0052 - From Cop to Restaurant Owner: Building a Multi-Million Dollar Thai Food Brand

If you want something in life, it's not going to fall into your lap. You have to go after it. I love that opportunity doesn't just come to you like that expression - “Opportunity knocks” is very misleading. Like I think it implies that if you sit around long enough, somebody's going to knock on your door and hand you an amazing opportunity. And that's just not reality. Welcome to Business Buying for Financial Independence. I'm Tim Delaney, and I help young professionals buy small businesses so they can escape the 9 to 5 and take control of their time, income, and future. If that sounds like you, hit the subscribe button and let's get into it. Today's guest is Mike Wilson. Mike is an Air Force veteran, retired police detective, and the owner of Blue Mint Thai. He currently has four locations, up from the one he purchased and has three franchisees ready to go with bigger plans for the future. So today we're going to get into his story and how he ended up acquiring this business and what he's doing with it since. Mike, welcome to Business Buying for FI. - Thanks, Tim. I appreciate that. - So why don't we take it back a step? You know, you've got these multiple restaurants running successfully now. Where did you come from? What got you interested in business in the first place? - So I'll give you so just give you a forewarning. I'm a long talker, so I'm going to do my best to keep these stories concise and on track. So my background is I was born and raised in the Miami Fort Lauderdale area of Florida, and I have a typical story of an entrepreneur where my dad was a felon and my mom worked multiple jobs and we were always hurting for money. So that's what led me into always wanting to search for something to get my financial independence and feel some safety and security. Because when I was a kid, we didn't really have that. I was a 2.5 student, dropped out of college because I avoided anything that was hard. I slept through a lot of my classes, and I was, you know, one of those kind of smart kids. It didn't apply himself at anything. And then when adversity came, I took the other direction. The path of least resistance. It wasn't until I enlisted in the Air Force in 1999 that the military kind of taught me, and I made a post earlier about Memorial Day yesterday. Yesterday was my 27 year anniversary from my first day in basic training. So that's what the Air Force taught me was, if you want something in life, it's not going to fall into your lap. You have to go after it. And that's when my first, you know, your standard entrepreneur story. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad for the first time, and I was like, oh, you can make money without being an athlete, a doctor, or a lawyer. And then I was like, oh, people are buying houses and you don't even have to live in them. And then that sent me down a journey of, you know, hundreds and hundreds of books to read and, and led me to be on this amazing podcast. - Awesome. I love that opportunity doesn't just come to you like that expression - I love that opportunity doesn't just come to you like that expression - “Opportunity knocks” is very misleading. Like I think it implies that if you sit around long enough, somebody's going to knock on your door and hand you an amazing opportunity. And that's just not reality. - That's very true. - Well, thank you for your service. And that's an awesome story that it was 27 years to the day on Memorial Day. What - You know, I've had a few military people, former military people on the podcast lately - - Jeremy last week was on my (inaudible) group. - Oh, nice. Jeremy Hans. Yeah. And another guy, Elvon Bowman, who's on - I just recorded with him. His episode hasn't released yet, but that that mindset shift seems to be pretty consistent. Do you recommend the military for people that are kind of say, wandering, lost, don't have direction? Is that that's exactly the post that I put. Okay. So there's pros and cons to to every decision we make. And if you listen to Alex Hormozi and some of these other creators like everything is a sacrifice. And you know, the bigger the dragon the better the story. So you come up with a big, you know, you want to be president or you want to have $1 billion business. You're going to have to slay a big dragon to get to that spot. It was pretty shocking for me because without a dad in the house and my mom working two and three jobs most of my childhood, I kind of raised myself. So it was it was shell shocked when I went to the military, and then they started making me fold my underwear in foreign squares. And then when I did it perfectly, they took my clothes and threw it on the ground and said, do it again. And I say, sir, yes, sir, thank you for your time. So I was I mean, I can go down a whole diatribe of values and lessons I got from it, but that's when my life started turning around, because I realized, number one, I don't have an option. Like when you're living a regular life, I don't feel like doing that. That's too hard. But in the military, it's like, hey, wake up at 4:00 in the morning, go pack your gear. You're going to hop on a plane