Ben Bortner·May 15, 2023

How to Buy a Pool Cleaning Business and 4x Profits | Ben Bortner Interview

Ben Bortner is a former finance professional and hedge fund partner who spent roughly a year nearly broke and Couchsurfing while searching for a business, eventually buying The Pool Man of Key West in November 2019 for a deal financed ~75% SBA, ~10% seller note, and ~15-17% friends-and-family equity — contributing only $100 of his own cash while guaranteeing the loan. Over three years he doubled revenue and 4x'd EBITDA by professionalizing a fragmented, underserved market: CPO-certifying all employees, deploying routing and customer-communication software, pursuing tuck-in acquisitions of local routes and smaller operators, holding firm on premium pricing, and building a culture so strong that almost the entire original team was still in place at exit. The hardest challenges were blue-collar labor (Ben cleaned pools himself during shortages), repair-tech retention, rocky acquisition integrations, and working 12-hour days for years with no family as a check on the lifestyle. Realizing he was too much of a micromanager to comfortably hand the business to a GM, Ben proactively reached out to Pool Troopers (a PE-backed roll-up based in Tampa) and sold in August 2022, returning his investors 8x their capital and ending his operating chapter to return to investing — now launching Slackwater Capital to back self-funded searchers.

Deal facts

financing structure: SBA 7(a) ~70-75% + seller note ~10% + equity from friends and family ~15-17%
notes: Ben put in $100 of his own cash; retained 80% of common equity; paid back investors within 12 months; returned 8x investor capital on exit; doubled revenue during tenure; 4x'd EBITDA; sold to Pool Troopers (PE-backed roll-up) in August 2022 after ~3 years of ownership; business was 'The Pool Man of Key West' acquired November 2019

Why this business

Ben was a finance/investing background searcher who wanted to live in Key West for saltwater fly fishing. He saw pool service as a stable, largely recurring-revenue business that fit his criteria: mature, recession-resistant (especially vacation-home customers unlikely to cancel), not technologically obsolescent. He spotted fragmentation and roll-up potential, noticed unprofessional operators leaving room for a quality-focused buyer, and found The Pool Man of Key West listed for sale the day he returned from a sailing trip that convinced him to move to Key West.

What's working

Recurring monthly/weekly service revenue from a high proportion of vacation-home and second-home owners who rarely cancel
Geographic moat: Key West island market with limited competition from outside and high cost of living acting as a natural barrier
Roll-up / tuck-in acquisitions of smaller routes and one-poller businesses generated significant synergies and cash flow growth
Professionalizing the business: CPO-certifying all employees, deploying routing/scheduling/billing software (app with timestamped photos), and building a reputation for reliability in a market known for unprofessional service providers
Culture and employee retention: paying above-market wages proactively, quarterly bonuses, 401k, never yelling, backing employees in customer disputes; nearly the full original team remained through the exit
Premium pricing strategy — refused to compete on price, positioned as best-quality service in the market
Landing large commercial accounts as reputation grew
Sold to PE-backed Pool Troopers roll-up at favorable valuation, returning 8x investor capital in ~3 years

What's hard

Extremely labor-intensive and physically demanding work in South Florida summer heat; Ben cleaned pools himself during staff shortages
Very low barriers to entry mean constant competition from one-pollers, though high turnover among those competitors is a natural offset
Repair technician hiring and retention was the hardest position to fill; key tech departure forced Ben to learn repairs himself
First acquisition integration was rocky: poor employee communication from seller led to an employee quitting on day one, and the acquired team's pool chemistry was badly managed, requiring retraining; within six months none of the acquired employees remained
Working 12-hour days five days a week plus weekends for multiple years; not compatible with having a family at that stage
Ben acknowledges being a micromanager and felt he could not trust a GM to run the business without him, which ultimately drove the decision to sell rather than scale further
Transition to PE buyer burned Ben out; he found working inside a large organization difficult
Early search phase involved being nearly broke, Couchsurfing for a year, driving Uber, and racking up credit card debt on a failed deal before closing
An employee vehicle accident led to a lawsuit threatening to exceed insurance coverage

Notable quotes

I put about 100 into the companies to open the banking account and that was my investment and all my hard work and my then I guarantee the loan.

I was never ever asked by any employee for a raise. I was always giving people raises before they even asked for them.

I decided that's why I decided to sell it one of the reasons why — I really don't want to keep doing this and I didn't think I could put a manager in place and really step back and trust them to do the job without me and just kind of sit back and collect checks.

Don't be afraid to start a little smaller than what you see a lot of people recommend. Sometimes if you start small and then you can add to it, you can grow a pretty sizable company and you'll get purchase prices for small companies that are a lot lower than there are for larger companies — you can create a lot of value doing that kind of strategy.