thanks.
[01:01:05] Ryan Maarschalk: Hey, Matt. Quick question. And, Dustin, it's a good question that you asked about, like, the timeline. But, Matt, I'm curious, like, when you run your models, like... And it... And and it is permanent capital. Like, do you... How far do you go out?
[01:01:21] Matt Mitchell: We go typically ten years out.
[01:01:24] Dustin Serviss: K.
[01:01:25] Ryan Maarschalk: Wow.
[01:01:27] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. It's it's hard it's hard
[01:01:29] Ryan Maarschalk: to imagine, like, you know, a business in any longer than that. But, you know, for a business to be, like, forty years old, you know, but a lot of businesses do. They get that old. Right? But if you're able to pull, you know, sufficient cash out over a period of time, obviously, I understand your your model. It's it's good to just hold a a cash producing business. It's a good quality business.
[01:01:52] Matt Mitchell: Yeah. And reinvest in it and try and grow it, of course. That's the number one priority. So
[01:01:58] Dustin Serviss: Guys, we are, about an hour, and I told you, I promised. And I've really had a lot of fun. I thank you for, your guys' input and any closing thoughts that anyone has for the three of us, four of us, or the listener.
[01:02:19] Andrew Devlin: I think your listeners should have a drink to celebrate my birthday. Yes.
[01:02:25] Dustin Serviss: I know. Thirty four?
[01:02:28] Ryan Maarschalk: Yeah. Yeah. You can double that.
[01:02:30] Dustin Serviss: I won't put your actual age in the show notes, but, I will give you kudos for how much energy you have, for... On your birthday and moving.
[01:02:40] Andrew Devlin: Aging is is, again, one of those moving... You you think about... You... You're looking to buy or sell, and you're thinking about your energy level. I think today in society, we have no reason to age and be immobile. We have no reason to Yeah. Slow down if if you can get out of bed, get yourself to a gym, have some fun, hang out with really smart people like you three. The world, it's fun, man. Why would you wanna slow down?
[01:03:11] Dustin Serviss: I I appreciate you saying that. Don't get old. Don't act old. Don't talk old. Don't eat old. Yeah. And Yeah.
[01:03:19] Andrew Devlin: Five o'clock dinners are becoming more attractive. I will say that.
[01:03:22] Dustin Serviss: About eight fifty in bed?
[01:03:24] Andrew Devlin: Yeah. What about driving across town to buy eggs at a cheaper price?
[01:03:31] Dustin Serviss: I'll text you when chicken's on sale at FreshCo.
[01:03:36] Andrew Devlin: Not there yet, but Thanks
[01:03:37] Dustin Serviss: a lot, guys. Go next time. Thank
[01:03:40] Ryan Maarschalk: you. Thanks, Dustin. Thanks, Matt. Thanks. Andrew. Cheers. Yeah.
[01:03:43] Matt Mitchell: Thank you, guys.