In this episode of JackQuisitions, Jack sits down with Ian Smith, partner at South River Capital, to break down what it actually looks like to scale through acquisitions in home services—when the “platform” you thought you bought turns out to be pen, paper, and magnets on a board.
Ian shares how his partners bought Terraform Landscaping in 2021 (~$2M revenue), then turned around and acquired an equal-sized landscaping company (Robins Landscaping)—only to learn the hard way that the owner was doing far more than anyone realized. You’ll hear what they expected going into the deal, what surprised them immediately, and how they discovered they didn’t buy the platform… they had to build it.
They walk through how they approached branding and integration (why Robins became Terraform), how modernizing tools and systems can be way harder than it looks, and why “smashing companies together” breaks culture, comp, contracts, and operations faster than most buyers expect.
Then the story escalates: two acquisitions in six months, going from roughly $2.5M to ~$7M in about a year—plus a third deal, Miller Irrigation, that introduced a totally different business model (high-volume, low-ticket service work). Ian explains why irrigation acquisitions may be the real growth lever going into 2026, how they kept Miller as a separate outward-facing brand, and the painful lessons they learned around AR, invoicing lag, overhead, and operational complexity.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone buying in home services—especially if you’re considering partnerships, roll-ups, or “platform” strategies that look clean on paper but get messy fast.
🔍 What You’ll Learn
- Why the owner always does more than you think (and how that changes integration plans)
- What “building the platform” really means when systems aren’t actually scalable
- How they handled branding + consolidation (why Robins became Terraform)
- Why the second deal wasn’t a tuck-in—it was an equal-sized acquisition
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Billy Riley had purchased Terraform Landscaping in 2021. It was a business that had been doing about $2 million in revenue. What does the first couple months to the first year look like for you? We believe that they had like really strong systems and processes in middle management and that they could be the platform.Actually pretty different experience than I think we thought it was gonna be. No. And. First thing we learned was that the owner always does more than anything, and I learned that business works, uh, pen and paper and magnets on boards. Yeah. And we're skipping over a big punchline of this whole story, which is we did two acquisitions in six months.Always smart.Ooh, welcome back to Jack Acquisitions. I'm your host, Jack. I have had four acquisitions in the past two years and multiple exits, and we are dedicated to bringing you information about acquisitions. In the home service space as well as other spaces. And today I am super pumped to have a good friend. I, I'll consider you a good friend.That's an honor. I'll take it with me. You have a super interesting story that has always resonated with me. Uh, walk me through, uh, quick five minutes of your background, who you are, how you went from, uh, the W2 world into actually being a part owner in. I, I'll let you get into it, but in multiple, yeah.Landscape and hardscape and irrigation style businesses. Yeah. Um, well first, thanks for having me on. I'm big fan of the big operated, surreal, uh, to be sitting here. I think, you know, uh, when you're in it doing it, uh, it never feels like you're the person on the other end of the podcast. So it's just funny to be on here.Um, but yeah, a little bit about myself. Uh, Ian Smith. I'm native of Richmond, Virginia, where I live currently. Um, you know, I, uh, went to School of Virginia Tech and studied in, uh, building construction, which is basically a construction management degree program. Uh, graduated from there and entered the world of commercial construction.Did that for, uh, a little over 10 years. Um, that was my kind of first career. Um. I lived out, uh, in Denver, Colorado actually for a long time. Uh, my entrepreneurial journey kind of started out there. Um, I worked for a huge, uh, developer outta Pacific Northwest doing multifamily development and construction.And, uh, burned out on that a little bit. Um, it was a great company. They treated us super well, but they had a very sterile corporate culture, as I'm sure many of your guys have said. And, uh Oh, yeah, yeah. I wanted to do something different. And, uh, a former coworker of mine was working at a much more entrepreneurial developer, um, who took.Like warehouses, uh, and converted them into creative office and restaurants. So started working with him. Um, and a few years into that business, it was just a very, like, entrepreneurial atmosphere. We kind of felt like, hey, we wanna, we wanna build something and, and go into business for ourselves. And so we started working nights and weekends, uh, to build our own, um, general contracting business.Um, I ended up working with, uh, two former coworkers as partners in that, and we did that. A few years, years, um, years in that I ended up moving back to the East Coast. Uh, my wife wanted to get back here, some of her friends, and we wanted to start a family, and that put a lot of strain on being a partner in a business remotely.Yeah. Um, we went from, you know, zero to one, uh, which I respect. Anyone who attempts to do it, it was really hard. Um, ultimately, uh, that partnership. Didn't work out for a couple reasons. Um, the two guys are great guys, but being a remote partner and a strain on kind of both sides of the relationship, um, I had planned to get outta that.Uh, after we had wrapped out a big project. Ultimately that big project kind of blew up in our face, um, and we were forced to shut that business down. Um, and that was a big, kind of like dark point in my life in some ways. Um, I'd never shut anything down and kind of felt like a failure in that moment. I came away from it trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, and um, I had actually reached out to one of my best