and you're going overseas in 48 hours. And it's like, I don't have a choice but to say no. It's either jail or yes, sir, I'll do whatever you want me to do. So once I started getting in that structure and routine that I never had before, I started excelling. So when I was in basic training, I went on a graduate award, top 10%, and I went into my security forces training. So I was military police for the Air Force. And then I got to graduate top 10% there, and I was like, oh, if I actually do it, I'm told, and I work hard and try hard, as hard as I can to be successful. One of the core values of the Air Force is excellence and all we do. So once I started practicing that like, oh, I'm winning at life. People are looking at me in a different way they never had before. And then just like to our conversation just a second ago, like I had an opportunity to finish my four year degree and become an officer. And while my friends were in the dorms partying and and drinking and all that kind of stuff, and I was like, hey, I got to write a paper. So I was not the fun guy. But then when I got a call from a general and it was like, hey, you're going to officer training school, congratulations. I got a $24,000 raise and 12 weeks, and then I started making decisions for an organization and having a bigger impact and a bigger scope of responsibility. And that's when I was like, oh, this is fantastic. This is where I started, like, really thriving. And there's a whole separate conversation on benefits of joining the military as far as getting VA benefits. So both of my sons have 3 or 4 years of college at a state school. The VA loan I can buy $1 million fourplex at zero down. And, you know, if that opportunity came across. So that's what started getting me into real estate investing. So when I was in the Air Force and then I had some spare time, I started reading books and educating myself. And once I got that education, I was like, hey, if all these people writing books are doing it, let me do it. So it let me - I bought a house and then I was never going to sell it. And then I got stations somewhere else. I bought another house and then I was never going to sell that. And I got stationed in another place about another house. So then I'm just buying a house like everyone else does. And but now I have three and four, and then I start getting into other, you know, other relationships that lead me to 60 plus doors at this point. - Wow. And those books. So you started reading those books during the Air Force instead of just renting places and moving around as you're told to move. You were stacking up houses everywhere you want, probably with some good, good loan options being a military, which is helpful as well. That's an impressive - So up to 60 units, all those during the Air Force or did you start to keep acquiring after? - So mostly single family homes. And then I got into some partnerships with some GoBundance members. GoBundance mastermind and accountability group. And a lot of these guys are heavy into real estate. So once I started getting in the rooms with the right people and they're walking me and guiding me through, you know what it looks like to be a partner in a deal. So I'm a, I don't know, 1/6 or 1/7 partner in a 60-unit apartment complex. In South Dakota with one of my one of my friends. And then I have a condo town, Orlando. I've four single family homes in Texas and always looking for the next partnership for the next opportunity. - Yeah, that's great - getting into those right rooms, especially with groups like GoBundance, But there's plenty of others out there that just they really level you up. They force you to level yourself up by being around those people and they open up opportunities that's, you know, so instead of those opportunities coming to you, you're in the room you get to see them and hear them. Let's pivot and start talking a little bit about this business deal that you that you found. Where were you or how did you start? How did you come up with the idea of shifting from real estate into buying a business? So I didn't really shift as we talked before, sometimes opportunity does knock, and you have to have the confidence in yourself that you know that you can get the deal done. And I'm a big believer in my faith and every conversation, every idea, we're planting seeds. And even though things don't happen the way that we perfectly would want them to happen, sometimes 10 or 15 or 20 years down the road, you can see the purpose behind that. So let me backtrack a little bit. So I was active duty in the Air Force for eight years. I was a captain in the Air Force, and that was going to be my career. Like I already had eight and a half years in. I was going to do my life, you know, the life or thing and get my pension. Every so often in the military, they do something called a riff, which is a reduction in force. So essentially I became an officer right after 9/11, and they hired a lot of people because they knew that we were going to go to war at some point. When that stabilized, they said, oh, we don't have any money for any new airplanes. We need some more, you know, combat fighter pilot stuff. And I was like, I was, you know, in an