Apr 11, 2022 · 22m · founders-journal
All You Need to Know to Buy a “Boring” Business
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Founder's Journal, Alex Lieberman consults small business investor Codie Sanchez to stress-test his thesis on acquiring, operating, and rolling up mini golf businesses.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Alex holds 64.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Alex as informed peer 6.6 Guest teaching 5.0 Guest disagreement 2.2 Alex pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is Alex, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 4:50 Codie's critique of Alex's deal terms
Codie forcefully teases Alex for not exploiting his reputation for better angel investment terms, exclaiming 'what the literal bleep' when hearing he accepted standard terms.
Hardest push from Alex ▶ 11:55 Alex challenges land ownership strategy with sale-leaseback modelAlex counters the basic assumption of holding land outright by presenting a PE funeral home roll-up model of executing day-one sale-leasebacks to unlock capital.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:51 Bond versus business mental modelCodie reframes Alex's entire operational brainstorming into a clean dichotomy: deciding between buying a passive yield bond or an active business requiring heavy operator management.
Alex holds their own ▶ 7:14 Alex details earn-in equity and retail acceleration mechanicsAlex demonstrates sophisticated expertise in deal structuring by breaking down how operators earn into equity through retailer distribution partnerships rather than unearned upfront grants.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Alex as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Alex pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Lieberman's Investment Thesis for Mini Golf | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Alex lays out a detailed multi-part investment thesis for rolling up mini golf courses, citing market fragmentation, recession resistance, and low PE saturation. Codie listens attentively with minimal interruption. | |
| Leveraging Unfair Advantage and Deal Terms | 7 | 6 | 4 | 1 | Codie playfully calls Alex out for failing to negotiate preferential terms on angel investments and outlines how she secures pro-rata rights and warrants. Alex demonstrates deep domain knowledge of creator earn-in equity models by citing the Snuggie inventor and retail distribution strategies. | |
| Analyzing Arkansas Deal Financials and Real Estate Strategies | 7 | 6 | 3 | 2 | Alex shares exact historical financial metrics for an Arkansas family entertainment center deal and brings up sale-leaseback strategies from funeral home roll-ups. Codie pushes back on the operational overhead of multi-activity centers and shares cannabis industry sale-leaseback dynamics. | |
| Operational Challenges, Automation, and the Bond vs. Business Dilemma | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Alex details operational overhaul plans, marketing spend efficiencies, and modernizing course amenities with a bar. Codie delivers a sharp structural framework, telling Alex he must decide whether he is buying a cashflow bond or an active business. | |
| Sourcing Mini Golf Deals and Hub-and-Spoke Outreach Strategy | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Alex admits to cold-calling owners directly and articulates a hub-and-spoke strategy targeting member trade associations. Codie advises him to bypass brute-force cold outreach by paying established operators and brokers to steal their 10,000 hours of sector knowledge. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Alex Lieberman: Mini golf is a fragmented market untouched by private equity
“We landed on mini golf for a few reasons. One is because we felt like it was a category of boring business where there are, it's Super fragmented. There's thousands of them across the country. It does not feel like a space where private equity or like other, l…”
Alex Lieberman: Car washes and storage are prime private equity targets
“In a lot of ways, it feels like car washes or self storage or laundromats really have been like front and center in kind of focus for private equity.”
Alex Lieberman: Mini golf is recession-resistant as affordable family entertainment
“We felt like it is recession resistant because it's a cheap form of entertainment. So in a down market, families are still going to want entertainment and 10 dollars to go play mini golf seems affordable relative to other options.”
Alex Lieberman is actively seeking to acquire his first mini golf course
“We are in the Thick right now of finding our first course to buy.”
Codie Sanchez: Boring businesses perform better in secondary and tertiary markets
“I mean, a lot of these boring businesses, what I found is they're almost better in like secondary and tertiary markets that have some growth, but you're not paying like New York level prices for them, because then you have to really increase your prices becaus…”
Codie Sanchez: Investors with an audience should always demand unfair deal terms
“And if you have money, And expertise and like audience or a name, you should be getting unfair terms every single time.”
Codie Sanchez negotiated unoffered pro rata rights in PostPilot angel investment
“So I invested in this company called post pilot, which is like these little, you know, you get in the mail postcards basically like, Hey free gym membership class. Or like you had something left in your basket. And I basically, they didn't, they weren't offeri…”
Codie Sanchez secured performance-based warrants for increasing PostPilot's audience size
“So I asked for that and I asked for some warrants and options if I was actually able to increase their audience size. Cause I think my audience size can increase theirs. And they said, yes.”
Codie Sanchez: Mini golf acquisitions start around $1M due to land value
“And mini golf courses, you're going to have land plus profits is how you value them, right? So you're going to be a little bit more upmarket than that, I would guess. Like, your minimum deal is probably going to be right around a million bucks.”
Codie Sanchez: Almost no cannabis companies actually own their real estate
“We used to do that a ton in cannabis, like pretty much no cannabis company owns their land. They had to buy the land because nobody would Lease to them, and then they do a sale lease back back to a third party that would do it.”
Codie Sanchez: Mini golf is rarely the best long-term use of land
“There's no way that mini golf courses over the longterm are going to be the best use of land for most locations. And so eventually you're going to get your business sort of taken from you by your landlord, which is okay if it's a longterm and you just get to k…”
Codie Sanchez: Acquirers must distinguish passive cash-flowing bonds from active businesses
“You need to figure out if you want a bond or a business, right? So bond is the check in the mail and a business is something you got to run. And so, yeah, for me, I like having a lot of bonds and only a few businesses because I'm operationally kind of a nightm…”