friends from growing up, uh, as we were in process of finishing that project and said, Hey, I'm gonna separate with my two partners in Colorado.And, um, if you're ever looking for a third partner, so this is, uh, one of my partners now introduced and um, they had bought a landscaping business and I said, really? It's cool what you guys are doing. I'm very interested in it. If you ever need another partner or just some help, lemme know. The timing was great.He said, actually, we're considering going from lifestyle business to trying to grow this. Actually the only thing we need is someone we can trust and some more brain power. And, um, you know, let's talk more about it. And, uh, the timing got accelerated because my other business, I needed to shut down, but it kind of started there.Your team's doing the work. Big reputation makes sure that Google knows it. Some of the key areas they help are, if you have multiple Gs, they can post on every single one of them every day. They can send reviews by your closest GBP to wherever the job was completed. And they have built in SEO heat maps.That show exactly where you rank on the map pack in real time. There's no more manual updates, no more missed opportunities, just results. Get started free@bigreputation.ai and unlock 15 free SEO scans today. That is wild. So, 'cause it's very rare you hear, I mean, especially in the home service space, about a third partner being brought on because Yeah, I don't, there, I don't wanna call it drag, but it is, there's a lot of financial drag from the ownership in businesses, in the home service realm in general.And now to bring on three partners. Yeah. How. Talk, talk about the start of that relationship, and I mean, I think that this is a big question for a lot of people is like, how do you set expectations really early on before we start digging into like the actual nitty gritty, but like how do you set expectations with those partners when you start something like this that make sure that everybody kind of knows where they fall?Yeah, and that's, that's a really good question. So I think first and foremost, um. The successes and struggles in, uh, my first business and partnership. You know, I kind of knew going in, like it opened my eyes to a lot of things and I knew kind of what I was looking for. And number one, that was like needing to feel like I can trust and be transparent.My partners, and they feel they be the way. Um, and it, you know, it's a unique story, but my two business partners now are friends of mine. We actually all went to school together, and so we've known each other, uh, literally since kindergarten, so since I four entrepreneurial class of 1996. Right, right. What an entrepreneurial kindergarten class man.Yeah. So, uh, just right out of the gate there, there is an inherent trust from knowing two people so long. Um, and so that kind of cuts through a lot of the pretense and awkwardness that you feel, um, with. Forming a partnership with someone who maybe you just don't know as well, they're a colleague or a friend, something like that.Um, we ended up going to lunch together and just kinda laying out on the table and I asked them, you know, what they were looking for and they asked what I was looking for. I said, what had worked for in the past hadn't. Um, and I think we were just able to like really quickly realized that the three of us have personalities where like there's nothing taboo to talk about.Um, and we just get along really well. And as a result, we're all very open with each other. So they were very open with me with, which was like, Hey, you've got experience going zero to one. Um, you know, I, I certainly am a long way from knowing everything. Maybe I, maybe I don't even know anything sometimes.But, um, that experience I think like tied in, well, because they were running a business that basically had no overhead. Um, they were kind of doing everything themselves. It was a $2 million size land keeping business we could get into that they purchased. They were looking to go and grow this thing and start building real teams and a real structure and something that could be grown and sustained.And so I think some of my experience spoke to that and at least, um, took the off of my eyes and, uh, so to speak. And so, oh yeah. From there, it was just, it just kind of felt really natural and we just have always had it an open conversation and very clear expectations. And we both talked about, Hey, what's our, what's our plans here?Like, do we want an exit? What would an exit look like? How do we know if we're being successful? Um, and also like very early on, um, my one partner, Billy and I, you know, we worked out kind of our deal together where I bought out half of his half. So it was just like very easy to just get down on the table right there and kind of find the right path in.And um, I was really excited and happy for that, and it just kind of took off from there. Sweet. So you, so your first acquisition here wasn't actually a purchase of a business, it was buying into a partnership that was already established. Yeah. So which business was that? It was 2 million. And talk about the early stages of buying into that and maybe some, some of that growth trajectory from there.Yeah. So, um, the business is actually called South River Capital, although we hate to use that name because it just sounds like we're a bunch of Peaky guys. Uh, yeah. There's nothing wrong with PE that's just not, it's not who we are, nor do we want people to just make that assumption. Um, that is just really the formal business name.And then each acquisition has become a dba. So I purchased, of course, uh, bought into South River Capital. And, uh, in order to make that happen, uh, they shared their books with me. Um, they shared their vision. I was able to look at. Uh, their p and l for the last few years. Um, how they, I'm gonna cut you off there.I don't, I don't want you to get into the, the nitty gritty of, of, uh, your guys' specific deal. I feel that's a little too personal even for our, uh, blunt show. Um, but, but talk a little bit more. So, so you bought in, they owned, what was the name of the first business? Not necessarily the, the