How I Bought A Multi-Million Dollar Egg Carton Business For $0 | Sarah Moore Interview

Shaan Puri

Alright, what's up? It's Sean, and I'm going to start by reading you a tweet that I posted a year ago. It says, "I have a new hero, and her name is Sarah Moore." The reason that Sarah Moore is my hero—and someone that you've probably never heard of—is because she was a college student in her early twenties. She had no money and no experience. The only thing she owned in her life was her car, a RAV4. She has this incredible hustle story. She decided, "I'm going to buy a business," even though she had nothing to her name. She spent a year searching through 100,000 businesses and found this niche business called EggCartons.com. Literally, this guy sells the cartons that your eggs come in. She bought this multimillion-dollar business with all debt, so she put no money in because she didn't have any. Since then, she has grown it significantly. I said, "I think this is like a $20 million business that this woman bought." Wow, what a hustler! I told this hustle story on the podcast, and it kind of went viral. It blew up. Nobody had ever heard about this story before. She has done no interviews, and she has no social media; she was like a ghost. Honestly, I didn't even know if it was true because it's one of those stories that's too good to be true. Here's this girl who comes from absolutely nothing. She talks about this in the interview—she literally had no parents and was in and out of jail as a kid. She was just trouble, and then she had this turning point.

Shaan Puri

In her life that gave me goosebumps she ends up paying somebody to take the sat so she gets into college she hustles her way through college finds a way to buy this business and it's this amazing success story and 2 things happened 1 the story kinda went viral she said that like netflix and others reached out to her after the episode went live that people started showing up on her doorstep asking them asking her for advice on buying a business and like honestly it was kinda bad like it was too much and please don't do that again because she's like dude I'm trying to run a business I don't even know you you start telling my story and this went crazy and so a year later now she's like okay at first I was kind of like wow this is crazy then I was kind of annoyed and scared like is this gonna mess up my business but then as she started to see you know the upside of telling her story and she was like look I still have no social media I still do no interviews but you kind of you were very nice and you told my story I will agree to come on and do one interview and so she's like after this I'm 1 and done I'm gonna come on and I'm gonna lay it all out there I will tell you everything you wanna know about buying a business how I did it what I did the good and the bad all the mistakes that I made I'll tell my kind of the life story part 2 that's the sort of you know made for tv it's it's it's unbelievable her life story along the way and she's like I'm doing one interview and then that's it I'm disappearing after that and she did not disappoint we just finished the recording it's one of my favorite episodes we've ever done she is somebody that I really admire and I don't use that term lightly like she is really a hustler super genuine and her story is is frankly incredible like it's not often I have goosebumps during an episode of a podcast so enjoy this episode with sarah moore alright today's episode is gonna be all about buying a business rather than starting a business we usually talk about ideas that you should use to start a business but as you know like one of our best friends of the house andrew wilkinson has told us many times buying a business could be a better path but how the hell do you actually do it that is the question and we're gonna talk to somebody who not only has done it not only has done it successfully but has really never told her story you sarah moore you are basically not on the internet welcome to the internet because I first heard your story and then I went googling and I couldn't find anything you were a ghost intentional or unintentional

Sarah Moore

I'm very intentional. I'm a very private person, and I'm not a fan of public attention. You kind of blew up my spot, though, so things have changed a bit.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, sorry about that. So, a long time ago—I don't know how long it was, hundreds of episodes ago—I came on the pod and I said, "Hey, I got a story for you." I mentioned that I would love to have this person on as a guest, but if you can't find them on the internet, I think this is kind of an incredible story. There's this woman who, out of college, bought the most boring-sounding business you could think of: EggCartons.com. I called you the "Queen of Cartons" or something like that, and I was like, "She's the queen of eggs." She buys this business that some guy had been running for like 20 years, and she's running it, she's growing it. The way she did it with no money down—I thought her story sounded really interesting. But again, there was literally one text interview of you on the whole internet. So then I emailed you and I said, "Hey, I'd love to have you come on." I don't think I got a reply or something, but then I sent you a Google Doc and I said, "Look, you're right. I just have to know. I need answers to these questions just for my own personal curiosity." I sent you a Google Doc and I asked, "Can you just fill this out?" To my surprise, you actually did. So when I came on the pod and I told your story, suddenly a bunch of people were very interested in you, giving you a lot of attention. And correct me if I'm wrong, sometimes not in the nicest way. It wasn't all good, is that right?

Sarah Moore

that's correct I've I've come across quite the cast of characters

Shaan Puri

and why do you what do you think what do they say to you where where how are they finding you and what do they say to you

Sarah Moore

Some people beg me to talk to them for 15 minutes. They'll offer... someone specifically offered me $500 for 5 minutes of my time. It's crazy because I'm so irrelevant most days. I'm out in Sutton, Massachusetts, so there's not much happening here. I'm kind of under the radar. All of a sudden, I've now gotten a ton of inquiries from people. A lot of people want specific information. Many are emailing to say, "Hey, I'm doing this exact thing. How do you get financing?" or "Can I get your opinion on this business deal?" Or, "I'm about to close. How did you get a bank to actually do your deal without putting much or any money down?"

Shaan Puri

Right, right. Well, hopefully this podcast tells your story in a good way and does not create even more people chasing it out. We're just going to tell all the answers right here so that everybody leaves Sarah alone after this.

Sarah Moore

Yes, I'm serious. Please do not contact my business. You can email me or reach out to me on LinkedIn, but please do not contact my business or show up there for that matter.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah that's a

Sarah Moore

good? Of those a few stragglers

Shaan Puri

There's always a few stragglers. Unfortunately, there's always a few stragglers. It doesn't help that your story is kind of unique because you didn't come from money. We're going to talk about that. You didn't know how to do this. It's not like you knew how to do this or you were an expert. You were a total beginner when you started, so that's appealing.

Sarah Moore

yes yes

Shaan Puri

You're a woman doing this, and I think that's more unique. There are a whole bunch of angles to consider. You did it in a kind of niche that sounds, you know, like boring businesses have become sexy now. You chose a boring business, and I think there are several reasons people are excited about it. But let's start at the beginning. Okay, let's just start with the high level. What did you actually do? You were in school, and you decided, "I want to buy a business." First, tell us, why did you decide that? How did you even know that this was a path you could go down?

Sarah Moore

Oh boy, there's a lot of context here. But to answer your question in the simplest of ways: I was between my first and second year of business school. I was talking to somebody about what they wanted to do afterwards, and they mentioned something called a **search fund**. A search fund is where you essentially can go out and buy some grungy business and become the CEO basically overnight, without any money or experience. That was very appealing to me.

Shaan Puri

you're like hey I fit that criteria no money no

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Shaan Puri

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Sarah Moore

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Shaan Puri

And so you hear this idea and you're like, "What was your plan before that? Did you have another plan, or did this replace something? Or did you just put it in a vacant spot?"

Sarah Moore

so okay we'll do a bit of storytelling here

Shaan Puri

yeah please

Sarah Moore

When I was in business school, there was a guy I was working on a project with. He was incredibly responsive—almost annoyingly responsive, kind of one of those. I asked him, "How are you so responsive all the time?" He said, "Goldman," referring to Goldman Sachs. He explained that at Goldman Sachs, there was a rule of 15 minutes, meaning you had to respond to whatever form they reached out to you in within 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I said, "Okay, so what if you're in the shower?"

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

What if you're running a marathon? 15 minutes. Christmas Day? 15 minutes. And my favorite: what if your wife is giving birth? 15 fucking minutes. I mean, we laugh, but I worked my ass off to get into business, to even graduate high school. I worked my ass off, to be frank. And I'm thinking, you went to an Ivy League undergrad. You're clearly off the charts intelligent. You have this amazing network of people. You come from money. You have everything that I don't. Why would you choose to essentially sign up to, to be frank, someone else's bitch? I didn't say that to him, but that was my thinking. So, I had no idea what I wanted to do. But up until then, I was at HBS, Harvard Business School, trying to fit in with all of these people and sort of find my footing. After that, I'm thinking, I don't want to be like these people. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be a consultant. I don't want to be a banker. This is so not me. And if I'm going to be someone else's bitch, like, that's just not an option for me.