office writing performance evaluations. And they're like, hey, you got to go. So 4000 officers of my year group got laid off from the military. So fast forward, I thought it was going to be super marketable. I thought I was like, oh, I’m a weapons instructor. And I had this leadership experience. I was in charge of 800 people in my my nuclear, nuclear missile unit, my munitions unit. And I had a few interviews. And, you know, it was Amazon. It was a Department of Energy nuclear materials courier. So like a super Swat, high speed, you know, Jocko type person or Goggins type person and none of that, none of that panned out for me. What panned out was me going back to Chili's, where I was a bartender and a waiter and becoming a manager at Chili's. So that's a long way to say that wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. And as soon as I got out of management training, I decided that I had to go do something else. And I applied to be a police officer. So I was a police detective and street officer for 17 years here in Arlington. When I was a detective, one day I'm still fully engaged into finding real estate deals, finding opportunities. Well, what are the odds that somebody that I work with who was a civilian timekeeper, like, she's like, hey, Mike, I was here shopping for apartment complexes and businesses to buy. Why don't you buy my family's Thai restaurant? And I was like, hell no. Like, restaurants are hard. What is Thai food? Thai food sucks. It sounds gross. I've never had it before. Curries. Yuck. So she's like, hold on, hold on. You never had Thai food before. And she calls her mom. Mom, my cop friend needs to taste his food. So she brings it all his stuff. And I was like, gobble, gobble, gobble. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And at that point, I was like, the world needs to know about this. And you can understand, like traditionally people from Thailand, they don't follow the same education paths and structuring that we do. So they're not really big into banks or loans or things of that nature. So I was sitting there and they didn't even have books like when I was like, oh, I'm interested in buying this business. It's like, okay, well give me your, your financials. And they handed me a handwritten - Document that shows the last three years of sales on, you know, on and pen. And I was like, I don't know what to do with this. So I asked my friend and I was like, how much? You're my friend who's bringing me this opportunity? How much do they make per month take home? Like after all expenses and she goes 8 to 10,000. And I was like, oh, I'm a I'm making $4,000 a month wearing a bulletproof vest and, you know, going after bad guys and murderers and r*pists and all that kind of stuff. And then I could 2 1/2x my salary by literally doing nothing like keeping everything the same, same menu. It's been there for 15 years. The restaurant. So that was my plan. So the conversation was, how do I make this happen financially? And I could get into that if you wanted to hear the terms of the deal. - I definitely do, but I want to back up for a second and talk about this riff or lay off in civilian terms, the - because this is something I've been talking to a lot of people about lately. I personally know multiple people in their late 40s, early 50s that have been laid off from corporate jobs lately and struggling to find jobs because their skill sets have shifted. They gave their 20/30 years of loyalty to a company, and now they're now they're in a rough spot. now they're in a rough spot. now they're in a rough spot. You know, a lot of people think of government jobs, you know, maybe up until Doge last year as untouchable. But even you're pointing out even the military, you think you're going to be there forever. And they decide one day that they'd rather have more planes than more Mikes. I think that's a really big eye opener for a lot of people like to just kind of think about what your options are at all times. I mean, sounds like you're already starting to do real estate, but still, to go from managing a something involving nuclear energy to a Chili’s is a kind of a big jump. Yes, I'm sure that was a hit. - Hits your pride. - I'm sure. Yeah. Pride, paycheck. All of the above benefits. So just for everybody listening out there, you know, whatever you're doing now that you think is safe and stable, just make sure you're paying attention to what's going on around you. So you apply to the police. You're all professed putting your life on the line every day for $4,000. And then an opportunity comes along to more than double that overnight with very little effort. I'm with you. Restaurants sound awful. I have no interest in owning a restaurant. I've talked to a lot of other people that say the same thing, but for the right person and the right opportunity, you know, I guess you know the right deal. You can't say no to everything. So talk us through those terms and how why it made sense. And besides being amazing quality food and delicious stuff. - So we are the best Asian restaurant in South DFW out of 1000 Asian restaurants. We get voted four years in a row and hopefully coming out soon in the fifth year in a row. So again, I