When the Business Is Just You: A $650k Garage Biz

How to Build a Franchise Holdco

Franchises and ETA play so well together.

In this webinar, Connor Groce covers:

• Single-brand roll-ups vs. multi-brand portfolios

• Franchise acquisitions: sourcing, diligence, and integration

• Institutional capital in franchising

• Industries with the most opportunity in franchising

• Case studies

Connor Groce has owned or operated franchise units in multiple systems.

He has grown his own portfolio through multiple successful acquisitions and learned the power that acquisitions can play in long-term value creation.

Watch this recorded webinar to learn from an expert at the intersection of ETA and franchising.

One reason that many Acquiring Minds guests have arrived at the decision to buy a business is the realization that a W-2 is less secure than it seems.

Today’s guest learned that young. Marco Hsu watched his father get laid off repeatedly, and his mother restart her career late in life.

Marco is a mechanical engineer and lifelong car guy. He bought Clewett Engineering, a one-man, home-garage maker of engine upgrades for vintage Porsches, with $600–700k of revenue and $350k of SDE. You'll hear me use the word "artisanal" a lot.

It took three LOIs for Marco to get the deal done; he was committed to this project. He valued getting in the game, and the business-buyer fit couldn't be tighter. The owner said that Marco reminded him of him 30 years ago.

Year one in the business has been pretty brutal — far harder than Marco expected, and he lays out what he got wrong.

Also listen for Marco's goals with this project.

He isn’t trying to build an empire; he wants a good living and a reasonable work week in his area of passion. We discuss exactly what would qualify his acquisition as a success.

Key Takeaways

1. Marco Hsu, a mechanical engineer and lifelong car enthusiast, bought Clewett Engineering, a one-man business making engine upgrades for vintage air-cooled Porsches (1998 and older), run entirely out of the founder's home garage.

2. Marco's drive to own a business came from watching his father get laid off repeatedly and his mother restart a career late in life — convincing him a W2 was less secure than it appeared, and that having money to make big problems disappear requires ownership.

3. He had repeatedly failed at starting things himself, admitting he couldn't market or find customers; discovering Acquiring Minds gave him the confidence that buying an existing business with an installed customer base was the right path.

4. Clewett Engineering generated roughly $600,000–$700,000 in annual revenue with about $350,000 in SDE — roughly 50% margins — because the seller worked seven days a week alone with almost no overhead.

5. Found on Quiet Light, the deal took three LOIs; the first offered the 3.5x asking multiple but included inventory, equipment, and working capital, the second was full price, and the third succeeded after Marco sent a two-page personal background presentation that made the seller say he "sounded like me 30 years ago."

6. Final purchase price was about $1.4 million, with inventory, equipment, and roughly $70,000 of working capital rolled into an SBA 7(a) loan; Marco put 10% down funded entirely via ROBS, with no seller note, making the effective multiple closer to 4x — aggressive for a business this small and owner-dependent.

7. Inventory was underestimated at close (the parties rushed to close between the seller's surgeries for a health issue), forcing Marco to inject another $100,000–$150,000 in the first three to four months, which essentially cleared out his personal finances.

8. Nearly every outsourced vendor either declined to continue or raised prices sharply, so Marco had to rebuild the entire supply chain and redraw more than 50 engineering drawings from marked-up files and physical parts — a process that took until roughly March, about five to six months post-close.

9. He kept his W2 job part-time for six months to avoid taking a paycheck, but found the 20-hour-a-week plan completely overwhelming; a year in he's made almost no improvements, is on track for $600,000–$700,000 in revenue, and is paying himself less than he made out of college as profits go back into inventory.

10. Marco isn't an empire builder: success would mean taking home at least $150,000 a year on a reasonable 40-hour week with an employee and a dedicated space, and he's skeptical of rolling up similar artisanal shops because customers in this niche flee when they hear a business sold to private equity.

Watch the full video 👇👇

Here is Marco Hsu, owner of Clewett Engineering: