In this solo podcast episode, the host explains the multifaceted reasons behind selling his three companies (RCS, Auburn Group, Florida Best Vending) in 2019. He outlines the business side: a history of offers since 2014, steady profitability, zero debt, and the looming need for significant capital to add a third truck, equipment, and management—requiring borrowing he fundamentally opposes due to past experiences with the 2008‑2012 recession and debt‑driven failures. He also details failed attempts to hire a capable manager, which left the businesses at the limit of what he could run alone. On the personal side, he highlights being debt‑free, having a paid‑off house, funded retirement and college, and ample cash reserves, which gave him financial security to consider new ventures. The family’s ages (children 3, 6, 9 at the time) made a multi‑year travel adventure feasible, aligning with his desire to build the 100% Dad brand and explore the country. Timing was crucial: strong valuation, risk of future economic correction, and the impending age shift of his kids. He sold, embarked on a 2‑to‑3‑year road tour, and reports no regrets, describing the experience as the “ride of a lifetime.” The episode ends with promotional information for the 100% Dad brand.
Chapters
Why did I sell my business? This question I get asked a lot, and the truth is there, there wasn't just one reason. There was several factors that all came together at what I felt was the perfect time. And to put this in perspective, this was not our first offer. We have had regular offers since about 2014. We sold in 2019. Some were good and some were ridiculous, but by 2019 I was pretty used to knowing I could sell really at any point in time. At the same time, my company RCS was 8 years old Auburn Group was 6 years old and Florida Best Vending was 3 years old. I had started them each from scratch. They all started with zero customers and zero employees, and we built them to a modest size. And we weren't focused on aggressive growth. We were focused on taking really good care of our clients, keeping the business profitable, and not stretching our resources too thin. We had zero debt, both as a company and personally. We paid for all of our inventory when we received it. We had plenty of cash reserves. The business was running well. At the same time, we were getting to the point to where we really needed to consider borrowing to grow, which I'm, I'm pretty against if you follow me at all. To continue to grow the business at this point would have been really expensive. We were a 2-truck company and we were going to soon need a 3rd truck and a a third driver and a layer of management to help run the company because I was being stretched too thin. And the cost to pick up customers can be very expensive, especially on the market, and especially on the market and vending applications. So I had a couple accounts in the pipeline that would have cost us about $100,000 in new equipment, and that's just $100,000 in cash just to buy the equipment to install the two customers, nothing else, just the equipment. So I was preparing to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on equipment, on people, on more assets, on inventory, on top of the need at that point to then grow and generate more income, which would have meant a salesman and even more cash out the door to buy more equipment for the new accounts. Now don't feel sorry for me. This is just how business is, and I was in an industry that, while profitable, requires a tremendous upfront cost to service customers. And you make your money back in the long run. And we were just on the bubble for our current resources, and borrowing was realistically the next step that we had to do. I should mention that I hate borrowing. I started my career in '07. I saw the good times for a few months, and then I saw the economy completely buckle. I saw good, long-standing businesses going under, not because they did anything wrong per se, but because their customers disappeared and there was little they could do about it. You know, before they needed 15 trucks and they all had big truck payments and they needed to buy a 50,000 square foot warehouse and they leveraged their inventory and everything else because that was the smart intellectual move. And then there were no more customers, but they still had the big mortgage. They still had to pay for the stockpile of inventory and equipment. They still had to make 15 truck payments every month. Sure, they could reduce payroll, but they were stuck with debts. And that was the end of a lot of businesses from 2008 to about 2012. They did not run the business into the ground. The economy collapsed. I watched a lot of good business owners brought to their knees during this time, and at the same time, people with no debt and cash were making a killing buying businesses and real estate for pennies on the dollar. But no one could get bank loans to make that happen. You had to have cash. All that to say, I'm really against debt for that reason. I live happy knowing that if everything goes to crap, I'll be fine. My cars are paid for, my