Shaan Puri

Right, I'm only going to be one person's bitch, and that's my own. Yeah, yeah, that's every entrepreneur ever. There was a guy we went to college with. He was our next-door neighbor in our dorms. Great guy, Sam Sully. He went to work at Goldman Sachs or one of these banks. I don't even know what the hell that was; that's just a foreign world to me. I don't know, Sam's gone, and he doesn't... you know, he's busy now. He works 80 hours a week. He read our blog. We used to blog about how we were building our company. We'd be like, "Yeah, we woke up, we did that, we had these calls, we were pitching this guy, and then we went for a hike." Because we lived in Boulder, it was like we went for a hike in the middle of the day because that was awesome. Then we had an idea on the hike, and we came back and did it. It sounded so sexy, but in reality, it was honestly pretty lame. But you know, it was like blogging; it was like social media; it was like Instagram back then. You make it look good. So Sam quits his job and moves into our living room. He lives on our couch, and he's like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "Dude, you were making six figures; you're making zero figures here." And he's like, "Yeah, but it's better." We couldn't really understand the culture. Then he sent an email, and we were like, "Hey Sam, you sent something in this email I've never heard before." He said, "Hey, could you get that to me ASAP or sooner?" I was like, "What do you mean, ASAP or sooner? ASAP means as soon as possible." He's like, "Oh, that's a banking thing. It's ASAP or sooner." I'm like, "What the fuck is sooner than ASAP?" And I was like, "That's the mentality." I was like, "I get it. I get why you quit. I get why you're out of there because ASAP or sooner is not a way to live."

Sarah Moore

Not at all. It honestly blows my mind. Again, given the pedigree of these people, you would think they would shoot for the moon. You would want to have this freedom in your life, but you're literally choosing a form of enslavement. Enslavement, in my opinion.

Shaan Puri

Right, right, right. Yeah, anytime you know, I think banking and consulting are often brain drains. Talented people go there because it's sort of safe and it's a well-respected path. But if you think about how many more cool, interesting things could be built or created if those same talented people went out and pursued more entrepreneurship... but you know, to each their own. So you hear that and you're like, "Alright, I'm not gonna do that." And now you hear this idea of buying a business. Okay, but where do you start? How do you even know how to start? We're going to go into your full backstory, but like, the kind of high school experience and how you even got to college, which is a crazy story in itself. We're going to get to that. But first, you hear this idea about buying a business. Okay, Sarah, now what do you do?

Sarah Moore

Great question! So, to your point, in the beginning, I lacked the ability to evaluate businesses. I had no experience doing that prior to business school. I was in the steel industry, and I thought if I could get a business, I was pretty comfortable with the idea that I could run it, probably if I tried hard enough. But searching in itself, I thought I needed to have a background in private equity. I had no idea what I was doing. People would say, "You have a Harvard MBA," but Harvard is very corporate. They don't teach you how to look at a corporate or commercial window washing business and evaluate their financials to see if you want to buy it, right? They're looking at very complicated financial models, which these are not at all. So, I thought I probably needed to go the investor route because there are investors out there that will actually pay you to search. I'm thinking, "That's incredible! Someone's going to pay me to look for this, and then they're going to invest." This is amazing! I looked further into it and saw that if you were to get an investor to back you, they'll give you plenty of money. You can live a cushy life, do this in a fancy office, and wine and dine these sellers. But you have to pay back one and a half times that. So, if they gave me a 50% increase, if they had given me $200K to search, I'd have to pay back $300K. So, that in and of itself was absolutely ridiculous. One of my friends actually sat me down and convinced me that it's similar to dating. He said if you get enough reps in, you cannot not recognize a good business when you see one. For whatever reason, I figured I may as well just try and go out on my own. Worst case scenario, literally worst case, I bring someone in midway. But why not at least give it a go on my own and see what happens?

Shaan Puri

Right, so what did you do? You decided to go on your own. How did you go about it? What was your process?

Sarah Moore

Okay, so step 1 for me: I'm not good with technology and I didn't have any money. So, step 1 is I'm going to leverage what I've got around me, which is that I'm now at a school with a bunch of smart people. I had one of my smart friends scrape one of the databases with all the private companies within an hour and a half of my apartment in Boston. That's step 1.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you're like, "My criteria is it's an hour and a half away. Tell me every private business in this area."

Sarah Moore

Truly, the problem with these databases is that people think, "Oh, you've got all this great information." Not really. We estimated, just by looking at some financials we actually knew about, that the database was accurate about **50%** of the time. Accurate meaning the owner's name is correct, the revenue is correct, the employee count, and all of those metrics because they're all self-reported.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

so who's actually gonna give you accurate information knowing it could be public

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

And so, we tried to pare down the list by revenue, but we did it by a multiple of like 5x. Meaning, let's say a business... for instance, the business I had worked for previously said that business had $1,000,000 in revenue, while the business is doing over $100,000,000 in revenue.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

There's all this misinformation, but we tried to narrow it down somewhat. Anything over, I think, $100,000,000 in revenue, we took off the list. It was fair game. After that, it was obvious things. And when I say obvious, I mean you have to be sure. So that would be a legal firm or an accounting firm or 7-Eleven. Other than that, again, fair game because my business was actually under farming. So everything else, you don't know. It's self-selected. The industry we kept the rest there, so we were still locked with a pretty massive list of companies.

Shaan Puri

And you told me, by the way, you said one of your things is like you think the industry is overrated. You think people over-index on, "I'm looking in this space, this is the niche, this is the industry I'm looking in." You don't believe in that. You didn't do that. Why do you think that's the case?

Sarah Moore

So initially, here's why I think that from experience. Initially, I did what I think most people do, which is what investors actually require you to do. You sit there and you have a thesis about the kind of industries that would be great businesses. Usually, those industries have characteristics that make them stable, which is what you're looking for when you're buying a business with a lot of debt. What I found is that the industries were absolutely irrelevant. What matters is that you find a business that is established and has been consistently profitable for a number of years. Everything else is garbage. There are so many businesses in amazing industries. Let's talk pest control, right? Great industry. You've got people that have pests; they're not going to say, "You know what? Not a great year for me this year. I'm just going to let my house be infested." That's not really a thing.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

It almost gives you, I think, industries a false sense of security. You think, "Just because I'm in this pest control business, I'm good," when you're really not. There's way more to it than that. What I found is to find a business that's established and consistently profitable. Forget the industry because people could say, "I'm in e-commerce," right? This is an unstable industry. I worked in the steel industry. You would think that's an absolute "hell no" business, but I used to work for it, and it's a "hell yeah." It's a great, great business, right? But industries would tell you otherwise.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha. So, you didn't look top-down at the industry. Instead, you were just like, "Okay, I have this list." You've removed the obvious outliers—businesses that are way too big for you to buy. Now you still have an enormous list, and here you are, one person sitting on campus trying to sort through this. So, what was your approach? What did you do?

Sarah Moore

Well, I wasn't a one-man show here, thank God, or I wouldn't have made it. I hired a lot of interns, and I didn't mean for it to get as big as it did. Initially, I had five interns that worked for me, and we actually took the industry approach. We did the painstaking process of having each intern give me 50 companies a week that met my criteria. These companies found email addresses for us, and then we contacted them. There were five of us.

Shaan Puri

You had 5 interns, but you're a college student. You're an intern. How does an intern have interns? What happened here?

Sarah Moore

So, I made quite the pitch. And truthfully, here's what it is: I swear to you, I use what I learned searching every single day. My interns tell me this all the time; we text each other about it constantly. Private equity is an industry where they don't do free internships. You're more of a liability and a waste of their time than a benefit. So, you're not going to get a free internship at a private equity firm. You need to have actual skills, probably investment banking skills, before you're even at their front door. This opportunity is about gaining private equity experience, and I'm going to give you transparency into everything. I'm huge on transparency. So, I created a conference line and said, "I'm going to let every single person listen in on these calls whenever they want." Those calls included all the owners, brokers, accountants, attorneys—anyone from HBS [Harvard Business School] that I contacted. My phone was basically tapped 24/7. If you're interested in finance, this is very helpful. I mean, who wouldn't want to? It's like you, Sean. Sure, people would, weirdly enough, want to listen in on your calls when you're talking business and doing business deals. You would learn a lot, I'm sure. So, that's a huge portion of it—the learning.

Shaan Puri

Ben Graham told Warren Buffett that he admired Benjamin Graham and wanted to work for him. He said, "I'll work for you for free." However, Ben Graham responded, "Your price is too high." He explained that it's about the time and energy involved. For a lot of people, they might say no to someone willing to work for free because the time and energy it takes to train someone and give them that access is too expensive relative to the free labor. But you were smart. You made it different. You were in the opposite position. You were like, "I do need help. I do need free labor," and you rebranded yourself as private equity, which technically you were.

