Dustin Fusillo·September 26, 2024

When the Business Can't Be Saved : Resilience | Dustin Fusillo Interview

Dustin Fusillo is a Florida-born sales and operations professional who liquidated his assets — home, investment properties, retirement savings — to relocate to Denver and buy his first business. After walking away from a $1.2m SDE manufacturing deal at the last minute (losing $32k in diligence) when his attorney flagged a predatory triple-net lease as a character signal about the seller, Dustin pivoted quickly and purchased a 32-year-old ATM sales and repair company in Denver via a cash asset sale under $1m with a seller note on full standby. The business had 16 employees and low-seven-figure revenue but very little EBITDA; the owner had been effectively absentee for five years. Once inside, Dustin discovered the seller had been applying cost of goods sold mentally rather than in the accounting system, making high-margin revenue categories illusory — a fact that only surfaced through months of transaction-level bookkeeping cleanup. With $25k/month in rent, mounting credit line draws, and a declining ATM industry, Dustin concluded the turnaround was not viable and chose to wind down rather than raise more capital. He proactively called the CEO of the largest industry competitor, disclosed his situation, sold the inventory to them to pay down debt, and was effectively acqui-hired into a role running one of their four vertically integrated ATM businesses in Utah — a company roughly 20 times the size of what he bought. The episode centers on emotional resilience under financial stress, the critical importance of transactional-level diligence in small deals too small for a formal quality of earnings, and the value of building operator relationships even through a failed acquisition.

Deal facts

purchase price: under $1m (asset sale, no formal multiple)
sde ebitda: very little EBITDA at acquisition
revenue: low seven figures
financing structure: cash purchase (asset sale) + seller note on full standby for one year
notes: Strict asset sale; purchase price based on fair market value of inventory, FF&E minus discount. No SBA loan. A prior deal (manufacturing company, Denver) fell through — that target had $3.6m revenue, $1.2m SDE listed (real SDE ~$800k), 3.5x purchase price negotiated, would have used SBA financing; Dustin lost $32k in diligence on that walk. The acquired business (ATM sales and repair) had 16 employees, 32 years in operation, $25k/month rent. Business was closed after roughly one year of operation; inventory sold to largest competitor (Grant Victor, Utah) which then hired Dustin.

Why this business

After walking away from a larger manufacturing deal and burning cash in Denver with no job, Dustin was approached by a broker about a struggling electromechanical/ATM repair business he could buy for cash. He saw high-margin revenue categories, some recurring revenue, and believed he could turn it around quickly — cut overhead, re-energize sales, and flip the business for a profit to fund a larger acquisition. The small deal size meant he could move without SBA debt and a seller note on full standby gave him a year of runway.

What's working

Identifying and cutting excess overhead immediately (reduced staff, brought in a subtenant to offset $25k/month rent)
Building genuine trust and rapport with long-tenured employees, who stayed through the full wind-down and helped with liquidation
Emotional resilience and stress management techniques (journaling, meditation, mentorship calls, regular snowboarding as a reset) enabled clear-headed decision-making throughout losses
Proactively reaching out to the largest industry competitor when the decision was made to close, which led directly to an acquisition of inventory and an executive job offer
Parlaying the failed acquisition experience into a role running a company 20 times larger than what he bought

What's hard

Books were inherited in a chaotic state — seller had been applying COGS mentally rather than in accounting software, making revenue categories appear far more profitable than they were
Took over seller's QuickBooks account rather than starting fresh, compounding the accounting mess inherited from years of turnover among bookkeepers
A repair audit revealed roughly 20% of all repairs were being done at a loss regardless of labor speed or parts used
Business was in a declining, saturated industry (ATM parts and service) with shrinking cash usage — the intended flip thesis depended on a fast exit
Deal was too small to justify a proper quality of earnings but desperately needed one; transactional-level margin analysis was never done during diligence
High fixed costs ($25k/month rent for space two to three times larger than needed) accelerated cash burn
Emotional urgency from having already walked one deal, uprooted his life, and relocated to Denver lowered Dustin's diligence standards
Seller note, though on standby for a year, plus credit line and vendor debt left Dustin with multiple six figures of debt after closing the business

Notable quotes

I realized that this category this Revenue category there was no cogs being applied to it... I call the seller on speaker phone and he goes oh yeah that's really complicated I've been trying to figure out how to apply cogs for years to that — so I just eventually just started doing it in my head and I just figured at the end of the month if I was making money then we're good.

Does this emotional state impact the outcome? When I'm looking at a p&l that's wrong or I'm looking at our cash flow and we're negative and we're maxing out our credit line every single month and we're just barely making payroll — does being in anger or anxiety or stress change the circumstance? And the answer is no.

I literally bought my way into the experience and it happened the way it was supposed to. No one's going to give you the reign of a company of this size unless you've really run a business — it's one of those things where you don't have the experience to have the job but you can't get the job without experience.

I would rather run out of money or fail doing this than go back to W2. I had switched — I am done W2 working for other people — I need to just take the risk.