house is paid for, my business is debt-free. If everything goes bad, I'm still okay. So back to the business. I'll admit I did try to hire a few people to step up and actually run my business. I attempted to train and hand over the reins, but for one reason or the other, they just weren't able to, either for the lack of motivation, lack of integrity, or, or simply the lack of natural talent needed to be a small business executive. So combine the failure of me to hire a quality manager on top of the complete and utter fear of debt tied into the need to take that on. The, the clear decision from a pure business standpoint was I had taken this business as far as I was willing to take it as a solo owner and executive. On the personal side, a dad has to factor in his family, financial stability, career-wise, what's next, will the family be okay if I were to sell, and we were. Financially, we were 100% debt-free, the house had been paid off for a few years at this point, retirement was funded, kids' college was funded, we had a solid cash reserve. As far as a future career goes, I was 32 years old, you know, I have about 7 ideas a minute for businesses. Most of them suck, but a few of them are actually pretty good. We know as a family I would be able to do something at the very least to generate a living income, realistically more. I've always wanted to dabble in real estate, buying and holding commercial properties and rentals, maybe a beachfront house to rent out since we live in a beach town. And now we have the cash to make those things happen. We can buy properties or fund the next business ideas with cash. And of course, 100% Dad Forum has been on my mind for a couple years, so being able to invest the resources and time into creating content for the brand feels like a calling. We talked it over as a family, and one of the thoughts that went through our heads was the ability to travel. And I don't mean on vacation, but really travel, explore the country, and and really get to dig deep into the vast array of geography and history our country has to offer. That was always kind of this nice fantasy for us to be able to do, and, and now it was a real possibility. And again, I go back to the timing. You know, at this point in our lives, our kids are 3, 6, 9— damn near fine. By the time we leave in the spring, our 3-year-old was 4. So from the kids' perspective, the 9-year-old is not in his preteens or teenage years where it would be harder to rip him away from his social roots and girlfriends. The youngest will be old enough to actually remember a good amount of what he sees. And we really feel like 1 to 2 years on the road at this stage of our lives, while we are young and kids are at good ages, is really an opportunity not many people get. And it would be a real regret in our lives if we did not seize this opportunity. So now I'm— we— I wrote this pre-leaving on the tour. Now we're on the tour, uh, and our kids are what now, 5, 8, and 10, going on 11. And we've extended from 2 years to 3 years, and we're having an absolute blast. And it's been really good, and the, the youngest one does remember every stop because, you know, we also make videos for every stop. It's been an absolute blast, and gosh, we're so happy we did this. So from a business standpoint, we were on the brink of the next big reinvestment and restructuring of how we operate. So the timing lined up, the valuation for our business was strong And I felt the valuation would actually decrease if we needed to incorporate management and grow because of the extra expense the business would require to operate. On top of the economic conditions, we've been on a strong run economically, and I'm not Nostradamus, but typically these good economic times correct. And it could be next year, it could be in 5 years, but there was always the risk that we could correct next year and selling would be less advantageous. Of course, since then we've had COVID and that corrected it real hard, so especially in our service industry. In normal circumstances, that would not have been an issue since we were in a good fiscal position. We would just ride out the bad times, but we wanted to travel and build the 100% Dad brand, so that would have really affected the ability to do so at at that time if it had corrected. And if we waited another 4 or 5 years for things to turn around, then our oldest would have been a teenager at that point, and the others would be 11 and 9. And those are much bigger bodies to store, they're much bigger bodies to feed or otherwise travel with. So timing is important. And it seems like all, all those things were coming together, and they were. And so we took action, we negotiated the sale of our one of our biggest assets, and Prepared for the experience of a lifetime. And I can say now, a couple years later, no regrets. Absolutely no regrets. This has been the ride of a lifetime, and I'm enjoying every second of it. This is 100% Dad. Find our current tour schedule on 100dad.com, 100dad.com. On Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more at 100dad, 100dad. Email Townsend at 100dad.com. Com.
