Would You Buy This $4M Door Business?

Welcome to The Main Street Minute, your shortcut to Main Street ownership.

👋 Shout-out to the hundreds of new readers who joined the newsletter last week.

This week: Behind the curtain of a $4M deal for a door and window supply business with $1M+ in SDE and lessons that matter for any business owner or buyer.

(Already own a 7-figure biz and looking to scale? Codie’s hosting a tight-knit Growth Accelerator Workshop in Austin, Sep 26-28. Seats are limited. Click here for the schedule, FAQs, and more.)

Now, onto today’s deal…

NUMBERS

A pair of buyers is eyeing a 40-plus-year-old door and window supplier. The business has been running since the ‘80s, with the current owner taking over a decade ago. Today, he claims to work about 15 hours a week on the business and that he doesn’t even know how to use the estimating software for sales.

The model is lean and simple:

Orders start around $25k and can run up to $500k for luxury home packages. The business does not manufacture, install, or hold much inventory. It simply sells goods from 7-8 high-end manufacturers and facilitates the shipment to the job site.

So the underlying business is profitable, but not without noticeable swings. And while the model is asset-light, it’s also light on moat, with the edge likely coming down to pricing power from vendor relationships.

Let’s dig in…

KEY IDEAS

At first glance, this deal looks clean. A multi-decade supplier, millions in revenue and SDE, and an owner with a relatively light workload.

But the closer you look, the more questions surface. The buyers may be stepping into a business that is simple on paper but layered with risk. Here are the 5 big lessons shaping the path forward.

The company shares a building with the seller’s other business. The seller offered a 3-year lease to the buyers, but with a clause that lets them break it on 6 months’ notice. One coach warned:

In Southern California’s tight market, that short runway could make financing and relocation difficult.

The business has only 4 employees, 3 of whom are salespeople. There is no marketing and no outbound motion, just a small team fielding requests and quoting orders. When one salesperson was promoted to manager in 2023, it backfired, sales slumped, and SDE fell significantly.

Most sales here are tied to luxury home builds, which are lucrative but cyclical. Lenders have already raised concerns. That means the revenue mix is now a financing risk, not just a potential operating risk.

The company has supplied doors and windows for decades, which may give it preferential pricing from top manufacturers. That pricing power is likely the moat. If so, it is critical that contracts lock it in. As one coach advised:

If a vendor changes terms or raises rates, margins could collapse quickly.

The owner claims to work about 15 hours a week, does not sell, and even says he does not know how to use the quoting software. They are exiting to focus on their other business, which on the surface makes sense, but as one coach pointed out:

The buyers will need to dig into whether the business is truly stable or if there are issues not yet visible in the numbers.

Let’s zoom out from the deal itself and look at the broader market these buyers are stepping into…

INDUSTRY

The doors and windows supply business may sound straightforward on the surface. You rep a handful of manufacturers, quote the job, and ship the order to a contractor or homeowner. But under the hood, performance often rises and falls with the real estate cycle.

When housing activity picks up, it can lead to more $25,000 to $500,000 window packages moving through this business’s pipeline. When construction slows, those large-ticket projects tend to become less frequent.

One coach urged the buyers to ground their assumptions in local data: “Go to your local county office and see how many permits are being pulled. At least you’ll be able to see that from a data perspective, so you can forecast.”

Lenders understand these cycles, which is why they tend to treat construction-heavy businesses with caution. As the buyers already heard from one, “If there’s more than 20% of the revenue coming from new construction, then we automatically disqualify.” That means access to financing is shaped significantly by industry exposure on top of the company’s own financials.

Competition adds another layer. Manufacturers may not grant exclusivity, so multiple suppliers in the same market can likely sell the same products. Margins also depend heavily on vendors. Tariffs, raw material costs, and price adjustments often pass directly down to distributors. One coach asked:

Regional factors matter too. The buyers noted that demand could be strong in areas north of San Diego, especially around Los Angeles, where recent wildfires will likely drive a wave of rebuilding. That kind of event-based demand shows how unpredictable but powerful local factors can be in shaping the outlook for this industry.

The result is a sector with long-term demand but plenty of short-term swings. No supplier is fully insulated from the ups and downs of construction cycles, financing constraints, or shocks like natural disasters.

BUYER CONCERNS

From the start, the buyers admitted their biggest concern was stepping into a sales-heavy business without sales backgrounds.

The coaches encouraged them to zoom out from just sales and look at the broader picture. As one explained, “To me, I’d spend more time on the state of this industry.” He pointed to factors like tariffs, interest rates, and the share of revenue coming from new construction as more critical long-term risks than whether the buyers personally had deep sales experience.

Another coach shifted the focus to cash flow mechanics. “What does that accounts receivable look like?” he asked. “Sales guys are great, but the great sales guys are the guys that sell and help you collect.” It was a reminder that in a project-based business, deposits and collections can be just as important as bookings.

The conversation also touched on growth opportunities that could offset some of these risks. One of the buyers noted, “They don’t do any outside sales. No outbound sales motion whatsoever. So that is an opportunity.”

Rather than telling the buyers to walk away, the coaches framed these issues as due diligence priorities.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The coaches didn’t any items as reasons to walk. Instead, they framed them as the work ahead.

The buyers left with a diligence checklist, but also shared how they got here in the first place. They didn’t just stumble on this listing. One buyer explained that persistence with brokers made the difference.

He called about a different business that was already under LOI, just to open a line of communication. A few days later, the broker sent him this deal before it ever hit the market. “We were the first to see it, the first to meet the seller, and the first to submit an LOI,” he said.

That mix of timing, grit, and relationships is what put the deal in their hands. Now the question is whether diligence and financing can keep it there, and get it over the finish line.

Want your deals reviewed by hundreds of smart business builders and buyers?

Get access to our live expert calls (and so much more) when you join the Contrarian Community.