Introduction
In this exclusive interview, Matt Bruning (founder of Octal Ventures) shares how he built a $3 million business portfolio from a single $670k manufacturer. Alongside Kevin Peer, Matt explains the searcher in residence concept – a revolutionary approach to business acquisition and growth that’s gaining traction in the entrepreneurial community. You’ll learn how this model creates win-win outcomes for both business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Founder Success Story QnA
Start us off with why you turned your attention to wanting to buy a business in the first place.
Since I was young that I like to I’ve wanted to run a business. I’ve known that I wanted to build something. And I always thought that it would be something that I created. So, growing up, I thought that I would be a private inventor. That’s why I went and did engineering in school. Eventually I realized that starting something up was going to be very expensive and time consuming with a at best lowish rate of success. So I decided that it would make a lot more sense to purchase a business and kind of jump in midstream.
You said a line in our pre-call, Matt, that struck me about the two loves of your life. Share that with the audience.
Baseball was the core of my life, I would say, up until very near the end of college. I hurt my shoulder and elbow actually partway through college and it became clear that that was unlikely to be a career path like I had intended. Yeah. But building is building is absolutely.
Why don’t you do it then [buy a business back in 2011]?
I would say I got scared. I could not determine with certainty that it was going to be successful. I did not have any encouragement from my family. They saw that I had a solid career and was quote unquote doing well. So between the two of them, I just couldn’t come to a point where I thought, hey, this this is definitely a good idea and going to work.
What do you think changed about that fear factor between then and a few years later when you did get serious and committed to the idea?
My threshold for acceptable risk came down. So I was looking for something that was let’s call it 98% or 100% confident. And as time went on, I realized that if one can be that confident, they’re probably already too late to whatever it is. So, I move my threshold down consciously to be somewhere in the 80% confidence range. Some of that comes from the military. They tend to say when you have 70% of the information, it’s time to move.
So, the year is now what when you get serious about this project of buying a business?
I would say it was early 2017 that I got to be serious. I was I was pretty burnt out. I was working 90 hour weeks. I was ready to move on. And for me, just as importantly, I was ready to start looking to settle down, have a family.
What did your search for a business look like?
It was very local. I lived here. I liked my house. I’ve got a lot of tropical fruit trees. I didn’t want to move and wait for a tropical fruit trees to grow at a new place. I really like the area. I went to BizQuest back then. I talked to a few brokers. It was very much a see a business that could be interesting on biz by sell and ask to see more information and review it and see if I want to buy it.
What did you see? Did you feel like you were seeing decent options on BizBuySell?
I would say it was not great. It’s probably better then than it is today. It’s getting even tighter to find decent businesses on something like a biz by sell. But yeah, I didn’t have a lot of luck finding anything else interesting.
How did that go? [Regarding the business that eventually caught his eye]
I thought it was some mentioned sewing and marine and I thought it was a like a local canvas shop. So I just skipped it. But I don’t know, probably the third or fourth time I saw it, I recognized something in the picture that it was very local to me. And I thought, well, it’s I think a mile and a half from my house, maybe a mile and a quarter. And so I decided I’d go take a look. Just why not? It’s right there.
What was the description? What was this business if it wasn’t a local canvas shop?
This business, the first business that we bought was Sunrise Yacht Products and they are a specialized manufacturer of tension nets that go on the front of sailing catamarans and then have expanded somewhat to making the same type of product for architectural use like think a really large daybed built into the dock or a villa in the mall dives. It’s big with resorts. They had a worldwide brand recognition. They shipped all over the world.
How big a business is it? What give us a kind of a sense of the look and feel?
It was at the time I think about 5,000 square ft, five employees plus the owner doing about $670,000 revenue and about between $170 and $200k of SDE depending on the year.
Was this going to replace your salary at least day one?
It definitely was not going to replace my salary. If I projected it out, without substantial growth, it would cut my salary just over in half. The way I modeled it out is I would probably take a hit for something along the lines of two years and then get back to somewhere in the range of where I was. And I was okay with that to get a base and get started.
What about the fact that there is so much institutional knowledge locked up in the heads of five people?
I was intentional in not taking on the skill set of being an industrial sewer. I did not want to learn that because I knew enough at that time to know that that was too much head in the sand. I ended up taking over the previous owner’s role which was let’s call it lead business and engineer. So everything to do with purchasing, everything to do with finance, and all customer interactions that were having to do with non-standard technical type of potential problems.
At what point did you start to feel that this was a very small business and buying something bigger would be recommended?
It was gradual. We grew so rapidly that demand was increasing substantially. So meeting demand and matching the company growth was a large part of my focus for four or five years probably. But I would say by year three or four, I was actively looking to find another business to buy and put an operator in place.
How was it that growth was coming so readily?
It was both. Getting out and doing some advertising certainly helped some. We grew right about 20% year-over-year for the first 5 years. Tailwinds really kicked in with COVID. We had more work than we could handle for somewhere between two and three years post-COVID.
Why don’t we hear about these two businesses? [beyond the first one]
The second one was doing just under $150,000 of revenue a year for these pan rack covers. It was a 74 year old guy and a seamstress making these. We paid I think it was right at $100k. Then we bought a golf seat cover manufacturer. It sold for I think it was $400k. It was doing about $700k in revenue, estimated it was doing about $170k in SDE.