Sarah Moore

absolutely private equity we're sure

Shaan Puri

It's like, "Where's your office?" It's like, "It's in the cafeteria. We sit at this table, and that's my office." Alright, so you start. These were other Harvard students, or these are just people in the area?

Sarah Moore

No, in fact, I initially used the student job boards, and they were actually the worst. You get these cookie-cutter students who think like everybody else. They were basic. The best interns I found came off Craigslist. One of my first interns, who was with that initial batch of five, was with me for the entire duration of my search, and he came off of Craigslist.

Shaan Puri

nice

Sarah Moore

It's people that are just thinking like every other college student. By the way, a lot of these weren't college students.

Shaan Puri

You told me something. You were like, "You know, initially we were going through this list of like 400,000 businesses that, you know, were in the criteria." So even if you're doing 50 outreaches a day and we have 5, 10, or 15 interns doing this, the math isn't adding up. It just doesn't work; you can't get through this list. So you changed your approach. What did you do?

Sarah Moore

Absolutely. So, we realized our response rate is awful. No matter how customized you get, you're reaching out to people, most of whom aren't looking to sell their business. The response rate is very low. So, if it's already this bad, we may as well just... and we're already filtering in the wrong way. We made many mistakes. The insurance would have all these false positives and false negatives. We decided we're just going to light everybody and their mother up. Because if you look at email addresses, they're all more or less the same. You start to see a pattern. If you're looking all day for an email address, you see that most emails follow the same four patterns: first name last initial at domain, first initial last name at domain, and so on. So, we created a big Excel file, guessed the combinations, and then ran them through something—I think it was Bulk Email Checker—to see whether or not they were actually real addresses.

Shaan Puri

And so, you forget their contact info. Now you're going to email all of them one generic email because you're like, "Forget it! My response rate's bad anyway." Even if it gets cut in half, I can email five times more or ten times more people.

Sarah Moore

oh yeah

Shaan Puri

that's a good trade

Sarah Moore

Absolutely! What was interesting is, you know, we had this huge list of people. You would think, "Oh, well, if somebody reaches back out to me, how am I gonna talk to them?" But you realize it's kind of the same conversations over and over. So we would do this approach where it's like "bombs away." After we’d send out an email, we’d be getting tons of phone calls from people. We had sent the emails out in such a way that it looked like it was targeted. It seemed like we specifically did our research and said, "Hey, I’m looking for a business to buy, and yours seems to perfectly fit the bill because it's within this revenue range, it's been around for a really long time, and it's been profitable for a number of years." And the people that responded and said, "Actually, no, you idiot, that's not true," great! Now we know that's perfect.

Shaan Puri

right yeah they filled out your survey essentially yeah

Sarah Moore

They didn't realize it. They thought they were telling us off. The best replies were the ones that said, "Wow, you really did your research here. This is great!" They reached out to me, telling me how much research I've done. I have no idea who they are. I've got the interns scrambling, figuring out what area code this is, who this could possibly be. Meanwhile, I'm pretending to have spent this time researching their business, but I have no clue.

Shaan Puri

Right, it's like being at a party and then somebody knows you, but you don't remember where they're at. So you have to say really generic things to keep it going while your brain is searching... searching for how you know this person and what their name is.

Sarah Moore

exactly exactly

Shaan Puri

And so, what was your specific criteria? Did you have like a revenue target, or did you have an EBITDA target that you were using?

Sarah Moore

Initially, I looked at businesses ideally between $4,000,000 and $20,000,000 in revenue. I wanted something at or above $1,500,000 in EBITDA.

Shaan Puri

okay

Sarah Moore

But over time, that changed again, just like the industries. You realize, "Why does it need to be this way?" I realized so much of what I was doing was just based off of what I had heard over and over. So, things got tweaked as I realized I didn't need to necessarily have that criteria. I actually lowered my expectations a lot in standards, and it worked out well, I think.

Shaan Puri

And so you lower... you widen your thing. You reach out to a bunch of people, and one of them is this business, Egg Cartons. That's eggcartons.com. So what stood out there? And then tell the story about how you ended up buying that company.

Sarah Moore

Okay, so I sent out that email, which again looks like it's customized, but it's not. The owner sends back a very long email saying, "Wow, you've really done your research! I am so impressed." He starts outlining the specifics of what I said in the email. "You're right, we have been around for a while. We started in 2001, and this business has been consistently profitable ever since. We have an amazing reputation and a very strong customer base." From there, I said, "Okay, this has my interest." Because at first, let me back up. I'm getting this email, and I'm thinking, "Guys, we're reaching out to farms now," because it looked like they were a farm feed store. It really did. The first thing I always wanted to know was, "Okay, let's see the financials." Because if the numbers aren't there—numbers meaning you have actually been, as you alleged, consistently profitable for a number of years—I'm not really interested.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

But they were there. So, anytime you see that, you know, because it is rare. By the way, I would say maybe 5% of the businesses we looked at were consistently profitable and established. But that's few. So, he met those parameters, and I'm immediately interested. I started asking about the business and learning a little bit more. Like, okay, this is a commodity, right? And he says, "No, it's not. We actually have a lot of proprietary products. We have some patents." I don't...

Shaan Puri

Know what? Just explain what it is. It's literally the carton that your eggs come in. You buy a dozen eggs; they have to be packaged in something.

Sarah Moore

yes

Shaan Puri

this guy was making the packaging he was manufacturing it or he was the middleman

Sarah Moore

He was the middleman. Yeah, I'll back up. I found out that what they're basically doing is they're a wholesale distributor. They're buying, storing, and selling egg cartons. So I immediately think, "Okay, this is simple enough that an average intelligence person like me can do this." I think I could sell an egg carton. I think I could buy one too. That was essentially what it was—the business. Of course, though, again, there were proprietary products. There were a couple of things that made it much more desirable. But at the end of the day, we're buying and selling egg cartons.

Shaan Puri

Right, right. The website I went to now, which is like, you know, after you took over, is so basic. We've talked about this before. The logo isn't even just the logo; it's eggcards.com. So you have the ".com" in the logo, which is great. Then, attached to that in the same image is your 1-800 number. It's like, you know, "Call 1-888-825" or whatever. This business is so simple and so old-school looking, but you weren't scared away by that. You actually wanted that. You didn't want some internet business. You didn't want something that was kind of new and innovative, is that right?

Sarah Moore

That's correct. I think you have to play to your strengths here. This is where it's not so general. You can buy a business that suits your abilities. Mine were honestly kind of limited. I'm not handy, and I'm not good with technology. Anything with engineering is over my head. So, I figured the simpler for me, the better. I didn't want to rely on anybody going in there for the first couple of months to just learn the basics. This was a business you could walk into and, day one, more or less get it.

Shaan Puri

And so, what happens? You make them an offer, you meet them for lunch. How do you actually get this deal done?

Sarah Moore

So for me, I stopped going anywhere until we spoke about a tentative price range. I would always throw out a number very quickly because they were all kind of going between 3 to 4 times. I’d think, "Okay, if you're above the average business I've looked at this month, you're closer to 4. If you're below that, you're closer to 3, maybe even closer to 2."

Shaan Puri

profits or revenue

Sarah Moore

Profits! I immediately got down to that on the phone. It was great. You're in this range, but they didn't really understand the terminology. I wanted to keep it very simple, so I'd say, "Okay, what's your income looking like? What are you guys averaging each year?" They'd see the numbers, and I immediately was thinking, "You know, this is worth 3 and a half times." I always went a little bit up because I always knew there'd be more in the numbers to bring it down, right?

Shaan Puri

but you wanna

Sarah Moore

Be a little optimistic, but you're not ripping them off. You're not being dishonest. You're being... in the best case scenario, it's probably around here.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

So, I threw out a number and I asked, "Is your price anywhere within that range?" Because a lot of people, the combo ends, because they think their business is worth 10 times what it actually is, and it's just not.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

So, I give out the number, and he goes, "Okay, yeah, I think I can work somewhere within that range." He had looked into selling his business previously, so he was a lot more aware of what these small businesses are actually worth. A lot of owners...