holding code, but like the operational business and like, what was the early stages of, of growth look like when you came on?So Billy and Riley had purchased Terraform Landscaping in 2021, and at that time, uh, it was the business that had been doing about $2 million in revenue. Um, and about 600,000 a year in FDE on average for the last few years. Uh mm-hmm. The business was a high end residential landscaping company here in Richmond.Um, it had two previous owners. One was a designer and the other was really like a field general. Um, okay. And they purchased that. It, it's an interesting story. So my one partner, Billy, he previously outta college, uh, joined forces with his dad and a third partner. His dad had started a bulk aggregates business, which is like a mulching company.Yeah. And he had helped develop, uh, an acquisition strategy with them. And, uh, over 10 years, purchased about four businesses and had had an exit in that previously. And so he found Terraform Landscaping from his connections originally. Well, actually it's not true. He, he found Terraform Landscaping through a business broker, but had tangentially known about them through his connections in the landscaping industry.Uh, so Terraform was well known as like a really high-end landscaping. It had no marketing, barely had a website. Go ahead. So when you say landscaping, what does that entail? Is that grass cutting and pulling weeds or like where, where does the scope of, when you say, Hey, high-end landscaping, what does that mean to somebody who's not in high end landscaping?Yeah. Well, we really have two verticals in the landscaping side, and that is residential maintenance. So we specialize in high-end residential and residential install. So maintenance is exactly what you think about. It's a contract of a certain number of visits a year, let's just call it weekly. We get more details than that, and we come to your house and we take care of your property.We mow the grass, we pull weeds, we, uh, keep beds looking clean, trim, hard edges. Um, and we really like work to make your property look beautiful so that every week it looks at very best. Um, and then we have the install side, and that install side is doing projects. So that could be anything from. Replacing few plants out front of someone's house for few hundred as an enhancement to a hundred thousand dollars plus plant installation to 150 plus thousand project that has outdoor kitchens and patios and things like that.So we have a huge range of projects on the install side. Uh, and so we do a little bit of both and you can start to see how the synergy of how they feed into each other. Uh, you know, a lot of our maintenance clients are some of our best install clients and many of our install clients become some of our maintenance.Yeah, it seems like it would feed both ways. That's really interesting. And so, so as you're saying, they, they didn't have any marketing, but they were kind of brand well known in the area for being really high end and I'm guessing some of the nicer, nicer neighborhoods. And so you, you come on board and what does the first couple months to the first year look like for you?Yeah, so, um, it was tr, you know, I got kind of thrown right into it, uh, which I wanted. So, uh, when I came in, we knew we were already, they already had teed up the first acquisition. So I got into the mix, uh, pre that, uh, helped a little bit with that, but the plan was, Hey, we're gonna buy this second business.We need someone to run that second business and figure out how to build the platform so that we can combine the businesses and continue the platform. Um. When we purchased. I love that. Yeah. The, the, the company. I love it so much. That's awesome. Yeah, and it was a lot of fun. So I was the one that was gonna come in and run that business.I never run a landscaping business. Uh, I only knew a little bit about landscaping from my commercial construction background, which is very different than high-end residential landscaping. Um, and the business we purchased was called Robins Landscaping. So I bought into the partnership and then about, you know, few weeks later, we ons.They had, um, they were doing about 2.2. 2.2 million a year for a few years, and then the year we bought in, they had a banner year of doing 2.6. So it wasn't like we did a small tuck in. It was basically an equal size landscaping company that we acquired. And we targeted Robins for a couple reasons. They had a similar client profile, especially on the maintenance size.We believe that they had like really strong systems and processes in middle management and that they could be the platform that we could build on. Mm-hmm. And I'll get more into that. It was, um, actually a pretty different experience than I think we thought it was gonna be. But that was the vision is, hey, we're buying, we're buying the platform, right?We're buying the platform, uh, and we're gonna leverage that. I'm, you know, I'm gonna be the first one to go on the island. And the plan was basically like, Hey, we're gonna put someone on the island. Let's figure it out. They'll use that experience. One of the other partners will go on the next island and we'll just keep learning from there and acquiring additional businesses.Then as you know, it always plays out a little differently than you think. Um, but that was the strategy and so it wasn't even really a tuck in. It was, uh, acquiring a business of about the equal sense. Okay. And then, so two questions here. Um. Yeah, how did it go? Like what did you expect going into it? And then what was different?And then the second question, which maybe is to be answered before, is, or, so the actual first question is when you went to this quote unquote island, when you went to this separate business, did you guys leave it separate or did, was there an immediate merge of the two businesses? Yeah, great question. So the first thing we did was we left them separate.Uh, you know, we needed to figure out what we had, how it worked. We were concerned with losing, uh, brand equity that we had purchased. Um, in that Equi acquisition truly was an island because the office for that business was about 30, 40 minutes