🔑 Driving fuel across Texas made him $15 million in a month
Welcome to The Business Buying Academy with Sieva Kozinsky. Here's what we have in store for you today:
- Your guide to being boring
- A business buying masterclass
- How to build a $400 million holding company
🔑 How to be Boring
This caught my eye last week.
No way this is true, I thought.
But I checked, and sure enough, Build-A-Bear Workshop has outperformed basically every big tech stock over the last 5 years.
This got me thinking.
In a world obsessed with the next big thing - AI, crypto, or whatever’s trending on X -there’s something quietly revolutionary about owning a boring, long-term, steady business.
While chasing trends can feel exciting, it’s often a rollercoaster of volatility. Boring businesses, on the other hand, chug along, delivering consistent value, stable returns, and sometimes, jaw-dropping outperformance.
Here is the playbook:
- Find a service people love, and need, preferably a high price and margin
- Do a better job of delivering that exact service
- Get rich
Important to note, Build-A-Bear Workshop is far from the perfect example of a steady, long-term business. The stock is actually up only 95% in total over the last 20 years, thanks to its value crashing in 2008.
However, there are several examples of great "boring" companies that have quietly produced outsized returns over the last few decades, many of which you probably never think about.
Here are some better examples:
Waste Management
The company that hauls away your garbage every week is a cash flow machine.
Get this: Since the end of 2009, Waste Management has reported a quarterly loss only twice.
That's 59 profitable quarters and just 2 losing ones.
And the company has produced a total of $27 billion in net income over the last 20 years.
Not bad for a boring business that often trades at a much lower valuation than 'exciting' tech companies.
United Rentals and Waste Management specialize in equipment rentals and garbage disposal, respectively. Investors yawn at these boring businesses. But both are outpacing the returns of the S&P 500 by a wide margin over the last 10 years.
-The Motley Fool
CoPart
Have you ever driven by Salvage Yard? Cars stacked sky high...
That yard was likely owned by CoPart. They source car parts from salvage yards and insurance companies, and sell them through their online auction house. Their unfair advantage is that cities won't allow new salvage yards into their town. So CoPart has a location and supply moat.
Today, CoPart is a $48 billion company, and has been a compounding juggernaut for 15+ years
The Lesson
I'm not saying you should avoid investing some of your money in Nvidia or other big tech companies.
The opposite, actually. I love owning Nvidia, Netflix, Uber, and Amazon in my personal stock portfolio (I own them through an index).
Ask yourself these questions:
When you build or buy companies, are you building a long-term, sustainable profit engine?
Or are you hopping from one trend to the next, hoping to get rich quick?
I absolutely love this quote from Jeff Bezos:
“I very frequently get the question: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?' And that is a very interesting question; it's a very common one.
I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two -- because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. ...
[I]n our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection."
- Jeff Bezos
With this quote in mind, I'll leave you with one big question:
What can you invest in today that will still be generating cash 20 years from now?
🔑 The SMB acquisitions masterclass for serious buyers
Every week, I see a new thread from someone teaching how to “buy boring businesses.”
The problem?
Most of the people writing those threads haven’t actually closed a deal.
That’s why I like what the team at Mainshares is doing.
They put together a free, 9-module Acquisitions Masterclass taught by actual operators—people who’ve bought, fixed, and scaled real businesses.
It covers everything from generating deal flow to doing diligence, structuring financing, and getting to close. No fluff. Just real, tactical stuff.
They also host live office hours and hands-on workshops—like how to model a deal or prep for a seller call.
It’s basically a bootcamp for SMB acquisitions—if you’re serious about buying a business, start here.
Thanks to Mainshares for sponsoring today's newsletter
🔑 How to Build an Empire
Want to make $15 million a month driving diesel fuel across Texas?
Bryan started a business doing it.
But it wasn't easy - he had to pay for the diesel the day after he picked it up, but customers didn't pay for 30 days.
He had to finance the orders out of his own pocket, all while hoping that his customers in a volatile industry didn't got bankrupt in the meantime.
Bryan shared some amazing stories with me during our chat. If you want to understand how to build a great holding company, listen to this.
You're about to hire an elite executive who will take your company to the next level...
But you have one question.
How should you structure their compensation?
This is one of the trickiest parts of running a great business.
Incentives drive behavior...and if you don't have the right incentives in place, even the most talented employees won't produce great results.
In a couple weeks, Nick Huber and I are going to give our best tips for creating compensation plans, setting growth targets, and retaining your best employees for the long-term.
We'll also answer audience questions at the end. Make sure to reserve your spot below.
Have a great day,
Sieva
P.S. - Are you hiring? Get started with top global talent from Somewhere (I'm a customer and investor)
Disclaimer: nothing here is investment advice. Please do your own research. The information above is just for information and learning.
