Ben Bortner
@Slackwatercap
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SMB owner, operator, and investor. Managing Partner of Slack Water Capital. CEO of GreenWorks Landscape Partners. Washed up value investor.
Key West, FL
Joined May 2023
A lot of new followers over the last 24 hours, welcome! For those of you not familiar with my story, I am a former investment manager turned acquisition entrepreneur. I performed a self-funded search and acquired a pool company in 2019, grew profits 4x over 3 years, and sold
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A decade of below trend defaults enabled by ZIRP, which no longer exists. Default rates returning to "normal"...or perhaps worse.
Good visualization of the rise in SBA loan default rate by LUMOS. I think it's gonna not go much crazier than this 4-5% range and settle back down a bit lower. A lot of the defaults were people doing $0 down structures- which have now gone away, or just businesses that hadn't
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Public Service Announcement: Buying a $10m rev with $2m EBITDA business is buying a job. These businesses are total crap. You don't want to buy one of these. If you find one of these that you can buy for 5x, or $10m, you should run away and immediately tell me about it so I can
Buying a $1-2m “EBITDA” home service business can be a trap. It is very easy to “game” this level of EBITDA. Many $1-2m EBITDA home service businesses have severely inflated, borderline fake “EBITDAs.” If you are a home service business with $10m of revenue and $2m of
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My favorite broker listings are the "XYZ Industry Platform Available for Acquisition" and then you see $1.2m of revenue and $300k of SDE. I guess everything is a "platform" now.
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Ironically, the "Affordable Care Act" has become anything but affordable. 😂
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So what are my fellow self-employed small business owners doing for health insurance in 2026? The plans on Healthcare dot gov are terrible. If the lowest cost option for my healthy wife, baby, and I is a $2,500/mo HSA eligible plan, I think I'll just take my chances and go
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Just a few guys, a bucket truck, a chipper, and a tree that thought it was safe... Plus a guy with soft hands and an Android phone watching one of our tree crews at work. #poweredbygreenworks
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Modernizing America’s recycling system can unlock what we recycle & strengthen U.S. manufacturing. In a new Q&A with @WSJ, @eisenberg_ross explains how updated policies and advanced recycling technologies can help build a more circular economy. https://t.co/Td5NTOABkc
partners.wsj.com
Bipartisan momentum builds for recycling overhaul.
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One of my priorities this week was to get out in the field to personally thank our teams for their incredible work over the past year. It was also a great opportunity to capture some photos and videos to showcase both the quality of our work, and the very significant investment
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Got out in the field today to see what some of our crews were up to. Here's a small mulch and gravel refresh for one of our estate customers in Key West. #LandCreationsLandscaping
#PoweredByGreenWorks
#keywest #landscaping
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Really got those Google ads agencies fired up... Reminds me of the Buffett saying: "Never ask a barber if you need a haircut."
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Google's going to put a hit out on me to save their Q1 guidance. If I die under mysterious circumstances, you will all know why. 😂
I’ve been an investor/on the board of multiple service companies now that were spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on Google LSA and PPC ads. When we asked about the ROI of this ad spend, it was actually very hard to actually gauge if these ads were truly generating
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I've bought and sold approximately 20 vehicles over the past year and have a fleet of 26 vehicles (plus my personal vehicles). Thankfully, we have an amazing DMV that never has a wait and (almost always) has very friendly and helpful service. I've even left them a 5-star
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I cannot hang up the phone fast enough as soon as I hear the tell-tale "boop" on the other end of the line when I pick up the phone...
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I’ve been an investor/on the board of multiple service companies now that were spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on Google LSA and PPC ads. When we asked about the ROI of this ad spend, it was actually very hard to actually gauge if these ads were truly generating
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See The Patriot Party’s bipartisan proposed legislation to fix our Healthcare system, fix Gun Violence Constitutionally and fix Immigration. All produced at the click of a button with our new Federal Policy Producing AI Coming Soon to EVERY American FREE of charge.
thepatriotparty.us
The Patriot Party Podcast: TRUTH & CONSTITUTION above all.
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How come the graphic design work I ask ChatGPT to do is just complete trash? It writes great copy, but can't design at all. Is it my prompting?
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Can we blow these up instead of the drug boats?
Argentine Navy aircraft recorded hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels creeping through it's EEZ. the sheer number of lights across the water like an invading locust plague. These predators are going to strip the entire oceans bare for CPC's endless appetite
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Most Americans would be shocked to learn this: a foreign national can harm a U.S. citizen—and DHS does not require officers to consider that harm when deciding if they may enter or remain in the United States. Codias Law is calling on @DHSgov to adopt Direct Harm to U.S.
codiaslaw.com
DHC is a proposed, transformative discretionary factor that would require DHS officers to treat direct harm inflicted on a U.S. citizen by a foreign national as a mandatory negative factor in...
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Wait until the iPhone users get spam text screening...
Some people probably hate this. But I love Apple’s new call screening tool. Cuts my spam / solicitor inbounds by 90%.
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Disgusting and horrible for the oceans. Don't buy "Atlantic Salmon". It is 100% farmed.
Havfarm 1 is a stationary, offshore fish farm located approximately 5 km southwest of the island of Hadseløya, Norway. At 385m/1263ft long and 59.5m/195ft wide, Havfarm 1 is the largest semi-submersible structure ever built. It has the capacity to host 10000 tons of salmon.
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