What’s total revenue today of these three businesses?
Last year ended at just over $3 million.
How has Rob’s kind of gummed up the works a little bit?
As we try to figure out the next larger jump, I just need to solve for how I could take a Rob’s plan and then create a partnership. It’s really just the company structure. I’m going to have to find a Rob’s lawyer expert to walk through it. It’s just it makes it a little bit more difficult to move very quickly until we solve for that.
Anything more to say before we turn our attention to searcher and residence?
One thing that’s we found very beneficial is building out a companywide dashboard. So where everybody clocks in now, we have built out our own ERP software, but it has the metrics for the entire business sitting in front of the employees. So they can see real-time productivity, they can see real-time forecasts for their quarterly bonuses. It has made a substantial impact on overall productivity and surprisingly actually helped morale as well.
Matt Bruning Business Stats
Matt Bruning transformed a small manufacturer into a thriving $3 million business portfolio through strategic acquisitions and operational excellence. His journey provides valuable insights for aspiring business buyers looking to scale through acquisition.
- Revenue grew from $670,000 to over $3 million in 7 years
- Maintained consistent 20% year-over-year growth for first 5 years
- Expanded from one business to a portfolio of three complementary manufacturers
- Operates all businesses within a 1.4 mile radius in Pinellas Park, Florida
- Implemented Traction methodology to systematize growth
- Focuses on building alignment between employees, customers, and business owners
| Business | Revenue | SDE | Acquisition Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunrise Yacht Products | $670,000 (initial) | $170-200k | 2018 |
| Pan Rack Cover Business | $150,000 | $70,000 | 2019 |
| Golf Seat Cover Business | $700,000 | $170,000 | 2020 |
| Octal Ventures (Total) | $3,000,000+ | Not Disclosed | 2025 |
Matt Bruning Method
Matt Bruning’s approach to business acquisition and growth focuses on operational excellence while maintaining strong alignment with all stakeholders. His method combines strategic thinking with practical execution to create sustainable growth.
- Intentionally sought businesses local to his home to maintain work-life balance
- Focused on acquiring businesses from tired sellers with untapped growth potential
- Started small (under $200k SDE) but with clear path to scale through add-ons
- Implemented Traction to systematize business operations and growth
- Created companywide dashboard for real-time productivity metrics visible to all employees
- Developed bonus structure tied directly to productivity per hour
- Embraced long-term thinking (“permanent equity” model) rather than short-term gains
- Bought bolt-on acquisitions to complement core business while staying in same operational area
Matt Bruning Tools
Matt leveraged both technological and conceptual tools to scale his businesses effectively. These tools provided structure and visibility needed to grow while maintaining quality and employee satisfaction.
- Traction methodology provided framework for organizational structure and growth
- Custom-built ERP software with real-time productivity metrics visible to all employees
- BizBuySell and BizQuest for finding local acquisition opportunities
- High-end Juki sewing machines that sew faster and more reliably than older equipment
- Process automation tools that reduced cutting and processing time by 80-90%
- Pinterest for marketing architectural netting concepts to homeowners
- Rob’s Rollover for funding the initial acquisition (with some complications later)
Key Notes
The searcher in residence concept creates unique opportunities for business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. These key notes capture the most important takeaways from our discussion with Matt and Kevin.
- Risk threshold matters: Success requires adjusting from 98-100% confidence to around 80% for acquisition decisions
- Seller hours differ from employee hours: Owner efficiency often equals 2x normal employee output – factor this into valuation
- Local matters: Buying nearby (1.4 miles in Matt’s case) provides significant personal and operational benefits
- Small acquisitions work: Starting with smaller businesses (under $200k SDE) can be viable with proper growth planning
- Donut diplomacy: Small gestures on day one (like bringing donuts) can significantly impact employee retention during transition
- Beyond financials: Successful business ownership requires building something that benefits customers, employees, and owners simultaneously
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Follow these 5 steps based on Matt Bruning’s successful acquisition journey to begin your own business ownership path using the searcher in residence model.
- Adjust your risk threshold: Move from requiring 98-100% certainty to accepting around 80% confidence in your acquisition decisions as you’ll never have perfect information
- Start local and small: Focus on businesses within your community that generate $150-200k SDE so you can maintain work-life balance while learning the business
- Target tired sellers: Look for business owners ready to retire who haven’t maximized growth potential through marketing and operations
- Implement systems early: Create visibility through dashboards showing real-time productivity and financial metrics to all employees
- Plan for transitions: Build relationships with potential operators using the searcher in residence model to ensure smooth future transitions or growth
Conclusion
Matt Bruning’s journey from power plant engineer to $3 million business portfolio owner demonstrates the power of strategic acquisition and the searcher in residence model. By focusing on local opportunities, implementing systems like Traction, and building alignment between all stakeholders, he created sustainable growth while maintaining work-life balance. The searcher in residence concept represents an exciting evolution in business acquisition strategy that creates more thoughtful transitions, preserves business legacies, and provides real-world experience for aspiring entrepreneurs before they commit to their own acquisitions.