The Future of Aviation

There's so many things we can mature and do better. So when I grew this team, I really looked for people smarter than me in each discipline. And that took looking at people and not looking at us as competition, which is really hard emotionally, but saying, wow, like, I'd be lucky to have you. And I can't just pull someone from the airline sector and throw them on a new aircraft because there's still a ton of experience that only applies to the aircraft that you just have to know. It's not just translating because you have a mechanic's license to every different model.

Welcome to The Deal Table. Today's guest is Suresh Narayanan. Suresh is an accomplished entrepreneur, investor, and visionary leader with a passion for aviation and an unyielding commitment to people first. Suresh continues to raise the bar in how the industry treats its people. He contributed to aerospace engineering and military jet modifications at AQRD, then served as COO of JSX, driving industry innovation. Now, as the founder of Jets MRO, he's shaping aviation's future with a people-first approach. Hope you enjoy. Suresh, welcome to the Deal Table. Welcome to the Pig Room at Old Parkland.

First time. Thanks for having me.

What an environment, huh?

Yeah.

I don't know what you expected when.

You heard Pig Room, but just a conference room. Not this many cool things to see.

Not this many pigs. Yes. Well, it's a great spot and we're glad you're here. We appreciate the opportunity to hear about your business, your activities, your entrepreneurial journey. And I guess I'd say your entrepreneurial journey started a lot like mine. My father had a family business. He was a Holiday Inn franchisee back in the '50s and '60s. And I would go with him to the hotels and I dug swimming pools and laid sod and washed dishes and did everything you could do in a family business. And it was a customer service business, right? We were taking care of travelers who chose to stay at our property. So it was— you have a reputation of being very people first in your business, and certainly that business was so. I felt that it was the values and what I learned working in a family business really helped me along my path. How did working for— well, tell me about working in the family business and what that entailed and how that's affected you.

So it's funny, I grew up when I was about 8 or 9 going to my dad's aviation repair station in Miami, mainly on summers whenever I wasn't in school. And so, yeah, I got a paycheck, but I was definitely the owner's son. But I learned a lot, so I would get put to work to do tedious tasks like look at manuals and everything in aerospace. And thankfully I stayed in aviation because now it's a cool story. But by 9 or 10, I knew what certain FAA regulations were and ISO 9000. So normal upbringing, but it was also just in the summers. And I don't know if I was the best employee because I would just work and take long lunches. And looking back, I'm like, I was kind of a an owner's son just coming, coming there. And I wonder how the other employees thought of me. But then the family business was when I moved to Dallas, working with my brother at an aerospace engineering company. He's my older brother. That was really like working and growing something together. Whereas I think growing up in my dad's business was kind of just showing up, learning. But again, I stayed in aviation, so now it's a cool part of the story.

Excellent. Now tell me about your current business.

So current business, Jets MRO, started at end of 2023, really opened January of '24. So we're in month 15 right right now. So still a young business, but basically we do heavy scheduled maintenance on private jets in Dallas. And then we acquired a component repair station in Miami that fixes piece parts that go on big commercial airliners like Boeing, Airbus. So two different operations but under the same umbrella. I'm headquartered here at Dallas Executive Airport, which has been an awesome airport to find a diamond in a in a very busy airport sector. And we just opened a brand new 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art maintenance facility. We're running 7 days a week and it feels like we've been open a lot longer than 15 months, but touched our first plane in May, already way past 100 aircraft and just trying to get through maintenance on aircraft, just AutoZone of the sky to simplify it.

What's the goal of that? Is that to have like an operation in every major hub or everybody just comes to Dallas?

Perfect world is we look at acquisitions. So we're looking at acquiring aviation like-minded businesses from Texas to Florida. So that's one growth strategy. But the most ideal being living in Dallas, understanding the environment is building more hangars at Dallas Executive and really growing our South Dallas footprint. That's been a pretty neat kind of byproduct of investing in Dallas is bringing a ton of jobs down there. But there's a lot of room to grow. And so this first hangar and facility is amazing, I would hope in 4 or 5 years there's multiple more in the works and growing down there and we create a new major hub instead of trying to find space in the other airports that are very saturated right now.

So real quick, you said aviation, like-minded businesses. Does that mean out of the scope of maintenance altogether?