Shaan Puri

realistic about his baby versus saying

Sarah Moore

exactly

Shaan Puri

this is the best thing ever it's worth 20 times profit

Sarah Moore

Right, the second thing for me was a seller's note. That was a non-negotiable for me because a seller's note, to me, was a substitute for getting equity. I didn't want to get any investors involved. So the next step was, "Okay, are you willing to do a seller's note?" I phrased it a different way to make sure he understood it, but he actually did, and he was willing to do that. So then I said, "Okay, let's talk now."

Shaan Puri

and just to define I got

Sarah Moore

the numbers what is

Shaan Puri

a what a seller's note is so define what is a seller's note for anybody who doesn't know

Sarah Moore

Absolutely! I'll use an example. Let's say you're buying a house for $1,000,000. Rather than giving the seller $1,000,000 up front, let's say you have a 25% seller's note. You would give that seller, at closing, $750,000. Then, they would get paid the remaining $250,000 over time, based on whatever terms you define, including the interest rate you decide on and the time horizon.

Shaan Puri

yeah the seller becomes the bank they're sort of financing you to be able to purchase exactly the rest of the business

Sarah Moore

Exactly. It was also great because the argument there is, "Oh, because some sellers didn't want to do it." The argument is, "Well, you're telling me how great your business is. You're telling me that it's simple enough for me to operate. If those things are true, why would you have an issue doing a seller's note?"

Shaan Puri

Right, right. This thing's stable, right? Exactly. I helped my friend buy a business recently, actually kind of similar to yours. He did a good thing, which was in the seller's note. He said, "Look, here's the purchase price, here's the seller's note, but if EBITDA were to drop way below where it is today because, you know, I find some skeletons in the closet or this thing turns out to have been built on some quicksand, then we're going to forgive the rest of that seller's note." He was able to structure it accordingly. So, it's a good mechanism for any buyer that's doing it. I don't know, did you do that, or did you just do a seller's note as is?

Sarah Moore

I did it as is. There is something called an **earn-out**, which is similar to what you're saying. It's based on the performance of the business, and you choose: am I going to do it on revenue or profits? For me, I tried to keep this extremely simple because the devil really is in the details here. These sellers, a lot of them, don't even have high school degrees, but they're very good at business and have been very successful. So, I'm trying to do a deal here where these terms are extremely straightforward. When you start doing terms like that, the seller freaks out because then it's, "Wait, I may not get this money. I don't even know you!" All of a sudden, he skips a goal of you. So, I'm not a big fan of those.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, that was the other thing. One of your points of view was like, "You know, industry is overrated." I like that. Why? Because you're really looking for just this rare, beautiful business that's stable and profitable. You shouldn't necessarily use industry filters for that or have a thesis and walk in as this genius who has a thesis upfront. You should be open-minded at the start. Then the second part is, you were like, "I try not to use any jargon." Even though you were at Harvard Business School, you weren't saying EBITDA; you would say, "How much money are you making?" or "income." You were not trying to get super fancy in the structure because if you don't understand it, they're not going to understand it essentially, right?

Sarah Moore

Yes, and that's the biggest mistake too. People think, "Well, I don't have a Harvard MBA" or "I don't know any of this." I honestly think ignorance truly is bliss here. The less you know, the better it can be because you can keep things extremely simple for the seller. I think that breeds trust.

Shaan Puri

and so you buy this business how much cash did you put into the business to buy it

Sarah Moore

You don't need to put any cash down, and I didn't have to because of the seller's note. So, I did a 25% seller's note and a 75% bank note. The idea there was, when shopping around for a bank to do the deal, it was all about... and it took me over 20 banks to figure this out. It was all about how they viewed the seller's note. Banks that viewed that seller's note, which very few did, as equity, I could work with. The ones that didn't, not so much.

Shaan Puri

because if they viewed it as equity it's like well you're okay there's 25% equity we'll loan you the other 75%

Sarah Moore

exactly exactly

Shaan Puri

and how'd you get up to think that that was equity because it's not it's kind of not equity

Sarah Moore

Honestly, I wish I could have some really savvy answer here. But to be frank, and I'm not trying to say this about all banks, most bankers have no idea what they're doing or what they're talking about. Truly, I had to learn this the hard way. They think they can finance a deal, but they have no idea how to finance the deal. They have no idea what these structures are or the details of these structures. So, a lot of it, I'm sorry, is just ignorance on their part and their board.

Shaan Puri

right every day here's the purchase price and then here's how much we need from the bank and then they're like oh the rest

Sarah Moore

Is equity true? They didn't call it equity; they knew it was debt. They called it debt, but the way they reviewed it—like when they're looking at their ratios for these banks—they have all these rules. It was whatever internal rules they were using to evaluate the debt ratio. And one big thing is this: the bank had priority over everyone else.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

so the bank was gonna be paid before this seller's name

Shaan Puri

and the business had many many years of a track record of profitability

Sarah Moore

Yes, that's why that is so important. You have to... they're really banking on that business's track record. Then, a little bit with you, it's a question of, "Okay, it's done well for 20 years. What could you do to make it not do so well?"

Shaan Puri

Right, right. So, you buy this thing. You told me, Hugo, the only asset I had at the time was that I had no money, no experience, no whatever. I only owned my car; I had a RAV4, and that's literally all I had to my name. You were able to buy a multimillion-dollar business and then walk in and be the owner of it just by really hustling and playing a kind of numbers game. We didn't even talk about some of the hustle involved in this. Some of the hustle was scraping the database. Some of the hustle was getting people off Craigslist to be interns to sift through the database. Then it was, well, those interns need a place to work, so you got fake IDs to get them into the library. Is that right? Tell me about the fake IDs.

Sarah Moore

Everybody, we hustled for those IDs too. We hustled for those. That was hard work.

Shaan Puri

You said, "What was it? You went to alumni, you're looking at the intern, and you're like, 'Alright, which alum looks like this intern?' Then can I ask them for their student ID?"

Sarah Moore

hours of that truly hours we reached out to 100 and 100 of people 100

Shaan Puri

And so, you've got these interns. Then you realize, "Hey, we need to just be blasting this kind of like 'fake it till you make it' email," where it looks like we've researched them specifically. They'll sort of self-select. You end up doing this deal where you don't put any money down because you were able to shop 40 banks or something like that to get them to give you the financing for it. A lot of this, to me, the story here is about not counting yourself out because...

Sarah Moore

yes

Shaan Puri

A lot of people, somewhere along the way, would have counted themselves out. They might think, "I don't know how to do this," or "This is uncertain." They might say, "I don't have the money, the experience, or the time." They would find a way to count themselves out. You didn't do that. You figured out a way to get it done. So, you know, all the rules are sort of imaginary. You can work around them. The last point is that it's just a numbers game. Like you said, it's like dating. We're just going to need to look at a lot of businesses. We're going to need to get a bunch of interns to find the good ones. We're going to look at a bunch of businesses to find the good ones. We're going to talk to a bunch of banks to find the one that will do this deal. Is that accurate? Because that's what I'm hearing.

Sarah Moore

Yes, if there are two things I am very passionate about in this world, it's obviously currency, but also this concept of spreading the good news. That good news is that anyone who wants to buy—and I really mean anyone who wants to buy and operate a small business—can do so. It is not a matter of "can" or "can't"; it's a matter of "will" or "won't." That's a fact. This is an industry where you can choose any type of business you want, any size business you want. You could be a cleaner looking to buy another really small cleaning business from someone who's looking to retire. You can buy a dog walking company. There is truly no limit here, and that's what I love about it. To me, it's one of the few areas left of the American Dream where you can go out, put in a ton of effort and elbow grease, and make something of your life. You can actually make good money without killing yourself and without having to work, you know, three jobs.

Shaan Puri

Right, and so since you took over the business, you don't have to share the exact numbers, but let's just say if the business was making $100 before, in the years since you've bought the business, what have you been able to do? How have you grown the business? How much have you grown the business? And what did you do to actually grow it? The guy had been operating for whatever, 15, 16, 17 years, something like that. You come in as a beginner, but you've been able to grow the business. So I want to know roughly how much value were you able to create? How many multiples of what you bought for? And then also, what did you do? What were the new insights, techniques, or operational changes that you put in place to create that value?

Sarah Moore

Great questions here. So, when I first bought the business, the first couple of years, things may have been on the decline a little bit. I may have made quite a few mistakes, and so it wasn't looking too promising. Pretty serious.