south of the city. Um, and so it was quite a bit further. So I went down there.My other two partners were in the office, kind of right in the heart of the city. Um, and the first thing we learned was that the owner always does more than you think. The owner of that business is like, is a great guy, was a great guy. Um, and I think that he was doing more than he even realized. Um, and so day one, you get into the business, you start shadowing him and you realize, oh yeah, this guy's actually a pretty integral part of how this business runs.And you have this hand in just about everything and how do we learn from that? Um, and how do we kind of take off from there? One of the first things I think we picked up on was if we were going to make changes and grow this business, we actually needed to get him outta it. Uh, only because it's very confusing for the existing staff, um, and clients for that matter, if you're trying to make changes, uh, from someone who's done things the same way for 20 years.Right. I'm not saying the way he did it was wrong. He's built a great business over 20 years, he's done pretty much everything right. But we saw a lot of opportunity to kind of modernize the business. Um, implement some modern tools to really set ourselves up for growth. So, um, that was kinda the first thing we did was go down there and I just wanted to spend a couple months learning how the business worked and I learned that the business worked pen and paper and magnets on boards.Yeah. Uhhuh. So all of the scheduling was literally moving magnets around a board to determine weekly routes. Getting a mm-hmm. One of those giant calculator sound that's like the size of your palm and adding hours up and trying to figure out hours per week for the week per crew and writing in boxes.And it was very, it, it manual made a lot of very manual and it made a lot of sense for a long time. And as, uh, you know, someone was a little bit younger than him, it felt very Rube Goldberg to me because I was like, oh my gosh. It was actually hard to wrap my head around some of that, uh, for a little while.And it was a big lesson I had to learn. But we went down there, we got our hands wrapped around the bus, our arms wrapped around the business, and really the first thing we did was implement a modern c you know, we couldn't use service, so we using lm, that was kind of the first step towards modernizing it.Uh, but it was a much bigger lift, I think, than we expected. We, we went in thinking, oh my gosh, they've got all these great. A binder this thick of all the SOPs. They, they did have great SOPs. It was just like, Hey, how do you do time cards off of a manual board? Totally. So he, everything that he said was true, but we quickly realized that was not what we wanted to build off of.Um mm-hmm. So how we really had to take a hard look in the mirror and say, oh my gosh, we, we thought we bought the platform. We just realized now we have to build the platform. And we can learn a lot from those, uh, more like old school ways to do it, but we really gotta start from scratch on what are the tools we're gonna use and how are we gonna do things to set ourselves up for the future.Nothing to mention. Terraform ran like very loose. It was just you, no overhead. Billy and Riley, uh, mostly just out there every day. Running crews, working hard, but uh, for a while some of the former owners involved as well. So it was a big list. Awesome. So it's not called Robin and Landscaping anymore, is it?No. So the first year was spent learning that business, building the platform, and figuring out how. We realized quickly too, that like it was confusing for our customers to have Robin's Landscaping and Terraform Landscaping, and they were about equal size. So we didn't know what to tuck into what, and ultimately we were like, well, the former owner's name of Robins was.So like there's, we're not gonna keep that name, that that's not us anymore. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Um, and so we chose to keep the Terraform name and basically what we did was we implemented our CRM, which was LMM, in Robins first, and we said, let's figure out how to use it here. Once we. Thought we had it figured out.Then we combined Terraform into that. Rebranded as Terraform. We got a new logo. Actually my partner, uh, Riley Drew logo looks, yeah, he, he drew it, did it himself. Um, kind of rebranded. Somewhat there and merge the businesses, um, to kind of streamline everything. And ultimately we ended up, uh, fast forwarding a lot, but moving into one office, um, and kind of bringing all the crews together and just turning it into one integral business, um, as Terra Landscaping.Well, I, I can tell somebody over there has done acquisitions before or knows about acquisitions. 'cause it sounds like you guys did absolutely everything right. I mean. Don't get me wrong. T looking back, hindsight 2020, I'm sure you're like, oh, we missed this, we missed this and we missed this. But from a, like the decision making perspective from a very high level, I mean, it sounds like that those are all the right moves and so you merge those businesses.Um, how's it going now? It's no secret that my office here in Nashville is almost completely empty. So how do I support my team as well as have great growth metrics? Well, the answer is international contractors with quick staffers. So Quick Staffers is a premier staffing agency, which will place top tier talent in your business built by the trades or the trades.So if you need a CSR, they'll be placing a CSR that is highly trained in your business that knows ServiceTitan. And can book calls effectively day one, call one, affordable, reliable, and trained in all of the industry best practices. Quick staffers can help you cut that overhead, boost conversions, and scale your business fast.So don't waste another lead. Visit quick staffers.com and transform your business today. Um, you know, I think we are set up for an awesome 2026. I'll get into some hard lessons we learned in 2025. You know, we made the decision to merge. Terra and Robin in the fall of 2024, and we're skipping over a big punchline of this whole story, which is we did two acquisitions in