Maintenance, manufacturing, and repair.

So you still want to be in that bucket?

Correct. And it can be military, commercial, or business jet, which are kind of the 3 different verticals in that space. So pretty open-ended, but we love different verticals in the space.

That's amazing. Now, I do want to go back to the family business aspect because being as the owner's son, because doing research and going through your profile and whatnot, the theme of people first is just over and over and over and over. Is that because when you worked in the family business, you were, you know, hey, you're the son, so you get, hey, do all the crap jobs and and you're like, hey, I don't want to be treated like this, so I'm going to treat my people good? Or are you just a really good person?

I don't want to say I'm a really good person, but I think— Or.

Do you go to Trader Joe's a lot? You know, I want to go with that.

Well, I think I was the youngest and I had two older brothers who were extremely intelligent and very accomplished educationally and professionally. And, you know, my middle brother is 10 years older than me and my oldest brother is 13 years senior than me. And they're both geniuses. And working with my oldest brother, there's no way I'm going to beat that. And so it taught me that I'm seldom ever the smartest person in the room. And so I really had to bank on people. And I started developing this mantra when I was really young. It's, it's not like what I knew, but it's who I knew who could help me with goals. And so I just naturally had to lean on other people to get to certain goals. And it started transitioning professionally and I just doubled down on it. And till this day, I kind of— I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I just want to help bring teams together, be a really good coach, and have other people be more successful than me that are on my team. And so it just grew from childhood onward.

So I am never the smartest person in the room. That's not a cutdown. It just is what it is. But I do know a lot of people. But how do you convince— because you said something right there that resonated with me. Who do I know who can help me with my goals? I've always been a relationship-first guy, and I've always hesitated with, hey, here's what I'm working on, here's my goals, can you help me? How do you navigate that relationship?

I think, like, I'll use the new business as an example. I had to hire a whole team from scratch, and especially on this second entrepreneurial endeavor, I found it's easy to know what to do, a lot harder to actually do it and put emotions aside. So when I grew this team, I really looked for people smarter than me in each discipline, whether it was operations, HR, marketing. And that took looking at people and not looking at us competition, which is really hard emotionally, but saying, wow, like, I'd be lucky to have you. And that's how I needed to put together my leadership team. So I think just really embodying, embodying that and saying like, the people around me are actually smarter than me, I can lean on them, and my job is just bring them together. It's easier said, and people are like, that's a great idea, you should do that. A lot harder to actually execute on because emotions get in the way or ego, and it's really hard for leaders or entrepreneurs to actually not be in the forefront. Like, I like to be behind my team, not in front of them.

So going with that theme, because it's, it's all just bubbling to the top right now, because like, if you're the pro athlete, you're the person on the COVID you're the superstar, you're the, you know, all the things. But if you're the head coach, you're seldom the star. So I, it feels like if we're going that analogy, it's like being okay being the back-of-house coach and letting your team shine. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, you're going to benefit and profit if the team does well.

Agreed. And when I was— my first entrepreneurial endeavor, I learned when I was younger, in my 20s, I was growing an aerospace engineering company with my brother at 25. And we were doing pretty big things, just really young age. Aviation is definitely a— you wait to your turn and seniority matters. And I said, nah, I don't want to wait. I'm going to learn. I have a great upbringing. I get it. What I learned is I did a lot of stuff. I tried to be the player way too much and it would burn people out around me. And so I learned the hard way that trying to show everyone you could do the job and then lead it wasn't the best approach. And then also always being able to step in and do the job for them never actually helped the team and usually hurt. And so this time around, I want to think I'm a little more mature and say instead of doing the jobs, I need to delegate even at our small size a lot more. I may be able to give advice and direct or maybe do things in private that I think 10, 15 years ago I would have just said I'll do it myself or I can do it myself. And as cool as it sounded back then that I could do it, it wasn't good for the business. And I think that's any business, not just aviation. And so now it's more about looking at the team, just being the coach, but maybe helping guide if they have questions or they're out of their depth, but definitely making sure I'm the coach.

