Would You Buy This $40K Dessert Catering Business?

Welcome to The Main Street Minute, your shortcut to small business buying and scaling.

Inside today’s story:

Reply to let us know what you think. We read every message.

START HERE

Keely McEnery didn't set out to make nitrogen ice cream at weddings and big events. She set out to study business.

In 2021, she moved from Chicago to Houston for college. That’s where she first heard the phrase "entrepreneurship through acquisition," the idea that you could buy a business instead of building one from scratch.

Like most of the other students though, she filed it away and kept going to class.

While she was in school, she worked for a small experiential dessert catering company called Freezing Point Co. that used liquid nitrogen to make desserts and mocktails the star of the show. Working with the owner, she learned the business from the inside, and eventually started thinking bigger than just a part-time job.

By 2022, she was ready to make an offer.

She ran the numbers with a professor and came in at $90K, but the owner turned her down. Pre-COVID, she'd had offers around $400K, and she wasn't about to accept a fraction of that.

So Keely walked. "We're not going to come to an agreement," she remembers thinking. "This is kind of the end of the road."

She didn't slam the door on her way out, though. And the decision to stay in touch with her old boss is what made her an owner today.

Keely didn't chase the deal after it fell apart.

And she didn’t get mad and burn the bridge either.

She just stayed in touch without an agenda, keeping the relationship warm for three years.

That patience paid off when the owner eventually emailed Keely to say she was shutting the business down after COVID had gutted the events industry.

Keely didn't let the email sit. She reached out, grabbed lunch, and asked the question: what happens to everything now?

The lesson: A dead deal isn't necessarily the last conversation you'll ever have with that seller. Treat potential sellers like someone you might do business with in 3 years, because you actually might. It never hurts to be nice.

At lunch, Keely found out the owner was about to delete the company's website and digital assets and sell off all the equipment. She was done. And the kicker was, she still owed money on an unpaid PPP loan.

Keep in mind, the business had been valued at $400K a few years prior, so Keely was ready for a little sticker shock when she asked what the owner wanted for it.

And she was, indeed, shocked by the offer: pay off the loan, and take everything.

Keely ended up buying the whole business for just $40K. Less than half of what she'd offered back in 2022 and a tenth of what it had been worth back then.

She just had to put down a little of her own capital and financed the rest through the seller.

The lesson: The right deal and the right price rarely show up together. Keep an eye on the ones that get away, because circumstances can change.

Keely leaned on the Contrarian community constantly while she was getting the business off the ground, using it to find a contract lawyer, an SEO person, and other operators who'd already made the mistakes she was trying to avoid.

That's the kind of access we've built into our programs.

And if you want to find out how owners like Keely are growing their own businesses, check out this FREE event!

Most owners are sitting on tens (or hundreds) of thousands in hidden cash – but they’re too deep in the weeds to see it.

Join us live and we’ll help you find the extra money inside your business by pulling the 5 key growth levers.

You’ll walk away with an action plan, and a solid understanding of how to get your business to the next level.

Just click HERE to sign up.

The business Keely bought had existed since 2015, which meant she wasn't starting from zero.

One of the big advantages to buying a pre-existing business is you don’t have to build the foundation. Like a house-flip, the bones are usually solid: you just need a new coat of paint and some elbow grease.

Keely inherited a real client list, existing vendor relationships, and a built-in reputation for high-end, first-mover-style events.

So when she started looking for business, she already had names to call and a recognizable brand. That’s why when you buy a business, you shouldn’t immediately change the logo. Instead of starting over, let all the previous marketing work FOR you.

When Keely got Freezing Point Co. up and running again, she TRIPLED the revenue in her year one, compared to the previous owner’s year one.

Then she repeated the feat in year two.

And while we definitely think Keely would’ve crushed it regardless, having built-in name recognition and a proven client base DEFINITELY helped.

The lesson: When you buy an existing business instead of starting one, you're buying every relationship and all the existing market share. That head start is more than worth the upfront cost.

Right after buying the business, Keely relocated it to Los Angeles, where her husband's family lived. It felt like the obvious next chapter.

And it seemed like a good move at first, as she got work with big clients like Coca-Cola, Porsche, and Genesis Motors.

But Keely wasn’t doing as much business as she hoped…

Meanwhile, her Houston clients kept asking when she was coming back.

So almost a year later, she moved the business back to Houston. Her first December home, the business pulled in $30K over a single month.

By completely uprooting the business instead of engineering a slow expansion and testing the LA market, Keely lost out on a few years of revenue and growth.

Now she’s got two locations, and is steadily growing them both. With plans to expand to Chicago and New York once she nails down her processes and systems, we’re excited to see what the future holds.

The lesson: Don't mistake a market you already own for a market you can recreate instantly somewhere else. Expand slowly from strength before you pack up shop and go chase shiny objects.

What do you do when someone starts doing EXACTLY what you do, just in a different font?

Well, that’s what happened to Keely when a big competitor started showing up at the same networking events, taking notes on Keely's product, and eventually outright copying it.

There's no patent for liquid nitrogen ice cream and mocktails though, so there was nothing she could do to stop it legally.

It discouraged her for a while, but she realized hiding away wasn't the answer.

Being so specific and so personal in how she provided her service, having custom branding, doing one-off details, and creating an experience nobody else could replicate in a weekend, is what makes her stand out.

People can copy your product, but they can’t copy YOU. As long as you’re willing to outwork your competition, there’s no real contest.

The lesson: If your moat is an idea, you don't really have a moat. Your moat is how relentlessly you execute it.

Keely put it simply near the end of our conversation:

She didn't get this business by outbidding anyone. She got it by being patient, nurturing relationships, and working hard.

And Keely isn’t stopping or slowing down anytime soon, as she hopes to build a thriving business portfolio over the next few years.

As someone who’s proven herself over and over, we’re pretty sure it’s only a matter of time.

-Team Contrarian

P.S. Do you want more cash, and less chaos?

More freedom to do what you’re best at, and less time spent on the small stuff?

If you want to learn how to build a business so good it runs without you, AND potentially win part of $1M in cash and prizes…

Click HERE to attend the FREE launch of Own or Be Owned.

No matter what, you’ll walk away with Codie’s personal favorite scaling tool, just for showing up.

Hit the link above to get signed up!

See you there!

FROM THE COMMUNITY

Buying businesses is hard. That’s why we work so hard to do what we do.

Want to join our groups of thousands of smart business builders and buyers?

Get access to our live expert calls (and so much more) when you join our Contrarian Academy or Growth Boardroom.