Keith Leinbach·April 11, 2022

8 Figure Exit, 2 Years After Buying the Business

Keith Leinbach, a 56-year-old former tech executive and CEO (Accenture/Anderson Consulting, InSweb, BEA Systems, ServiceSource), bought a two-SKU automotive parts business in August 2019 via Quiet Light broker for under $1 million after being fired from his last corporate CEO role. The founder was a talented engineer who hated marketing and had done virtually none, leaving massive untapped awareness potential. Keith hired a professional digital marketing firm, expanded the product line by listening to customer calls and adding compatible SKUs, and grew the business into European and Asian markets — achieving roughly 20x growth in just over two years. He sold the business in December 2021 for eight figures through a boutique investment bank, partly motivated by anticipated tax law changes. The episode also covers Keith's parallel ventures: three laundromats (doing $30k/month revenue), 10 Smash My Trash franchise territories, and a failed Amazon FBA business where he lost $100k. A week before the recording Keith survived a small-plane crash in Denver, which he weaves into a broader message about pursuing entrepreneurship and not waiting to act on life goals.

Deal facts

purchase price: under $1m (six figures)
multiple: 2-4x earnings (referenced as typical for sub-$1m earnings businesses)
notes: Acquired August 2019 via Quiet Light broker (Chuck Mullen). Two-SKU consumer product business (automotive parts). Sold December 2021 for 8 figures. Business grew ~20x in two years. Exit arranged through boutique investment bank. Seller was engineer/founder who disliked marketing.

Why this business

Keith was already interested in the industry for unrelated reasons and was passionate about the product category. The business was a physical automotive parts product with strong engineering but zero marketing — he saw it as an awareness problem he could solve. He also liked that it was small enough that a failure would only cost a few hundred thousand dollars, while upside was meaningful.

What's working

Digital marketing: the founder had done virtually no marketing; hiring a professional digital marketing firm drove rapid initial growth by creating awareness for a well-engineered product
Product line expansion: listening to customer calls revealed demand for compatible products; Keith added SKUs that solved downstream problems, raising average order value from ~$1,600 to $3,200+ and sometimes $12,000+ per transaction
Geographic expansion: grew from mostly domestic to significant sales in Europe and Asia
Delegation and outsourcing: hired fractional CFO, operations manager, digital marketer, and order fulfillment contractor so Keith could focus on customer conversations and strategic decisions
Customer service philosophy: 'fix it, solve it, whatever' approach with no fault for over-spending to make a customer happy built brand loyalty
De-risking production: duplicated manufacturing to remove single-source production risk, which also made the business more attractive to buyers
Patenting new product lines: protected compatible product innovations from competitors

What's hard

Single-threaded production facility was a major existential risk — it took a year and a half to duplicate production
Knowing when and how to hire when the business cannot yet fully afford the resource — required revenue-share compensation arrangements
The business was not just 'add marketing' — marketing got early growth but required continuous product development, geographic expansion, and operational scaling to sustain it
Other ventures (Amazon FBA, laundromats, failed car wash search, franchise exploration) consumed significant time and capital before the business acquisition path became clear
Amazon FBA business lost $100,000 because Keith could not interact with customers to learn and iterate

Notable quotes

I grew it 100 in three months but when I before I bought it I showed the business plan to my buddy who was the president of Sprint at the time and he's like come on man I mean we've both looked at a billion performers and business plans what are you going to grow this thing 30 a year like doing what are you gonna do man.

We grew this thing 20x in two years man. And it's not because of my mad marketing skills — I'm freaking terrible at marketing — but I hired a really great digital marketing dude.

I'm sure the person that called last is the last person that's ever going to call us man because I don't think anybody's ever going to buy another product from us — so treat that person with just such gratitude.

You have to be comfortable because if that's your orientation you're probably not going to be a very good entrepreneur ma'am. But if you're oriented around I'm gonna find really great people and I'm gonna outsource the stuff that sucks the life out of me and I'm gonna spend my time doing the things that I'm great at that can really grow the business, you're gonna have a big impact.