six months, and so we went from Always smart.Yeah, exactly. Always smart. We went from, let's call it a two and a half. Well, we went from being a two and a half million business to a 7 million business in about 12 months. Mm-hmm. And so we had to learn how to be a seven and half million business. That's completely different. We went from, yeah. 20 people to 75 people.Uh, we went from one office to multiple locations. Um, we learned that there is a very big difference in pay structures, contracts, culture, uh, when you're acquiring different businesses and you can't just so easily smash them together. Um, and so we learned a lot of hard lessons in 2025. Um, a lot of things have gone really well.We've learned some hard lessons along the way, so I would say it's going awesome. I don't wanna glance over a bunch of challenges that I'm sure we're gonna get into. Yeah, no, that's a great point. Like the merging is always an extremely chaotic and difficult process just 'cause there's so much there. Um, that being said, talk.Can you talk a little bit about those other two? There's two more acquisitions. Right? Um, well, well one more because we, we've covered the first, which was Terraform that Billy and Riley bought in 21. Um, Robin's Landscaping was, uh, December of 23. And so, um, actually a plug here I wanna say is, uh, plug, both, um, Robin's Landscaping and Miller Irrigation were found on Bid by Sell.Actually, you go, lemme rephrase that. Sorry I said that wrong. Both Terraform Landscaping and Robin Landscaping were found on bid buy sell. There are real deals on Biz By Sell. I feel like everyone's quick to say you can't find good deals on there, they exist. Um, and the third deal, Miller Irrigation came to us from the broker for the first deal.You ended up bringing that to us. So, you know, the classic story of you can get in the game. I think it's really like get in the arena. You know, more deals will come your way. You kind of need a foothold. Um. Industry. Um, but I did wanna plug that because I just feel like, I always hear people say, oh, I can't find any deals on biz buy sell.They're, they're real, they're there. They just take some, some combing through. Yes. You just gotta comb through 'em a little bit. You gotta deal with the, the garbage. Well, let me ask you this one though. Do I, I, I think that it's less that there's bad deals on biz buy, sell. I. I think that they're just, they're slightly more expensive deals.So if I were to ask you, hey, which one was more, which was the better deal in terms of, uh, from like a cost perspective, my guess is that Miller Irrigation your broker deal, not on bbu sell, was probably the best deal that you had. Yeah, I think, um, I think it was from like. A size standpoint. I think our first deal, um, Offor had the lowest multiple and the fact, the quickest growth because there were easiest levers to pull there.Um, but there's a little bit more to the Miller Irrigation story. So, um, if I rewind a little bit, Jack. So, um, in 2023, um, the broker had brought us Miller Irrigation. They were on the market. We didn't know the name of the business, but he, um. To the table and we're basically, it's deal we can do right now.Too much going on. So fast forward to summer of 2024, we've completed the Robins acquisition. We're still not in a place where we really wanna do another acquisition. And that deal comes back around. And this time we knew who the business was. They were, um, kind of the go-to irrigation company for high-end resident residential clients in the area.And we'd interface with them a lot. And so I'm gonna pause before I Yeah. So let's go over real quick. Uh, 'cause like, I think a lot of people watch the show 'cause they want to understand the, the ins and outs of some basic business models. Yeah. And so we, we have your maintenance service and installation model that comes from Terraform and Robin.Um, and we understand what, what that entails, what does, what's the difference between. Because, because I would assume that there's some irrigation aspect. Are irrigators generally subs to landscaping companies and they're only doing irrigation installations? Or what does that business look like? Yeah, so, um, I think that's a great question.So as you named, you have landscaping kind of falls, in least for us into the two, the two business lines, the two business units, verticals. Maintenance and installation. Landscaping is a very high ticket, low volume game on the installation side, and our maintenance contracts are pretty high ticket. They actually average around 10,000 here.Um, so they're pretty high ticket. Irrigation is almost the total opposite end of the spectrum, and it's much more analogous to home service industries like mechanical, electrical, and plumbing where it is a high volume, low ticket industry. So it is a very different, um, kind of business model paradigm. Um, irrigators, I think hold a d couple different places.Um, most landscapes need an irrigation system to water the plants. It's unrealistic that you're gonna hand water a lot of your landscape. So there is the, similar to landscaping, you have an installation tide where people are getting new irrigation systems and or their irrigation system rebuilt. And then you also have the service side, which is something's going wrong.Uh, maybe a head's leaking. It's not popping up. The controller's not working right, and who you name it, there is, uh, a service side. And that service tide is high volume, low ticket. Um, and it functions very differently than our landscaping business. And so I think we felt, you know, we quickly identified after a few years of doing maintenance that irrigation was one of our biggest struggles, and we subcontracted that out to other companies in the area.Uh, with just variable results. Um, and we knew it was something we were interested in, but we felt like starting that from scratch was gonna be very challenging because it was such a different business. Again, like high volume, fast paced. Mm-hmm. Low ticket work. I actually have come around to learn is a great business model, but it's really challenging to start from scratch if you aren't experienced with it.And so when that