kind of sat down and looked at the pros and cons. These people have - they don't do any marketing, they don't spend money on marketing. They ran it the way they've always run it. As far as coming from directly from Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand. So this was always a build to sell scenario for me. As we all know, as entrepreneurs and and people involved in real estate, everything else, restaurants are the the lowest margin and the hardest to work as far as employees and the staffing part and the logistics. I mean, you get a lot of experience as being a mini CEO because you have to run every aspect of a small business through the restaurant. So there's that, that aspect to it. But ultimately this was a they have a great product and great food. Let me market for them, try to create partnerships and make people know how good it is. And then somebody like Chipotle or Cava or another restaurant group, Raising Cane's, is actually where we have a meeting with them in the future. But it was always, I don't want to be a half Puerto Rican, half white guy owning a Thai restaurant empire. I need to offload this to experienced restaurant operators. And that's kind of the point we're at now. So we've been I've been the owner for three and a half years, and we're looking into private equity and restaurant groups taking a majority stake over us, because at that point, restaurants are hard. The terms of the deal was pretty easy. Like I was very grateful, but I had a couple of rental properties in some equity in it. Obviously after Covid 2021, everything skyrocketed. And this is another great lesson for your your listeners is own assets - own real estate, own things that make money, that aren't super labor intensive. Because I was playing Call of Duty and drinking beer for most of the year, and I made $1.2 million on paper because my six houses jumped up 30% over two and a half year period. So I did a quick refinance out of that some cash out refinance, the terms were I was buying the restaurant for 275. I put 80 grand down out of refinancing some real estate, and I made that 80 grand back in seven months. I the terms of the deal because they don't believe in interest or banks is I have an owner finance 0% interest for five years. So when I started, you know, after listening to Bigger Pockets and reading all these books and I was like, sounds like a home run, you know, like all the staff is going to be in place. The family that still created these recipes are still involved with what I have going on. So quality assurance, make sure the recipes are correct like that full buy-in. So that's when because of my not my timing and not my plan, God said you're going to go to Chili's and learn how to be a restaurant manager. That gave me the confidence to be able to say, let's go. Let's make this happen. - That's a good connection to that Chili's stint. How so - 275 is a purchase price. You put down a little less than 30%, and they financed the rest of 0% interest for five years. That's quite incredible. I also just want to touch on the fact that you didn't. You talked about your real estate appreciating. You didn't go and sell that real estate. You still own it. You just got the cash out from the bank as a cash out refinance. So you're still on those assets. And then you were able to take that equity and put it to use into this. So really you didn't have to take any cash out of your pocket necessarily. You know, you're paying interest on that other money. But since your main loan is 0% interest, it's not impacting you too much. And then did you go in day one as a manager? Were you planning to run the store yourself? Is that how - or was it completely hands off? - So Tim, it was meant to be completely, completely hands off. I was still detective over the busiest area in Arlington, so I was writing almost 200 warrants a year, arrest warrants a year, and, you know, search warrants and all that kind of stuff. So that was my main job, and I was really good at it. And, I mean, I liked it and I had pride in what I was doing. But when you started talking about my goal of being financially independent and free, like the math doesn't math, when you have 8 to 10,000 a month for doing nothing or 4000 working 50 hours a week? So that's how that came about. But I tell people all the time with rental properties, like every month, it's a goose laying a golden egg, and the egg gets bigger and bigger and bigger every month through appreciation or through rent increases and so on and so forth. - Yeah. So how much longer did you keep the detective job after you bought this? Bought the restaurant? - Great question. I was still skeptical, so I didn't go into the management part. I just showed up all the time. I was like, hey, can I get you guys anything? Everything cool, you know, like, I wanted to be seen and present, but I wasn't. I was there on like on Friday and Saturday nights because I had a full time job as well. But after this was the money was coming in regularly for about a year. So I bought it in 2023 and then I retired in - February of ‘24. - Okay, okay. And so you weren't necessarily you weren't actively managing the restaurant, but you did show up regularly. So