Shaan Puri

Invited on the podcast for that story at that time. No, Sarah, you bought a business and you are driving it straight into the ground. How does it feel? Tell us, what’s your secret?

Sarah Moore

Yeah, I probably would have been fired or kicked off the CEO. But what happened was, when I first bought this business, I'm just going to back up really fast. I really thought, "I'm in the egg industry." So I'm looking at what's the duck egg market like, what's the chicken egg market, you know, these things. And really, again, the market's kind of BS. It's all a bunch of crap, these frameworks and stuff, because you don't really know until you're in it. I realized when I got in that I'm not really in the egg industry; I'm in specialty packaging. So it actually was a lot more of an opportunity than I ever realized. I wasn't some genius figuring this out. I just looked at our order history. We were getting orders from people that were selling crickets and Dubai roaches, and people that were using the egg cartons for small parts, bath bombs, and cupcakes. I estimate now that 40% of our revenue has nothing to do with eggs. When I realized that there was a lot of potential there, I also realized that our specialty was really these proprietary products. I spent most of my time focusing on that—not on this really amazing modern website—but focusing on these products that I call really "sticky." It's kind of a silly jargon term here, but these products were making a custom mold for a customer that they then are going to keep buying from us, assuming they don't rip them off or totally botch it.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

And so from that, and then COVID... COVID was like cheating because we 5 to 6x'd during COVID. To answer your question on the numbers, we really blew up. It was a combination of recognizing how big our market really was and then recognizing that COVID was an incredible opportunity for us to take all of our capabilities and run with it.

Shaan Puri

Right, I like that. When you talked about specialty packaging, you said something to me. You go in that Google Doc, "We're not about egg cartons. Anything that needs... what is it? Separation and protection." What did you call it? Separation and protection?

Sarah Moore

I always say anything requiring protection and separation is fair game, and I stand by that 100%. It's true. Think about how massive that market is; it's enormous.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, you could be making bras with that definition. I love it! This could be anything. We're talking cups, we're talking whatever you want. So, are you like reaching out, by the way? Because your website's still eggcartons.com. I'm not trying to Sean Parker you, but drop the eggs! Just cartons.com. That's the way to go here. If you're making 40% off of non-egg stuff, why don't you kind of rebrand it?

Sarah Moore

So, it's funny. We are actually in the process of doing a little bit of that, and I've continued to buy a bunch of domain names. Things like "machine shop trays" or "bath bomb cartons"—any variations of that. I'm just buying domains left and right. Who knows whether they'll stick, but that's a huge portion of it. It's very challenging to figure out how to do that without compromising other important variables or revenue drivers. It's a lot more challenging than you'd think, but we are, to your point, looking into that. I'm always like, "Stop with the eggs!" and everyone at the company is like, "We sell egg carvings." It's taken me years to really get people to understand this is bigger than eggs. We're not abandoning the farms; we're not abandoning the chickens, you guys. It's just way bigger than that. So, like, stop talking about the chickens and the ducks and whatever, the geese.

Shaan Puri

I'm so jealous of you because I feel like if I ran an egg carton company, I could fulfill my dream of being Michael Scott at Dunder Mifflin. I just imagine that this is like a Dunder Mifflin-style business. You could come in and, you know, just be the crazy boss every day. Do you, when you look back now at what you did—because again, we talked about starting as a rookie—if you could go back and I gave you an hour that you could spend with, you know, younger you, either during the search process or during the early days of the business, what would you... if I could give you that time, when would you go back to? What would you tell yourself as advice with the wisdom and the benefit of hindsight?

Sarah Moore

So, I would actually just borrow the advice I got from my mentor, but I would actually follow it. There were two pieces of advice: **hire and fire fast**. I didn't do that; huge mistake. And **do not change anything big** or really anything at all the first year. Both of those things cost me a lot.

Shaan Puri

And what about that second one? Tell me more about that. So, there's obviously a temptation. You come in, you're so excited. You've been searching... searching... searching... and you finally find the thing. You close the deal after a painful process; you don't know if it will go through or if it won't. And it finally closes, and now the keys are yours. It's gotta be tempting to go play with the toys. What's the wrong way to do that? What's the right way to do that?

Sarah Moore

Yeah, so let's get into it. Actually, when I came in, I was thinking, "Okay, I knew I didn't know much." Truly, I didn't think I was going to reorganize the warehouse or start changing anything seemingly big. But there were things that I thought were really simple. For example, we had hardwired phones in our office, and there were cables everywhere because we had all these offices and conference rooms. I was thinking, "Dude, this is like 20... whatever. We're almost in 2020 here. What are we doing with this? We should just change our phones to VoIP phones so that I can see everything remotely where there are not phones ringing. Let's get into the modern age here." It seemed like not a big thing. However, that was one of the biggest mistakes I made. You see, our phone number is actually extremely important. People look at the domain, and that's great, but our number is used by our biggest customers and new customers. It's everything to us. We actually have multiple phone numbers, and that one 800 number is forwarded to like 10 or 12 lines. So it's very important. Spectrum may have lost our phone lines mid-porting, and our phones were down for almost a week. It was a huge deal because it was a new owner, and people were thinking, "Did they go out of business? What is going on here?" Because their phones were gone; they were dead. So it's like, maybe just do a... first off, I wouldn't do anything with the phone lines now. To this day, I will not change our phone lines because I've been so traumatized by the experience. But if you were to change something, maybe just change one phone line, maybe two, but not all of them. Something like that, which you think is small, can actually be pretty big.

Shaan Puri

I like that. You said, like, we kind of hinted at this earlier, but I want to make this point. I've mentioned that one thing you didn't do is count yourself out, and that's important. I think one of the reasons people count themselves out, almost subconsciously, is that they don't see themselves a certain way. They've never done that; their family didn't do this. So, they just sort of think, "I don't know, I guess that's just something other people do." Even if you hear something and think, "That sounds like a cool idea," you might wonder, "Where would I start? I have no foothold here to do that." You have a pretty unique background that I think should debunk that idea. Even if you're not from that track, you can get on that track at any time. When I first talked to you, I was like, "Wow, this is some whip-smart, you know, Harvard-level intellect." It's like you take the Harvard pedigree, but then you added some street smarts and hustle. That's what I thought when I met you. Then you said something like, "I didn't even take the SATs," and I was like, "Wait, how'd you get into Harvard Business School?" Tell the story of your background because I think it's kind of amazing.

Sarah Moore

okay yeah this is a little detail here so we're gonna go way back I'm one of 3 and my sisters and I would say sort of had a subpar upbringing in that we didn't really have parents and we were split up and we bounced around and living in a lot of different homes my 2 older sisters they made the most of it they got really into academics and sports I made the worst of it I would say and I became somebody that you would not want your kids hanging out with okay I was partying all the time I didn't go to school so I had a truancy officer I went to jail I was just so disrespectful to everyone and I got away with it because people felt sorry for me and the beginning of high school I was living with a woman that was an alcoholic and her favorite thing when she got drunk was to take all my items and throw them out onto the front lawn and just tell me to leave and I didn't really have anywhere to go I was a kid and so there was a woman named natalie bracken who used to pick me up and take me to her house and she let me stay there until this woman inevitably you know came back to earth and said where did you go and called the police and so I was constantly going back and forth between natalie's the bracken's house and this other household I was being transported by the police and no one could really do anything about it nobody seemed to really care and one day just she just got so fed up and she said I'm gonna adopt you obviously it was pretty transformational so I'm living in her home with with her family and her daughter I was actually friends with so her husband one day kinda let me have it because I was trying to skip school like the 1st week living there and he sat me down and he he literally explained it sounds it's embarrassing almost to say that he literally explained how life works to me the basics of you don't lie you don't just skip things when you don't wanna show up that's not how this isn't reality and he explained where my life was going which was basically absolutely nowhere and it was very emotional for me because up until that time a lot of people had given me lectures but it felt like it came from this place of you're bothering me or this is really inconveniencing me so can you just stop your crap where he came from this place I could tell he really cared and up until then I didn't really feel like anybody did care and so I got my shit together very quickly after that I really did I was so nervous about like being like sent back or them regretting their decision because up until that time no one and I mean no one was looking to invest in me I was like a junk bond investment wise this is not a safe investment I was not a good kid I didn't do myself any favors and so after that in getting my shit together step 1 was getting a job and so the first time I ever remember studying truly in my life was with mrs bracken when I was learning a menu to get a job at a diner and then from there I applied those new study skills I had to school mister breck had explained like listen you've got a 2.