opportunity came around, we were like, oh wow, this actually. Solve the big problem of ours and gives us an opportunity to build on our value ladder and also to get into a slightly different business type, uh, that we're interested in, in home services, but we haven't had experience with.So. And is Mill or irrigation still a separate company today? Or did you, considering that you're, you're viewing it as almost an arm of the, the terra forma, do you guys market that as the, as terra forma, the irrigation side, or is it still Miller? So we are technically all in one company. We just have multiple DBAs.However, we do operate the Miller brand separately from an outward facing perspective. That is because we do work with some other landscapers on the Miller side, and we wanna serve them well and we also don't wanna alienate them. Um, and that company had 25 years of brand equity and we didn't feel like.Them into Terraform and Landscaping would be doing our business. We thought it'd be doing ourselves a, um, and there's a lot of pride in that team, and ultimately we felt like it was not that confusing to have a landscaping arm and, and a irrigation arm versus having like two different landscaping companies.Okay. So we have chosen to keep that as a separate brand. But it's still part of our business. We all share an office, we're all on the same team. Um, but it's like from an outward facing perspective, operated as a separate business. Yeah. No, that, that's, that's super interesting. And so, so you guys, this deal comes back around.You guys say, Hey, this actually is perfect fit for our company to work synergistically with it. Um, we can move 'em into our office. And then so how did that deal go while you're in the midst of. Doing like the, I wanna say the integration of Robins. Yeah. It was really challenging. So first off, it was right deal, wrong time.Um, maybe there isn't always a right time. Uh, maybe there was never a right time. Uh, you know, we went to the sellers and there were other people, uh, making offers on the business. As I mentioned earlier, kind of deals. We get deals. We had a good name in the community and I think seller. You know, they could trust us with their legacy and that we would, you know, would be a much better choice versus maybe an out of town or out industry buyer.And so the first thing we did was try to push back on closed date. We tried to push it to the end of the year and get creative and they said, no way. We're trying to retire. Uh, we're not doing that. Um, you know, take it or leave it. And so ultimately we said we're gonna do it. We'll take it perfectly honest.Of June, early July of 24, and we just, we quit. They had an office location that was right in the heart of everything, and we just moved our whole team in there and jammed like 20 people into like square feet, and it was chaotic. We basically didn't. Have our arms wrapped around the land, the irrigation business, and really understand it at all.For six months, we kind of had to tell the team, look, we're gonna support you. We're gonna be sitting here next to you and part of it, and we need you guys to kind of run it the way you've been running it for 20 years, 25 years for a little bit here, and you need to get through the fall and winter. And we provided help and support where we could, and we also sort of.For the first six months because it was just survival. We couldn't really get into it and make any appreciable changes without hurting our business of the past. Did it at least come with a management team that was able to support keeping status quo? Because like with Robins, as you mentioned, right? The owner did so much there that you probably, and I might be speaking for you, but from my experience, there's a high likelihood that you wouldn't have been able to just say, Hey, team.Just continue doing what you're doing. Was, was there management in place that was able to keep Miller running status quo? There was. There was, um, and that, I think that's a huge key. It was, and it was very refreshing, um, because the owner had told us, Hey, I, I sometimes only go to this business a couple days a week.I take weeks off at a time. He was, and he wasn't lying. He wasn't, well, I think he actually spent more time than he said, but no, it was legitimate. Like his wife would books that's. And they did have it in a place where they could take real time off. Um, they had some really good people in place that I'm super grateful are still a part of our team, uh, that ran their respective divisions and we were able to put trust in them early on.You know, keep our finger on the pulse, but let them do their thing. It wasn't a difference in Robins, in that. Robins, I think at one point had had the middle management layer we envisioned. By the time we acquired it, it was sort of the owner involved in really micromanaging a lot of those aspects. Um, and it was different with Miller.Um, you know, the former owner, Jim, he did a lot of the big sales and his son, um, was a part of the business and we transitioned the sales to him and kudos to him because it was a big ask. He hadn't really taken the lead in a role like that. And so really the owner. Former owner only really came back to help us with like the big sales and things we just didn't know how to do and would just have too much brain drain trying to do without him.Um, so there was that middle management layer in place and we were able to let it keep going. Good. Six months. That's awesome. That's, that's very right. Talk about high, a high level of acquisitions, trust and building in like such a short period of time, two to seven breaks everything. Like there's not, not that there.It sounded like there was a ton originally to break, considering they. Hustling, but like ton to build, ton to figure out. Yeah. So now looking back, going into 2026, I know you're still not out of it. I can't imagine you would be out of it. There's still so much you're never out of it. Um, like what is, is are the, is the plan more acquisitions?Is the plan to take what your big platform now and just keep building? Like where, where are you guys, how are you guys looking at the market? Um, in 2026? Yeah, I think