Yeah, for me, and I've talked about it many times, is, is that I'm obviously— well, not obviously, but I'm in the SMU Executive MBA program right now. And part of me taking that adventure is doing exactly what you said and step away from the business a little bit and let the team actually rise to the occasion. And I feel like we're doing okay with it. Like, there's like, I'm out of the office way more than I'm comfortable with, but You know, we're still here, you know, so that's, that's a benefit. But I ultimately, I help, at least I hope it's helping me become more of a leader. And like you said, delegate versus do.

Yeah. And being uncomfortable is like part of the journey. Again, before I started this business, I know on paper like what to do. It's kind of like being healthy. I know what I should eat, what I shouldn't eat, and what I could do to be like at the best health. But I make choices on the way that derail that. In business, it's the same way. I know that I shouldn't micromanage. I know I should trust my team, but it's so, it's so much easier to say and preach. But in my business, it is like working out. You have to do it every day and be extra disciplined. And it's still to this day more uncomfortable and more painful than I thought and was ready for. So even on this journey, I'm extremely uncomfortable and I still feel like I get punched in the face every day and I have doubts. And I thought because I've done it before, I'm like, oh, this is, you know, my second run doing this. I've learned a lot. It wasn't easier and I still wasn't ready for it.

So, and just to go down this line even more is like, this is the first shoot that we've done offsite where I wasn't a part of the setup because I was busy all yesterday because we came in late afternoon and I was busy and I had an event I went to and Paul and the team, they came and set it up all by themselves. All by themselves. That's so demeaning. I mean, like that, but like without me. And on one hand I feel like, hey, cool. The team can do it. There's that trust factor, but there is that, hey, did everything work out? Did everything good?

Everything good? Text message. Yes, I've done the text message. How goes it? Just checking in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I work harder to say and do less than ever before. So like last week I was on a family trip for spring break and it was so hard not to call into the daily ops check-in to check to see if things are okay. And guess what? I showed up, the business was still there. And I would argue that they probably had less stress and executed better without me asking questions or stepping in their way. And they need some of those weeks where I'm just not involved, even as a young business, because I always have an excuse. I'm like, oh, we're in month 15, they need me. No, they don't. We built an awesome team. You know, we raised capital to invest in a business to scale it. You know, we didn't bootstrap it. There's a lot of people there to help. But it's such an emotional challenge that I have to convince myself every day, just like working out, you have to be motivated, disciplined, even though you know what you should do. It's different to it. It's like showing up to the gym too. You showed up. That's not the only job. It's actually pushing yourself hard. And did you leave maxed out? And business is the same way. And like every single morning I got to remind myself, I know what to do. Stick to the plan. Look at your values. It's so hard to do day in and day out.

So when you started Jetson Morrow, there must have been a gap you saw in the market. Did you displace an existing competitor or did you create a new a new business in a new location?

New business. So in aircraft maintenance, especially in business jets, I'll kind of frame why I picked business jets versus being commercial defense maintenance. You know, the last 15, 20 years, people took these private jets and you hear the word charter like NetJets and Flexjet. Those terms, you know, those companies have taken the private jet and giving it— giving us everybody access to those jets, whereas 15 years ago, Those jets were mainly owned by private flyers or families. Now you have all these private jets flying almost daily, just like an airline, because there's so many jet cards, there's so much more access to it. And COVID only accelerated that, that because aircraft are flying much more than they intended to be flown. So they're really built for you and I to fly a couple of times a month, not to operate every day like an airline or a taxi service, but that's how they're being operated. I saw a gap in that the demand for maintenance is still going to rise at an alarming rate because maintenance is dictated by time and aircraft flight hours. And so that was going up. But the capacity of maintenance with the mechanic labor shortage was, was going down like the capacity was going away because mechanics were leaving the workforce or going to airlines. And the business jet sector last 15 years, because of that growth and utilization of aircraft, didn't— the aftermarket didn't mature. So when you look at airlines, it's a very mature supply chain maintenance environment. Like, you know, all the big airlines have contracts. There's huge, huge maintenance providers that support that space. In business jet world, there's a couple of big players, like 2 in the US, and then there's a big gap and a lot of small shops. So think about like taking your car out for an oil change and there's Auto Zones and Take-Fives. Imagine none of that existed.. And now you have the dealership, maybe one private company, and then there's— you just got to find Joe's shop on the corner. I saw an opportunity to scale something in the space with commercial professional kind of ideology and just say, look, people are going to fly these jets like an airline, like the commercial space. There's so many things we can mature and do better. That was the opportunity. It's challenging. So I'm coming in, right, and saying, Hey, how we're doing things isn't good enough to support how we're flying the aircraft. So now I have to go convince and deal with the pressures of disrupting an industry that had been doing things a certain way for the last 20 years. So that market, I think, will continue to grow. And so that's why I picked the business jet space. I signed up for the most pain, but I think that therein lies the opportunity because of where that market's going.