the staff and customers knew who you were, which is a great way to do it if you can or you don't have to. You're not the bottleneck for anything. Sure, but people still know who you who you are and that you exist as an owner. Which is - which is nice. And did you, you know - so you were buying this? It was all turnkey. It's been there for 14, 15 years, you said. Which is probably the only way I would buy a restaurant is if it had that long of a track record. Because restaurants come and go very quickly. What did you change day one? Did you change anything? - Yes. So recipes or recipes? I'm not a Thai recipe expert. I'm going to let the market decide how good our food is. But for me, like that's where my business acumen comes in. Start talking about making partnerships, getting with the chambers of commerce and the community. I'm a big philanthropist at heart, so donating to the school district, getting out in the community to do speaking events. I wrote two books that are on Amazon and Barnes and Noble's charitable books, and I passed those out. I mentor students in the community, so that's a way for me to, you know. Increase my brand awareness in the community, but also my local brand like, oh, Mike Wilson, I know that he's the Air Force veteran. I know that he's the police officer that owns his Thai restaurant. His stories is great. And he's going to speak to my kids class next, next week to talk about investing or mindset or goal accomplishment, that kind of thing. So that's what I initially tried to change. And then I spend some money on some marketing dollars. So getting out into ad pages, your value pack, your mailers, and that worked - like that's where I felt confident enough to retire after a year, we went from our top line to being 859,000, I'm sorry, 821,000 in 2022. And then my full first year of ownership was at 1.1 million. And in the restaurant business, that's pretty significant. So that was me essentially pounding on doors saying, come try our food. Once you try my food, I got you like you're not going anywhere else for Thai and Asian food. So then I did it. I gave it a quick a mini-flip - so painted it, changed the walls, brought us in technology. We used the Toast POS system and they have great data analytics. They have great marketing programs. My first email to my customers was my emails that I had on my phone 243 emails, and right now we're over 15,000. So it's nice to be able to know that we have, because every email that we add, every new customer, we add it saved in our CRM. So now, you know, Happy Memorial Day. Come get $10 off your next order of 40. Like, oh, that sounds cool. Let me try that. So we are constantly out there trying to, you know, shake hands, kiss babies and be seen in the community so people know who we are. Come try our food. And then I got you. - That's incredible growth for your first year in the business, especially for such a long established business. And that's just something else I'd like to point out to people. Because even when I before I even started looking to buy a business 15 years ago when I thought buying a business was, why would anybody want to do that? It's you're buying somebody else's problems or you’re stagnant. It must be stagnant. If it's been around for so long, it's usually only limited, capped by the willingness of the current owners to go out there and grow it. And for a lot of them, they don't want to grow it because they've they've got things where they like it. They're making enough money and they don't want more headaches or perceived headaches. So there's usually room to grow as a new owner. You got all your cash back in the first year not even being the manager, which is fantastic. And you're continuing to grow. So when did you - Was Toast in place when you bought it? Did they have a point of sale system? - It was not. So they had one that was bought and paid for. So the family that I purchased this from, there were three sisters and a brother. All of them have owned Thai restaurants either in Texas or New Jersey. So they all, you know, they keep it in the family. Oh, here's my accountant. Okay. Call him. Hey, here's my point of sale system. Call them. So I adopted everything they had. And again, as a military commander, when I get to know another base or another unit, I don't come in here and change things the way I want them. I come in, observe what's right, what's wrong? What can I make small improvements on? Because I don't want to throw all this stuff at a new staff. So like, over the last three years, incremental changes. All right. We're going to change this month. All right I'm going to paint the walls this month. You know, like I just get them indoctrinated to a new way of always being improvement, always making things better. And it's been great. I've had no one leave that I didn't want to leave. So we had the same staff for 7 to 8, 10, 15 years. Some of our head chefs been with the family for 18 years. So that's why we keep winning the awards. Consistency. - That's great because that's you know, that's something I recommend people when they first by a business - don’t go in there, guns blazing with plans to change everything. When I bought my wine and liquor