Brian Hartman·June 23, 2025

The Path from $2.5m to $60m in a Tree Business | Brian Hartman Interview

Brian Hartman is a career tree-and-landscaping professional who acquired North Side Tree Professionals, a $2.6m revenue Atlanta tree service company founded in 1968, in November 2022 for $2.5m (~3.8x SDE of $650k) using an SBA loan plus a $150k working capital facility. With deep roots in the Atlanta tree industry — including growing a residential tree company from $1m to $6m and building Bright View's Atlanta tree division from zero — Brian leveraged his professional network to immediately land ~$1m in first-year commercial subcontracting revenue from former landscaping colleagues, nearly doubling the business to $5.1m in 2023 and hitting $7.5m in 2024. The rapid growth severely strained cash flow as commercial AR ballooned from $58k to $585k, forcing Brian to inject $100k of personal funds and navigate the near-impossibility of getting affordable credit for a new SBA-asset-purchase entity. He responded by investing early in two premium management hires, instituting rigorous digital marketing attribution, and building a tight office intake process — practices he argues give a real edge in a fragmented, marketing-unsophisticated industry. In early 2025 Brian sold 25% of the enterprise to Caravel Capital (a fund started by fellow searcher Adrian Pinto) and completed a second acquisition of a Dallas tree company with a similar revenue profile but meaningfully more recurring revenue from plant healthcare services. His stated goal is $55–70m in revenue by 2030 through a combination of organic growth and acquiring roughly $1m of EBITDA per year.

Deal facts

purchase price: $2.5m
multiple: ~3.8x SDE
sde ebitda: SDE $650k (LTM)
revenue: $2.6m at acquisition
financing structure: SBA loan + $150k working capital loan (SBA); business did not appraise at purchase price (~$2.35m appraisal) but deal still closed
notes: Asking price was $3m; Brian offered three times before settling at $2.5m. North Side Tree Professionals, founded 1968, Atlanta area. Second acquisition: tree company in Dallas, TX, closed April 16, 2025 at ~$2.2–2.4m revenue with similar SDE profile; seller rolled significant equity into the enterprise. Sold 25% of overall enterprise to Adrian Pinto's Caravel Capital fund (no liquidity event for Brian; reinvested fully).

Why this business

Brian had spent his entire career in the tree and landscaping industry — growing a residential tree company from $1m to $6m, then running the tree care division at Bright View (the largest landscaping company in the US) from zero to $2m. When he decided to buy a business, he explored other service businesses through the Acquisition Lab but ultimately returned to trees because he could get comfortable with the flaws in a tree business in a way he couldn't in an unfamiliar industry — he knew the people, the customers, the operational risks, and could stress-test worst-case scenarios with confidence.

What's working

Deep industry network from prior tree/landscaping career drove ~$800k–$1m in first-year revenue by subcontracting commercial tree work through former landscaping colleagues at other Atlanta firms
Commercial subcontracting model: Atlanta landscapers typically do not offer in-house tree service, so North Side acts as preferred sub across large commercial properties
Residential digital marketing tracked rigorously by booking rate, close rate, cost per lead, and average job — attribution discipline gave edge in a fragmented market of unsophisticated owner-operators
Responsive office staff trained to answer phones live and book estimates immediately — identified as a major differentiator where competitors waste leads through slow follow-up
Early, premium hiring of two key managers (director of administration and lead sales arborist / now GM Atlanta) — overpaid by some peers' standards but both paid for themselves through ownership mentality and enabled Brian to step back
Transitioned inherited team quickly due to industry reputation and personal relationships — 34 of the 35 employees hired in first year still with the company
Partnership with Caravel Capital (Adrian Pinto's fund) provides M&A acceleration and financial discipline alongside Brian's operational expertise
Dallas acquisition target has ~35% recurring plant healthcare revenue and municipal contracts, providing more predictable revenue than typical tree business

What's hard

Working capital was severely stretched during rapid growth: AR ballooned from $58k at close to $585k in August 2023 as commercial customers carried net-30/net-60 terms; had to inject $100k personal funds to bridge
New SBA entity (formed September 2022) could not obtain an affordable line of credit within first 12 months — banks quoted 17%+ interest rates; had to route equipment financing through a separate aged real estate entity
Growing from 16 to 35 employees in 13 months caused a culture 'vibe shift' — crews were pushed to capacity constantly while the business adapted to being a growth-oriented company
100% growth in year one was not anticipated; Brian would have drawn much more working capital had he foreseen the pace of expansion
Dallas market lacks Brian's Atlanta network advantage — no existing relationships with commercial landscapers or field talent pool to call on; will rely on the selling owner's local ties and proven residential marketing playbook
Tree is a highly dangerous business requiring rigorous weekly safety training and monthly on-site job audits — differentiates from typical home services and requires constant management attention
Revenue is mostly project-based and reoccurring (every 2-3 years) rather than truly recurring, making demand generation ongoing; commercial work doesn't change this materially in Atlanta

Notable quotes

I bought North Side for 2.5 million. So what is that? 3.8 somewhere around there.

When it came down to making offers on businesses, I realized no business is perfect and it's a lot easier to get comfortable with what's not perfect about the business if you knew the ins and outs of the business already.

I attribute about $800,000 to a million dollars worth of that first year's additional sales just to that — people that had left the company that I left went and got positions and were able to subcontract their tree work to me.

If you're going to get into the tree or landscape industry, learn a little bit of Spanish so you can talk to people about their families and get to know them. But it's more of a just actually caring about the people that work for you.

I had to grow into those people which meant that we found a way to continue our growth trajectory. They are the type of people that take ownership in the business where they don't want you breathing down their neck — they don't need to be micromanaged yet they're going to make sure that the business runs smoothly.