there's kind of, um. Almost still two slightly STR strategies for the business. Um, I think for Terraform Landscaping, Jack, we're still building the platform.Um, you know, ServiceTitan was not an option. We chose, we could go with Aspire or LMN as our cm. Aspire is owned by ServiceTitan, but it's a totally different piece. They bought it, they didn't build it from the ground up. They almost nothing to do with each other. Mm-hmm. We chose Element and the reality is, element is not nearly as strong of a platform and all of the things that we thought were automatic aren't.And it we're, you know, two years into it. And it's still a challenge every day. And so we're finally just now getting our arms wrapped around the platform of Terraform. Um, yeah, because it wasn't so plug and play on the Miller side, I think we had the bones, and when we switched over to ServiceTitan, we're able to leverage a lot of the playbooks out there and advice from great people like yourself and like that we have the platform.So I think. Right now, 2026 is about let's go get back to basics and execute really, really well. You know, I feel like, and we'll probably touch on it, uh, spring of 2024, um, you know, we hit the bottom of the GA curve and we bounced hard off that rock bottom. Um, we we're, we're doing great as a company, but like we just felt all the hard lessons.Um, we, you know, hired a bunch of overhead, geared ourselves up for growth. Some things we did well, some things we didn't. Three of our four divisions grew and were really profitable. And our fourth division, which was our biggest, uh, reverted to breaking even and we missed on revenue, and it was just like a huge gut check.Um, these guys, SMV, these guys. SMV for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I, that's the, my favorite Twitter joke at the moment is just when something is like that, it's like, these guys, these guys know what's up. This is a typical like, yeah, shit. Oh, we fell into all the pitfalls in 25. We let our ar run out too far at one time, we leaned heavily on this platform on the landscaping side that we thought made everything easier and we missed that.It was actually making our invoicing harder. So we had introduced a lag in our invoicing that you don't see on your AR report. So invoices were going in three, four weeks later and then showing up on ar. So now you have an extra 30 days on your AR that we call the Phantom ar, and we just like fell into all the pitfalls on the install side.Um mm-hmm. And. Thankfully we implemented some really important things in 25, 1 of which was monthly financial reviews. And we were able to see it really quickly that our best division had taken a U-turn. Like we're still doing good work, but we weren't making money, and we were able to implement changes to make some hires focused on what we needed to focus on and turn that around in the back half of 25.And so 26 is very focused on like, let's keep back to the basics. Really well and let them continue to build on the customer experience because that is something that is so important to us as a high-end, um, residential landscaper like that our customers have to see value and benefit from us versus our competitors.I believe that we're trying to do something our competitors aren't, which is build a completely verti, vertically integrated landscaping company that provides you with a really strong account manager who can be your single source of contact to handle all things landscaping, including irrigation. And nobody else in our area I think quite does that.And so it's all about back to basics and customer experience in 26. Now we would like to maybe do some more acquisitions, but I don't foresee that. Uh, in the first half of 26, let's say that. Yeah. Un until the broker comes back around and gives you a great deal that just fits perfectly and then you're gonna be back.And it never happens at like the best time. It's always wrong time, right. Deal. And you just gotta go for it. But I love it, man. That that's awesome. Well, what I would tell you too is I think we're bullish on irrigation acquisition. I think because we feel we have the platform and the team that like we could, if other opportunity a, were.Like a lot of our competitors are great companies and like we would love an opportunity to work with them and not against them, to be perfectly honest. And like I think if one of those came around, we would move forward. Because I feel like we could integrate them very quickly, which is the interesting part about, that's what I was thinking about when you mentioned the Miller Irrigation being its own entity and actually doing work for you guys, but also doing work for these other companies is, I'm thinking like, man, that's actually the perfect in to, like, you're subbing out to all these other big companies.And then when they're ready to go, they're like, Hey, mill Irrigation is actually owned by Terraform. Yeah. Like, we should just go talk to them. We like them. They're awesome. So it, it brings, it makes the industry smaller and gives you direct connections with owners that. Maybe you might not have connections with, um, the industry.Absolutely. So, absolutely. And I think Landscaping's hard, Jack only I'll add like, I'm never gonna say never, but I think it would have to be the right landscaping company. I can think of the ones in my head that would be the right ones, but like, to be honest, licensing on landscaping, borderline non-existent.And so, you know, anybody with a truck and a blower and a mower can go do landscaping in some fashion. And so. You know that reasons we bought a brand that prided itself on quality and try differentiate.I would say that we're not more expensive, we're more valuable. Um, and you know, we try to provide a different value proposition for our clients than someone who just mows and blows your yard as fast as possible. On the irrigation side, it's there is more like there is more license that you can't just do it overnight.And so, like I say that because I think there is more room for organic growth on our landscaping side, whereas we could achieve growth probably more quickly with less headaches. Side. Okay, that makes