Sarah Moore

O, here, kid. You're not getting anywhere but community college with that, so you need to get your act together. From there, I got all A's because I wanted to boost my average to at least a 3.0. I was working at this diner, and this couple would come in all the time. They never had kids, and we just got along. That's the best way to explain it. I never told them about my upbringing really initially, but I think my coworkers probably did, or they could just tell. So, they offered me a job at their company, probably initially out of sympathy, out of the kindness of their heart. I started working there, and it just seemed to fit. While I was working there, I got waitlisted from Northeastern, where I ended up going to college. When I was waitlisted, the owner of the diner, Steve, said, "You need to take yourself off of financial aid because, especially at a school like Northeastern, without a big endowment, they're going to take that into consideration when evaluating your candidacy." I said, "How am I going to take myself off? I have no money, and this school is so expensive." He said, "We're going to pay for your school."

Shaan Puri

wow

Sarah Moore

And so, yeah, I mean, it's very hard for me to not get emotional talking about this because it's so personal. Between these two couples, they changed my entire life. It wasn't just the money; it wasn't just the home. These people changed the way I viewed myself. They invested in me when I was truly the world's worst investment. I mean, who takes a kid like me, with what I was like, and says, "You know what? I'm gonna go all in on this." They put their necks on the line for me on multiple occasions, despite my worst track record you can possibly imagine—truly, possibly imagine. From these two families, I developed this whole concept in my head: I just want to be that one person for one person. Because for me, I literally begged when I was a kid for people to help me. I would beg judges, I would beg attorneys, I would beg social workers to put me in better circumstances or help me with this and that. Nobody helped me at all. They felt sorry for me, but nobody took action. So this concept of being that one person for one person carried over into college. I went to Northeastern to be a social worker initially, and that was way too "kumbaya" for me, as you can probably tell. I'm not like that; that's just not me. So from there, I said, "Okay, something a little bit more aggressive, more me, could be law." I was watching CSI, and I thought of law, right?

Shaan Puri

so I

Sarah Moore

I figured I was going to be in juvenile justice. I could be the attorney I wanted to be, or the social worker I wanted to be. But again, I just realized these professions were not for me. One day, I called Steve, the owner of the company I worked for. I call him "boss," and I said, "Hey boss, I don't know what I'm going to do here. I'm now a junior in college, and I've worked for you, but that's kind of my only work experience. I have no experience in anything but criminal justice and social work, and I don't want to pursue these professions." He said, "You are not an academic. You're geared for business; it comes naturally to you. You can have a way bigger impact in business than in criminal justice or social work." So I said, "Okay, well, what am I going to do now? I'm in my junior year, and I don't have anything to show for this. I can't just go into a business; who's going to want me?" He replied, "You need to go to business school." I didn't even know it, but he had gone to Stanford Business School back in the day, right after school. Now, the average age of business school candidates, at least at the Ivy Leagues like Harvard, is 28. When we were talking about this, I was 21 and about to graduate. I thought, "There's no way I'm going to get into business school." He didn't know that I had paid my sister to take my SAT for me because I had confidence that I could study hard enough, but I wasn't going to get caught up in it. I didn't even know what was on the SAT; I imagined it covered all the subjects. I just had no confidence in myself. When I got to college, I was at a 33% reading level.

Shaan Puri

what does that mean

Sarah Moore

I went off campus one day because I was convinced that this was horrible. I was really convinced I was mentally handicapped when I got to college because I just did not understand anything. I got this test done, and they said, "There's really nothing wrong with you. You're just at a low level here." They did say my intelligence was below average at that time. It was horrible because it was factual evidence: "Hey, you're not that bright." By the way, you're at the 33rd percentile. Like, oh, that's great! It basically put into paper that I'm an idiot, and it was heartbreaking for me. I was so embarrassed, and I didn't want anyone to know. So the only thing I really knew at that time was to just try really hard. Again, I didn't want to disappoint—my biggest fear to this day would be to disappoint the Brackens or the Grains. I figured if they've gotten me here, I have to make this work. So I studied like you wouldn't believe. Nobody knows the Northeastern University library like I do. I studied my ass off, and my biggest fear was even getting a B.

Shaan Puri

Can I ask about that part? I've met a couple of people in my life who have had that sort of, like, I don't know, "come to Jesus" moment. But I call it like the conversation with yourself. It's like there's a day where you have a conversation with yourself and you're like, "Look, this is either gonna go one of two ways. Either this is what it is and it'll just be what it's gonna be, or I'm gonna change it." I always ask them because I think there are a few moments in your life where decades are sort of decided. It's some conversation you have with yourself. This is my theory. I don't know. You tell me: was there a conversation you had with yourself at that time to be like, "Okay, I'm just gonna apply myself. I'm gonna go bury myself in this library until I come out with a 99% reading level," or what happened?

Sarah Moore

I've never been one of those long-term planners. For me, it's more of a day-by-day, week-by-week thing. But I did have this mentality: I remember thinking, "I'm going to give this literally everything that I have." I really mean that. I had a mentality of, "I will not disappoint these people. I will not disappoint them." So if that means I studied round the clock and it still wasn't good enough, at least I can say I gave this literally everything. I'm sorry, that was kind of my thinking. That was it.

Shaan Puri

A lot of people think that the hardest thing is when nobody believes in you. Actually, the most pressure is when almost nobody believes in you, but a couple of people do. When a couple of people do, it adds a whole different level of emotional pressure to the situation, more so than when nobody believes in you.

Sarah Moore

Yes, it's funny. I... it's rare to... I don't think I've ever met actually anybody that gets that. But that's exactly how I felt. I wanted to live. I felt like what they believed in me wasn't true. So, I wanted to live up to who they thought I was, who I didn't think I was. So, that's it.

Shaan Puri

I mean, I didn't come from the situation you came through. I was luckier than that, just to be born into the right sort of family and circumstances. But yeah, the Birch family here in San Francisco, they're the ones who were that for me. You know, I'm 24 years old, and they invested in me. They literally sat me down and said, "I think you're gonna do special things." They said, "We've met a lot of people in Silicon Valley. I think you're gonna do special things. You're gonna go on to do special things. We want you to do them." Then they named me CEO of the company. They were like, "Here's the keys. We think you should do them here. You're gonna do them." At that time, I didn't really view myself as special in any way. It was kind of the first time that somebody had ever really said something like that but also put their money where their mouth was. That wasn't maybe my parents, where in a way you sort of take that for granted, unfortunately. I took that for granted when my parents would say, "Oh, you're so great." It's like, yeah, just like every mom thinks their kid's so great. You know, that's how I felt at the time. Hearing a total outsider, you know, this billionaire say, "No, no, no, I believe in you," was significant. Then, for me, it was soul-crushing. The next six years, I didn't succeed. I was trying really hard, but I wasn't succeeding. I remember feeling that pressure. I remember thinking, "I wish nobody believed in me. That would have been easier than somebody really believing in you and you not wanting to disappoint them." I remember just feeling that day by day. So, I definitely at least resonate with that part of your story.

Sarah Moore

Yeah, no, that's really... that's very real. It's funny, a lot of people will say, "Oh, I didn't have it as bad as you," but it's all... I've learned a lot of the same. You adapt to what you're going through. So, I'm sure the feelings, in a lot of ways, were actually almost the same, right? But the externals just looked a little bit differently. Yeah, yeah, your life is a movie, right? But the externals just looked a little bit differently.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, your life is a movie, and my life is, you know, like the normal thing. But your life is literally... I told you this on the phone. Your life is literally the plot of the movie "The Blind Side." You're just not this huge football player; instead, you went and bought a business. But it's the same sort of idea where people took a chance on you. Have you taken that mentality of like, "Be one person for one"? What was it? "Be that person for one person"? Yeah, be that one person for one person. I love that! That's kind of amazing. Is that from something, or did you invent that?

Sarah Moore

It just came to me. I don't know, it was just something I thought of one day.