store, I did introduce a new point of sales day one because I wanted the data and they had no electronic system. But everything else waits. Take your time. Observe. Like because, you know, we all have preconceived notions. You think something should be this way, but you might watch it. And the thing that you think is the worst could turn out to be the best system they have going. And it works for that situation. When did you start thinking about opening up other restaurants or additional locations? - So that's a funny story, Tim. I was in a GoBundance event. So let me back up a little bit. So I was I was ready to keep writing warrants, let the restaurant bring in some cash flow. I was going to do just fine. No big deal. And one day I woke up at two in the morning and God said, turn this into Chipotle for Thai food. And that's all I heard. And I was like, yes, sir. Like, I got my marching orders. So since then that's when I started thinking about, hey, here's I want to expand; how do I expand? And I will just wave a caution flag at your listeners. One of my GoBundance members, one of my buddies in my pod, he said, “Mike, as soon as you retire, take some time for yourself and don't say yes to everything”. What do you think I did, Tim? - You probably didn't do that. - That's correct. So I paid for franchising rights. So now we are able to sell franchises. I was building out a second store in the building in Texas, which is my hometown, and then I signed a lease for a third location in Arlington in downtown area. And then my business partner, she came on board and she got us to be the official Asian restaurant partner of the Texas Rangers. So these are all like 1 to 2 year long initiatives. And I did them all at once. And last year I developed a stress related autoimmune disorder. And we talked about earlier, like you are, you become the people you spend the most time with. And I got into the right rooms and I got into some rooms where I shouldn't be, and I'm very grateful where some investment opportunities came up in the gas industry and the money's coming in, and especially after the war broke out, the money's even, you know, $100 a barrel. It was different when it's $55 a barrel. So all that is, I look back at my two and I'm grateful to get in those, those doors. But when you start talking about buying businesses and entrepreneurship, I don't recommend it for a lot of people. You really have to have that drive, that passion, that discipline, because it's a lot easier to, you know, punch a clock. And he told what to do for 40 hours or 50 hours a week. But when it's on you and you have investors and you have people depending on you, and you have 50 employees that need their paychecks paid. It's a different monster. And it's kind of crazy going from 25 years in the military and 20, 25 years in law enforcement, always following orders to now, I don't want anyone to tell me what to do. I'm in charge. And then now I have a different set of problems that I'm always trying to overcome. And as part of the journey. - Yeah. When did you join GoBundance? - I joined, it's coming up on four years. I did leave last year for about 5 or 6 months. When I was going through my health issues, I just couldn't find the time to get away. I mean, I'm still on my original pod as well as a new one, but I didn't - I couldn't make time for it because I had so much of other - I mean, I had you can't see him now, but like, I had, like, scabs all over my arms and legs. And my doctor was just like, you're doing too much, man. And I was like, thank you, sir. Like, I got it. So from that point, I'm trying to, you know, oxygen mask for myself first, as I'm trying to all say no to the things that don't help me reach my ultimate goals and visions. - Yeah, that's a good philosophy for anybody listening. You know, make sure you take care of yourself first and make sure everything you're doing is in line with your vision, which you need to have a vision and a plan in order to make sure you're sticking to it. So take some time to do that. The reason I ask about GoBundance so is because I do - I believe so strongly in the concept and the idea of masterminding and being around the right people for the right thing. GoBundance is an amazing group that I've been aware of for years. I've known people in and out. I finally joined earlier this year and then I have my own mastermind for for people that are trying to buy small businesses as well and like there's resources out there for you, whatever your goals are like, go find those groups and get in them because they really do help and they give you the right advice. If Mike were to listen to his pod mate and taking some time to himself, he probably wouldn't have had the the stress related autoimmune disorder. - Listen to the experts. - Yeah, it's one thing to get in the right rooms and then it's another thing to actually take that advice to heart and, and apply it to your life. So you've got the four locations now, the partnership with the Texas Rangers as the official Thai and Asian food, which is an incredible opportunity. Like that's a such a cool thing to be a part of. And probably great for your brand and for your, you know, your ultimate