Kevin Moyer·March 27, 2025

Deciding to Start, Not Buy, a Small Business | Kevin Moyer Interview

Kevin Moyer is a former venture-backed SaaS employee who, after reading Buy Then Build on his honeymoon in 2021, chose a franchise over ETA due to insecurity about diligence and deal-making. He bought five Smash My Trash territories in central California with a $350k SBA loan and personal capital, built to ~$1m in 2024 revenue and ~$420k EBITDA through door-to-door sales and an agricultural customer base he stumbled upon, and made the business semi-passive by carefully building remote management processes, paying drivers above-market, and cycling through employees until finding a reliable core team. With the business throwing off ~$260k after debt service, Kevin evaluated buying a small business but ultimately decided against ETA — citing the irreversibility of an SBA-financed acquisition, the difficulty of knowing the right diligence questions, and his risk profile — and instead started Golden Home Access with a partner, a home accessibility modification company (stairlifts, ramps, grab bars) serving aging seniors through B2B referral channels at hospitals, rehab centers, and the VA. The episode is as much a structured argument against ETA as it is an operator story, with Kevin articulating why starting de novo preserved optionality, allowed industry selection, and better matched his effort-first career approach.

Deal facts

sde ebitda: EBITDA ~$420k (2024); take-home after debt service ~$260k
revenue: $1m+ (2024, Smash My Trash)
financing structure: $350k SBA loan + personal cash injection (mid-$100ks total between Kevin and partner) for Smash My Trash franchise; no acquisition loan for new startup Golden Home Access
notes: Smash My Trash: 5 territories, 3 trucks, 3-4 drivers, debt service ~$160k/year. Golden Home Access is a de novo startup, not an acquisition — no purchase price applies.

Why this business

Kevin chose Smash My Trash because it offered a straight line between effort and value creation, with a simple business model and compelling value proposition he could sell door-to-door without needing deal-making expertise. For his new startup, Golden Home Access, he chose home accessibility for seniors because it sits in a massive, demographically-driven growing market, offers dependable cash flows via B2B referral channels, and delivers a clear binary outcome — while also being personally meaningful work.

What's working

Smash My Trash generates ~$420k EBITDA on ~$1m revenue with 40%+ margins, enabling the business to be run semi-passively with single-digit weekly hours
High margins allow Kevin to overpay drivers and pay premium for fast maintenance, creating employee retention and operational smoothness without a full-time manager
Finding an agricultural 'trash gold mine' ~2 hours south in central California dramatically accelerated revenue growth
Building a virtual management layer using a VA, automated reports in Google Sheets, and Slack accountability brought driver work-order compliance from ~50% to 100%
Golden Home Access taps into a B2B referral channel (hospitals, rehab centers, VA) to access a large and growing senior population market with dependable demand
Partnership with co-founder Mahir brings complementary skills and accountability, making the business more enjoyable and reducing bad decisions
Home accessibility is a binary-outcome business — the stairlift either works or it doesn't — leading to high customer satisfaction and five-star reviews

What's hard

First months of Smash My Trash were extremely stressful with one truck, one driver 90 minutes away, and fragile cash flows tied to just two or three customers
Did not fully appreciate the seriousness of personally guaranteeing both the SBA loan and the franchise royalty agreement when signing
Cycling through many bad hires before finding three reliable core drivers took significant time and stress
Franchise growth requires large step-change capital outlays (new territory + truck + driver), making gradual scaling difficult
Minimum royalty clauses and development schedules in franchise agreements can trap franchisees into situations not in their interest
Golden Home Access is a complex business — every house is different, referral relationships take time to build, and some degree of technical construction knowledge is required
ETA market felt competitive and Kevin lacked the finance/PE background he felt would give him an edge in diligence

Notable quotes

I think most businesses are just extensions of the owner and their lifestyle and their personality and their quirk and the employees are people that they know. I think it's a lot — they're a lot more attached at the hip, the business and the person, than it looks like on the outside in a lot of cases.

Buying a business is a one-way door. Buying a franchise — like I just said, you're signing a long agreement, you're doing some serious stuff, you're getting debt. It's a one-way door. You can't turn around and go back through the door.

I realized like we could just start something and if we decide that it's the right move to acquire then we can just go make that irreversible decision once we have the information needed to make that decision with a ton of conviction.

A guy yesterday we put two grab bars in his shower and he said I haven't showered in here in years. I'm going to be able to shower here today. If you think about like the gap between the simplicity of the solution and the outcome — installing two grab bars is very simple, it did not cost him that much — and now his shower is unlocked.