Shaan Puri

have you done that do you feel like you've been able to do that

Sarah Moore

Do I feel like I've been able to do that? I do, actually. That's truly one of the most rewarding things about my job. Now, you know, I try and keep my circle very small. I'm really big on doing what these families did for me as much as possible, which is a lot of one-on-one mentorship. I can only do so much on a mass scale, but one-on-one, I can really bring people to the next level, whatever that level is. I'm huge on this, and I have no tolerance for people self-doubting. I'll say, "Nope, you can do it! Do it again. We're doing this again." I will sit there, and everyone at the business used to say, "I will come any day, anytime. I will sit with you for as long as it takes. If you try and you're honest with me, I'm not going to give up on you." I really mean that. If somebody tries and they're honest with me, I'm not giving up on them.

Shaan Puri

Right when you were talking, I was getting goosebumps on my arm here because I love the story. But also, I think that coming on a podcast like this and telling your story is going to do that for someone somewhere that you don't even know. It's a different way of doing it, but somebody out there is going to hear this or they're going to forward it to somebody who will say, "Listen, I don't even know if you know what the podcast app is, but you need to hear this." Because something in there is going to resonate with somebody. That's why I was getting goosebumps. There's a way to kind of like the egg carton story, and buying a business is cool. That was kind of the bait, but the real story here is the mentality and also those families that did that for you. I think that's not as flashy as, you know, creating a foundation and giving away a billion dollars or whatever, but it is a version of philanthropy or giving back or contributing that can change somebody's life in a huge way versus a lot of people's lives in a small way.

Sarah Moore

Right, and I think that's what's way more important to me. Seeing it helps me a lot. It keeps me motivated because, unfortunately, the farther removed you get from it, the harder it is to remember.

Shaan Puri

What did you have to do when you kind of rewired yourself? What was it like when you tried to make that big shift? You basically changed all your habits. Maybe not overnight, but you changed all the things you were doing that were getting you bad results into things that started to get you good results. So, what was that like? How did you do that?

Sarah Moore

I wish it was deep and I had steps for you, but it was a lot of fear. I was really scared of being anything like what I was. I was scared of what I would be in the future. It's kind of like a drug addict that nearly dies from an overdose; they are just scared straight. I was kind of scared straight. Honestly, I also lost interest in a lot of things I used to be interested in. I used to get into fights. I used to gossip. There was this golf course where I used to get drunk, pass out, and wake up to the sprinklers—no joke. I was disgusted by it afterwards, thinking about it. Like, "Who is that? I don't even want to be around that." It was like the idea of the taste or the smell bothering somebody; it was like that. But from there, it was hard because I didn't know. I didn't have any of the tools. I never read a single book in high school—not one book.

Shaan Puri

right you I have a couple of docs here that I wanna share 1 is I because I think it's cool to see the actual screenshots you you shared with me because the funny thing is when you told the story that when when we told the story the first time on the podcast there was 2 reactions 1 is wow that's an incredible story because here's what I tweeted out so I said I have a new hero and and her name is sarah moore at under 30 years old she had no money no experience and the biggest asset was her car a rav 4 she spent 1 year hunting through like a 100000 businesses to find one to buy and she bought a guest at the time I didn't didn't know if this was true she bought a yeah multimillion dollar business called egg cartons.com with all debt no no cash down and so I told that story and I told it on the podcast and basically the two reactions were wow that's incredible so awesome you know you go girl and on the other side it was calling bullshit no way and people were like that's that's not you know you can't buy at all debt nobody could sift through a 100000 businesses how do you go to harvard and not have anything not not have any money and honestly I started to and when I saw those tweets I was like damn that never occurred to me actually like yeah you're right she was saying she kind of came from nothing and blah blah blah but she's at harvard business school like and I was like am I getting fucking theranos right now is this elizabeth holmes and I'm just getting duped and so so that happened and then we have this researcher the researcher you you text us the other day you were like hey somebody's like contacting a bunch of my old interns and it was like our researcher fact checking just to make sure we don't look like idiots that like we're putting somebody on who did this actually happen but I think that's kind of a cool thing that your story was literally too good to be true that people just started calling bullshit and I remember you didn't have any social media so there was no way for you to explain or tell your side of the story and then I think your sister like created a twitter account or something it started like that day she was like tweeting like no I'm in the car with her right now yeah we grew up broke and like we didn't have a family and like all this stuff and I was like wow I don't know what's happening right now but this is fascinating do you remember that

Sarah Moore

That is so... yes, it started blowing up on Twitter. Everyone in my company was talking about it, and my interns were talking about it too.

Shaan Puri

about it

Sarah Moore

And they're like, "Sarah, you need to go out there and defend yourself. We're going to defend you." I was worried about the internet; it can be vicious. I was concerned about anyone getting any of that, you know, pointed at them. Then I started worrying about my company. So, my sister got on there. We're very protective of each other. She created a Twitter account just to go on there and defend me.

Shaan Puri

you the sat sister or the other sister

Sarah Moore

This is the SAT. This is the bright... well, they're both exceptionally bright. But she's actually the Director of HR for Abercrombie and Fitch at the corporate level. So, her husband, now fiancé at the time, goes, "You need to delete this, Jane."

Shaan Puri

you have something to lose yeah

Sarah Moore

Yeah, it is a lose-lose situation. Like, you guys are idiots. Why are you trying to defend yourself among people online? It's getting out of hand. So, we had... I just, that was my concern. I was worried that people were going to think this was fake and that this was somehow going to snowball in a negative direction. All I cared about was preserving the business. Like, don't mess with EggCartons.com.

Shaan Puri

Don't let this random dude on the internet blow your spot up. Alright, so then you shared with us a bunch of things. You shared with us the Craigslist post. We'll put this on YouTube so people can actually see the Craigslist post. But you wrote "Kenston Green." What's Kenston Green? That's what you named your thing.

Sarah Moore

A mentor recommended making the name of the company something that would have a story to it. So, I deliberately said I wanted to include that I'm from Cleveland and I worked in the steel business because I want to convey that I'm a blue-collar gal like you.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

And so, Kenson was the name of my high school in Cleveland. I'd say Green was the name of the family I had worked for in the steel industry.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

So when they would ask immediately, "What's...?" I don't know, no one wants an intro, right? Hey, they don't care. But when they'd say, "What's Kenston Green?" it was my way of giving an intro without giving an intro.

Shaan Puri

that's amazing also it sounds kind of powerful and old money sounding so I

Sarah Moore

like that for that but yeah

Shaan Puri

No, it works. So you wrote, "It's a small, unorthodox private equity firm." Accurate? Unorthodox for sure.

Sarah Moore

very anorth probably anorth probably

Shaan Puri

Anorth probably... Anorth probably... Anorth probably... Anorth probably... Private, it's just me. He said, "Unlike a traditional private equity firm, we will acquire just one business and the principal will operate upon acquisition." Alright, no lies are told. He said, "You will be working for an eccentric, unpretentious Harvard MBA." Alright, I like it. You'll be exposed to live M&A deals, interactions with brokers, accounts, attorneys, due diligence, and negotiations of various sorts every day. See, that's awesome! You're saying kind of like the value you're going to get out of this unique experience. We're looking for interest to help manage our multistage, high-volume funnel (high in all caps) in the most efficient way possible. It includes blah blah blah blah. And you said, "You know, I like this work. It will not include financial modeling, sophisticated analyses, or anything that you or anyone else thinks is a waste of time." Tell me about that because that is beautiful! Love that in a job post.

Sarah Moore

I hate wasting people's time. One of my biggest pet peeves is these jobs where people have to sit there until 5, 6, or whatever o'clock and just rub their fingers to leave. It's like, when your work is done, just leave! Don't pretend to be busy. Don't pretend like you're not on your cell phone. So, I'm not going to ask them to do anything that's not important. Very important.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

And they're not doing some... This isn't Harvard. We're not going to be doing these crazy financial analyses, right? It's really simple. It can be done on the back of a piece of paper.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, because most of the time when you call these businesses, you're like, "So what's your profit for the year?" And they're like, "I think it's like 1.4... no, let me... 1.6. I don't have my numbers in front of me." Then you look and it's like, "Actually, you made $900K last year." Yeah, and they're like, "Yeah, I don't know. I gotta ask my guy about that." It's definitely not like they're doing their due diligence; it's like they don't know their business. It's not that they're hiding something from you; they just don't know it themselves. It's so, so common. Alright, so then you said a bunch of other things. You're looking for somebody hungry and comfortable with chaos. Then here's compensation, because some people are also like, "Oh, unpaid interns? That's crazy!" And it's like, "Dude, I don't have any money." These are willing and able people choosing to do this because they see some value in it for themselves. You said this is an unpaid internship. If you're looking for a glamorous internship in a formal, prestigious work environment, this job is not for you. We are operating out of an unassuming spot in a library. I will provide letters of recommendation as well as introductions to anyone in consulting firms, banks, or private equity firms should you perform well.