sense. Sweet, man. Well, as we round out today, I always ask everybody who comes on the show. During this entire process, you know, we have lots of headaches, we have lots of, uh, joy, there's lots of fun parts.There's lots of not so fun parts. If you do, you have a soapbox that for anyone else listening that's like, Hey, I'm gonna go buy a landscaping company, what is your one piece of advice to them that you want to have them leave here today and make sure that they fully, fully understand? Oh man, I've been prepared for this question and I'm not gonna keep it to one.I'm sorry. Ahead of time. Go for it. Got a couple. Uh, I got two partners and I think we each have our own. Yeah. Uh, you know, I would speak for my partner, Billy. Uh, his would be don't, don't overanalyze deal. And if the math works, get in the game. He's a very clear thinker. He's very decisive and he's not afraid.Um, and so he's always been one who's like, yeah, this deal works. Let's just figure it out. Like we don't need to get into the nitty gritty of a couple points here, a little bit of EBITDA here. It's like, no, no, no. The, the overall math works, let's just do it. Um, and I really think like getting into the game and not over, I think deals, that's something I personally struggle with.I can find all the reasons not to do something, and he's very good at being like, no, there's a million reasons to do it. Um, so that would be one piece of advice. Uh, for myself, I would also say Jack, that partners matter a lot. Uh, I am someone who, like my superpower is figuring out how things work, learning really fast and being able to like, solve almost any problem really quickly because of that.And I can struggle with fear and about taking the leap and things like that. And so having the right partners really helps empower me to go execute on what I do well. And then I have them as like a backstop and a sanity check. And because of that, you can make really thoughtful decisions together. And it's not so lonely.It can be lonely in the owner's box. Um, and you don't always have others. Sanity check and having two partners that you really trust is like a godsend for that. I'll say that it's very rare again to hear that their partnership's working out. So you know, it's for those listening, it's it. It isn't all sunshine and rainbows and partnerships.Make sure you choose really good partners. Um, that being said, I'm, I'm pumped that you found some good partners. Uh, the, the trick is to just get in a really good kindergarten class with entrepreneurs. Um, that, that's my next idea. It's a preschool for entrepreneur, uh, parents to put their kids into. Well, you're still right.I had two partners previously who are great people, but we were not great partners to three of us, and that was really taxing. Um, and partners are different than friends. They're different than family. Like, it's a different relationship and you do put a lot at risk in doing that. And so, to your point, finding the right partners matters a lot if you can do it.And I think the last thing, um, this was gonna be one of Riley's, which is, uh, be brutally honest about what you don't know. He's always someone who's been very humble, um, and he's quick to ask for help early. And he's instilled that in three of us. And so like if I don't understand something, I'm quick to ask my partners for help.I'm quick to ask our team for help. I'll go in always and be like, Hey, you know, way more about this than I do, but here's the problem I'm seeing, like, help me solve it. Like what do we need to do here? Come on. Um, and staying humble. Um. It can be easy sometimes to like, we fell into this trap. Look at your budget for the year and think, oh my gosh, that's what we're gonna do on the year we're this big company.And the reality is the budget is just that. It has nothing to do with reality until you get there. Uh, it's like seeing the top of the mountain and picturing yourself on it already. Don't ever do that. To staying humble and just looking at it in small increments every day, every week, every month, uh, really makes a big difference.Yeah, I will say though, the one that's some really good advice, uh, back to the partner one, you know, the only partner in any business that ever has John Wilson with owned and operated. And I will say it is a lot more fun to build a business with partners just because you have friends that you're working with and can, it's less lonely.So yeah, Billy Riley and I share, I'll be on the same page there. We share a one room office in our office. Right? We don't have enough spaces for all of Us office. When I met you, it was like all three of you were like crammed in into there. So I, you know, I know you weren't lying when you said there's 50 people in like this tiny little office because Yeah, I saw it.It was, it was great. Hey, we still share an office. The room's a little bigger than it was, but we still have three of us in an office and you know, I can throw things at them and we joke around and have a lot of fun. And having fun is one of our core values and we live that every day, but we also take it really seriously.Um, but I, I do think that's a part of having partners that you can't replace. Like it's luck. That's cool, man. Sweet. Well that's time for today. Ian, if people want to follow up, ask you about landscaping, maybe whatever you're open to in terms of connection with random people, um, online, where can they find you?Yeah. Um, you know, shoot me an shoot, shoot me an email. Right now I'm not big on social. I need to probably get more onto that. So shoot me an email ian at tara rva com. I can't promise I'll respond. Uh, I'll do my best. Um, but that's probably gonna be the best way to reach me. And yeah, I love to talk, love to share my experience with others.Um, help as much as I can, as much as time allows. Awesome, Ian, love the story. Love having you on today. If you like what you heard, leave us five stars on Spotify, apple. Leave us a comment. If you're on YouTube, just say, Hey, Ian's totally wrong. Partners are terrible, don't ever do it. Or he's right. I don't care.Just give the algorithm some love for us and thank y'all for listening. Next time I'll see ya.