goals as well. Any how did that come about and what was your - I'm sure there was a financial commitment with that as well. Like how did you grapple with that and how did you decide that that was the right move for you? - So we say it all the time, me and my business partner. So she is a she's also in the military. She's a sergeant in my old unit. She was - I nominated her for 40 under 40 for the city of Mansfield. And she won. She's got a doctorate degree in business. So she is helping me offload a majority of the things that I was doing. As a business partner and taking some of that time and stress off my plate. So within the first week, she came on board and she's like, hey, I know the vice president of Texas Rangers. You want to see if we can't do something with them. And I'm in. I'm your typical visionary, like say yes to everything. And I was like, heck yeah, let's go. And then we met with him. He had our food. He loves the fact that I was, you know, military and police in Arlington. He's like, you're the exactly the partner we want. He's like, it's going to be this much, and this much is over half $1 million for a three year deal. And I said, cool, let's do it. And he goes, how are you going to pay for that? I said, “I have no idea.” And just typical entrepreneurial spirit like, we'll figure it out kind of deal. So I reached out to some associates, business partners on other projects. And Tim, we say this, me and my business partner said this all the time is - There's capital, you need money to buy some stuff, but there's also relationship capital. And that is way more valuable than actual dollar capital. So when you have these relationships, because she knew the vice president, Texas Rangers and some of my investors are state representatives for Texas County commissioner. The mayor of my town is an investor with us. So these relationships matter, and I can call on anybody at any time and mayors or city council members, and it's amazing thing to have. And I even have a House resolution for the state of Texas named for me for my military retirement. So I'm in the history books for Texas from all time. And like, it's pretty cool and I'm humbled and honored of that. So when you talk about these partnerships, like, I want to get in the room with everybody and I want to shake their hand and I want to talk about what where goals and vision are. And every time I'm planning a seed and you never know when that seed turns into a giant tree that provides fruit for generations. So I try to get in the room with the people. I add value without expecting anything back, and clearly what separates us from other restaurants is we do have a partnership like that. So now of course, selling franchises, it's like, oh, I can go buy a McDonald's with Chick Fil-A, or I can hit the startup that's got a handful locations. I know the CEO and the owner, and he's aligned with my values. And, you know, there's some people that that are pretty important backing, backing them. So that was a long winded way to say one of my, one of the guys that we had some some real estate and oil investments together, he's an investor in my restaurant. And, you know, there's a few bucks in the oil industry. And he said, yeah, that's partner. And he provided that. And I provided some equity, long term equity. Because I do believe that once we get to a number of stores that are pretty close to where we're at now, that a bigger buyers going to come in and scoop us up. - So I think I kind of glossed over something there too. And then you're talking about investors. You bought the first restaurant for $275,000 with all your own, with your own capital and seller finance note. How did you end up with a partner and investors and why? - Why - because I didn't have enough money working as a cop. Like I think my pension after 17 years of service was $1599. When you say past 20 and 25, then the numbers changed. But because I was only a short period, my numbers were not that great, so I didn't have the money. So that's why. The how is - fostering these relationships and adding value. So one of the guys wanted to buy one of my rental properties for a son, and I wanted to offload a rental property so I can put it toward the restaurant in our growth. That's what I did. And, you know, we started talking about diversification of assets like single families are great. And they long term not a whole lot of work. But if somebody can hand you a check for $400,000 and say, hey, let's go build this business that was paying you instead of, you know, $1,200 a month profit, I'm now making 8 to $10,000 a month. And I was like, what if I just did that again? And then I could make, you know, 16 to 20? And if I did a third one and then, you know, at some point when you're making 34 to $50,000 a month, you don't have any money, money, money problems after that. - Yeah, yeah. And so you, you wanted the cap or you needed the capital for your expansion because it's expensive to build out new restaurants and partner with the Texas Rangers. So part of your vision is to get into or get acquired by a larger group, which means you need to have some, you know, more than one restaurant, most likely. And yes, that's so, you know, there's