Sarah Moore

you should you perform

Shaan Puri

Well, good qualifier! I will also help you with recruiting, interviewing, and grad school prep if you want me to. Wonderful! This is so good. I love seeing this. I also have here an email you sent. I think you were maybe sending this to a broker, but it was very clear and direct. You were like, "Hey, my name is Sarah Moore. I'm a recent business school grad living in Boston. I want to buy a small business that meets this criteria: 100% of the business is for sale, the EBITDA or seller earnings are $1 to $2 million, it's been profitable the last 3 years, and seller financing is available. I have a preference for B2B service, but this is not a requirement. I'm able to finance acquisitions below $25 million. Please let me know if you have any listings." Very direct and clear. And were things like, how did you increase your luck? So, how did you put things out there to increase the amount of good things that would come inbound to you?

Sarah Moore

let's go there actually I I have something for you guys I put to the side here

Shaan Puri

okay

Sarah Moore

So, people talk all the time about this industry and being a woman. They think that it's a disadvantage. Well, that's a matter of perspective. I deliberately wanted to leverage my gender. Part of that was within the broker community, which is usually all men. I'm 5'9", and I would go to only free broker events, but I would go to them in 5-inch heels. So, I'm walking around as this 6-foot-2 Amazon, and I'd always wear a ridiculous outfit too, like a loud color. When I'd call the brokers, they'd say, "Who are you again?" I'd respond, "I'm that extremely tall chick that introduced myself to you, looking for a business." There wasn't a single person that didn't remember me. For the brokers, I was very active. I'd be going around Boston on these blue bikes, which are free, of course. I would be running or doing whatever, and I wore this sweatshirt—a version of this too—like every day. It said, "I want to buy your business," and then the back had my number. It was an interesting experience.

Shaan Puri

yeah everywhere you were born

Sarah Moore

Anything to get your... it was anything free. Where I can? I wanted the world to know I am looking to buy a business. I'm not even serious.

Shaan Puri

Did you get any good inbound from this? Was that like, did somebody call you being like, "Hey, I just saw you ride by me on a bike. I think I caught this number correct. I'd like to sell you my business"?

Sarah Moore

It's funny. I didn't think it was working, but you'd be amazed at what comes out of the woodwork. There's actually somebody that came over and said, "You know what? My dad asked me about whether or not this was actually a legitimate business. Are you actually looking to buy something?" And that worked out. Then I faxed everybody. That was one of the interns' ideas—to send out mass faxes. Part of the faxing campaign was just putting anything that would get their attention. So, part of it, I did put my picture on there and I'd say, "We want to buy your business." I told you this: to this day, I have people that recognize me from those faxes. People in the mill that I work in said, "Wait a second, I was wondering why you look so familiar. Should you try and buy my business?" Like, people on my street, to this day in downtown Boston, will say, "You're that girl that was wearing that sweatshirt," or "You're that girl that was faxing me all the time." That's what I wanted. Unfortunately, a lot of those replies came back after I bought a business.

Shaan Puri

but

Sarah Moore

I was just that was what I was really hoping for somebody to see it and

Shaan Puri

I was serious. Well, that's brilliant because you're looking for these kind of long-standing, sort of boring B2B service businesses. They have fax machines. Yes, nothing interesting is coming through the fax machine, so it's a completely untapped, unsaturated channel. You're like, "I'm gonna turn my disadvantages into advantages." Okay, people say it's a disadvantage to be a woman. You're not gonna be taken seriously, blah blah blah. You're not gonna be included in whatever. Well, I'm also gonna stand out if I'm the minority, right? I'm gonna be different than everybody else, and I'm gonna use the sort of psychology to my favor here. I love that you did that and are not shy about it because I think a lot of people are very shy about things like this. I love that you did that. Faxing a picture is, to me, one of the all-time hustle moves. I'll also say it doesn't matter if some of this stuff works because, one, life motto: "Do it for the story." I think that's already just a winning thing to do. It's just do things for the story. And two, there's something that comes with the mentality of "nothing is off limits." I will do anything. I am all in. It's a signal to yourself, it's a signal to your interns and your team, it's a signal to everybody in the world that I am all in. No idea is off limits, no idea is too dumb, no idea is too out there, too loud. No, everything's on the table as a thing that we might do. I think that is the value of some of these things, whether it's the lead that actually brings in the business or not is kind of secondary. And I love that you did that.

Sarah Moore

Any and Sean, truly, I was shameless. If there was anything I could throw out there, I was throwing it out there. Whatever stuck, I was okay with. Hey!

Shaan Puri

I'm Sarah, Sarah Moore. I'm 5 foot 9, brunette, if that's your thing. Yeah, I would love to buy your pest control business.

Sarah Moore

truly whatever it takes

Shaan Puri

And if I could find out maybe the profits of your business, I'd be happy to join you for a coffee. Let's do this! That's so funny. If you could leave any listeners with one message or takeaway, what's your kind of message? What's the last thing you want us to leave in people's minds here?

Sarah Moore

So, my biggest value is **freedom**. This country was not founded on equality, despite how things seem now with the culture. It was founded on **freedom**, and part of freedom is using everything at your disposal. So, gender, sex, age—whatever makes you, you—can be used to literally pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make your life what you want it to be. This industry, I can promise you, is one of those industries. You don't have to have a Harvard MBA. What made me successful at this, I really think, was largely my upbringing. Those things weren't taught to me at Harvard. The things I do day to day were not taught to me at Harvard; they were taught at the cliché school of hard knocks. So, if you want to be free, pursue this route. **Freedom is not free**; it's going to cost you time and a lot of effort. But I can promise you that anyone who wants to do this can do it if they really put their all into it.

Shaan Puri

And normally I say at the end, "How should people follow you or reach you?" But you don't really have social media, and I think we may not want people to be reaching you after this. So, what's your message? Is it "Leave me the fuck alone"? Is it "Stay away"? Do you want to be contacted from this? What would you like?

Sarah Moore

My biggest thing, I've said, is that I want anyone who wants to pursue this career path to have a fair opportunity to do so. This is why I'm talking about it. I'm going to give people detailed information in a Q&A type format to answer all the questions I get. However, we have truly experienced a crazy amount of volume in my inbox on LinkedIn, with messages like 1,000. It really breaks my heart not being able to get back to all of them, so I'm doing a mass reply. That's the idea here. We're going to give you as much information as we possibly can, but please understand that I cannot respond to all these inquiries. I have a full-time job and I own other companies too. We're very busy. So the biggest thing is: please do not contact our business. Please do not show up at the business. We're going to create a Google Doc for you guys to fill out if you want information, and we'll send it to you. I just can't get back to everybody. I'm not used to this. I went from being like a nobody to not being used to all this attention and all these inbound inquiries. I can't respond to them all. I'd love to, I really would, but I can't.

Shaan Puri

So, we're going to put a form in the description here. That way, people can fill it in, and you'll send them a blast.

Sarah Moore

amazing

Shaan Puri

If there are people who fill out that form, I might cherry-pick a couple of them and be like, "Hey, if you're serious about this, I'll help you do it." Yes, I don't... I'm taking a break from running companies. You know, we sold our last company last year. I don't want to start a new company right now, but I do want to do fun projects. One of the fun things is helping people buy businesses. That's one of the things that is actually pretty dope because you learn about all these niche businesses. You get like the free MBA.

Sarah Moore

right

Shaan Puri

yeah so so so I think it's a good time

Sarah Moore

You learn so much from searching. When I hear about people failing at this, it's like you really can't fail—unless you get investors, of course. But you really can't. I mean, the amount we still laugh at some of the businesses out there... You view the world differently. I think of the freeway now and the lines on the freeway and the signs on the freeway. Somebody made all of that.

Shaan Puri

right

Sarah Moore

Like, these Christians come in and say, "Wow, God made this." I'm thinking that all these businesses made all this stuff that we're looking at and using. It's kind of wild.

Shaan Puri

Right, you're like, "No, that's Trent in Cincinnati. He does that." What do you mean, "this"? He has a name. Alright, Sarah, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it and I'm really inspired by your story. So, thank you for coming and telling it.

Sarah Moore

thank you for having me I appreciate it