whenever you're buying a business or doing in business in general, like you have multiple paths that you can take from, you know, I could have retired from the police or kept his job for a little bit longer, set steady with one restaurant and collected a paycheck, collected some, some dividends forever. But he saw a path to really grow this, get it out and make a bigger impact in the community. So he needed additional capital, which makes sense. Anything else that you feel like my listeners should know about? Buying a restaurant, growing a restaurant, planning an exit. - So I will tell you, I didn't quite fully answer your last question is that once I was able to get in the room with go and listen to these people talk about raising capital, I felt comfortable enough to go around and say, hey, you guys know my restaurant has been here for 15 years. We've increased sales. Now I'm raising money for the other one. So I started selling equity into raising capital. So I would sell my shares at 5000 apiece because most people that I know and my book is called Blue Collar Wealth, and it's the basics of investing. And I wanted my friends and family and cops and military world and bartenders and Chili's people to be able to buy something and say, I own a piece of that because most people aren't accredited. And if you don't know what accredited is its net worth of over $1 million or two years of $200,000 of income, which most people are not. So now I can offer them and say, hey, for most people don't have 100 grand in around, but they got 5 or 10, so then they want it to be a part of this. So that's how I raise capital from my original store and how I'm doing it as well. For the Arlington location. One thing that I also wanted to mention was we are on the M&A market right now with a major company called Generational Group. They're the number one M&A firm, and they're based out of North Dallas. And they came in and did an internal valuation. So after three years, I bought it for 275. I put 80 cash into it. And we got a valuation at 1.5 to 2 million. So essentially an 8x over three years. And that's without our franchising sales. And that's without our Arlington store which can be our flagship location. So I do think that there is a potential pretty solid exit to go from 275 to, I would say, with three operating franchisees, even if we didn't try to do anymore, we didn't even try to sell them. It's all word of mouth of people that know me. I think we're looking at a 5 to $10 million exit in the next 24 months. - Wow. That's incredible growth for an industry that most people, including myself, shy away from or wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. So it's very impressive. Mike. - I’ll be educating people not to get into this field as soon as I'm out of it, I promise. - Yeah, that's although, you know, I've said this before too. I do feel like everybody, everybody talks negatively about their own industry when they're talking to other people. Like to some extent it's I know doctors that, you know, I know doctors that say, no, never be a doctor while they're pulling in high six figures a year or lawyers, you know, so there's a right fit for everybody. You just got to know your own skills and know what your risk tolerance is and and what your interests are. I also, you know, I jokingly say I need to stay away from food because I have no self-control around food. If it was - I'd be I'd be 500 pounds if I had unrestricted access to Thai curries. So - I have them 4 or 5 times a week. - Yeah, yeah. You know, ordering once in a while I can live with, but every day would be, would be tough. Well, Mike, I really appreciate your time and your willingness to to share your story and motivate people. Is there anything my audience can do for you? Besides go eat at your restaurants if they're in the DFW area? - They can buy my restaurants. Come reach out and we'll give you the full service for selling franchises. And no, just keep on spreading positivity and faith out into the world. I'm on executive pastor in a congregation over here as well. And, you know, even though I do have a background in law enforcement and military, like, does it always align the way you want? But I'm a big believer in serving and elevating others. And on the back of my franchising booklet, it says the Zig Ziglar quote, you could have everything you want in life if you just help everyone else get what they want in life. And the more and more I pour into my faith and help others without any expectation, the more and more great doors open up and I would just, you know, God's bless me for years and years and years. I shouldn't be on this podcast and I shouldn't be in good buttons or a multi-millionaire. But here I am, and I'm going to keep on trying to serve others as as much as I can. - Thank you for that, Mike. It's awesome. We really appreciate it. Appreciate you being here. Appreciate everything you do for your community. And I'll see you again soon. Take care. Thank you guys. Take care. Thanks for listening to Business Buying for Financial Independence. If you're serious about owning your time and building long-term wealth, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.