I did a little research in preparation, and according to aviation experts, the global private jet market is projected to grow from 28 $38 billion in 2024 to $40 billion by 2030. That's a pretty good trend for you. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But maintenance is the least glamorous part of the industry, by the way. Like, why did you pick maintenance? I used to be an operator where we manage aircraft and flights. It's glamorous. I was in engineering, which is pretty neat and cool. And I go, look, I'm okay, like doing oil changes and things like that because the need is there. I do have a passion for the mechanic population in aviation. My dad was a Concorde mechanic. My brother turns wrenches like I love that population and think there's a way to treat them better so they're not leaving the workforce and they're not jumping around because turnover was a big issue. And so I said, let me start a business that doesn't necessarily reinvent maintenance. Let's treat mechanics the best way possible, attract the best talent, keep them, and then there's going to be a need from where the market is going. So I have no problem if I have the capacity, like they will come. So it's kind of the perfect fit. And that's, that's why I picked that space.

So does the model require that you go to fixed-based operators in major, you know, cities and or do people come to Dallas?

How does that work? People come to Dallas. So for maintenance, we have planes from California all the way up to New York that fly in. It is so hard to find a maintenance slot that's reliable right now that initially we started local. But right now when I look at our hangars, 12 aircraft in there, like 2 of them are from Texas and the rest are from wherever. And so more so now than previous, the regional side of it doesn't matter as much because they're dropping their plane off. They want a good service with transparency and professionalism. Obviously, safety is a huge aspect that's a hot topic in our industry, and they'll fly wherever they need to get their plane back on time. What I am finding is because the business jet sector is quote unquote old school, they're not very transparent and professional in how they report metrics like on-time performance. Like, you know, if you're, if you're on a flight, if you're late or not, right? In my world, it's very relationship-based and sales-based, and that's, in my opinion, old school. So I'm trying to change that and say, look, I'll get you your plane back on time because I used to have planes and be an operator. And to you, that's worth moving your plane from wherever if you can count on having that plane back and knowing when to sell that capacity. And that's that's lacking in my industry tremendously.

What's the marketing like for this? Because it— I mean, you're talking about such a niche that— and like you said, there's that old school and there's all the— it's— you're, you're breaking into a market. And is it just because of your experience with JSX that people already know you? Is it referral-based? Are you sending postcards? Do you have a sales team getting on the phone? Or is it like you said, it's because there's such a weight and there is such a gap in the marketplace that if you have capacity, people are going to try you out?

Both. Now, look, it's important for people with jets to feel comfortable with where they're taking it. You know, we're fully FAA certified. We have the blessing that, you know, of a high level from the certification departments. But a lot of the marketing is— I say this phrase, I don't know if I coined it, but I go sell without selling. So the way we market is we talk about things that we think are value-add content industry. So what are we trying to change? You know, mechanic retention and transparency are the two value propositions from Jets MRO. Talk about that. I don't think anyone goes online and says, oh, they say they have maintenance slots open, buy it now. Like no one— that's not the decision process. It's who are you? What are you trying to fix? Can I trust you? So the way we've gotten our name out there is, yes, I grew up in the industry. I'm fortunate to have my older brother who's— who got me very involved with the industry. And so that network, and because it is a small community, has been very helpful, like our reputation. Has been very helpful in scaling the business and getting our name out there because people will talk to us because they're like, oh, I know who you are. You've got a good reputation. And aviation, it's a massive industry, tiny community. We've worked really hard on never burning a bridge. And it shows because people would take calls or at least listen to what we're trying to build. And then look, if it's a good fit for them, they'll bring their planes to us. But there's definitely not— I don't talk to any customer and our customers have many, many airplanes. And they're like, maintenance is going great. I love it. It's seamless. It's all a degree of how bad it's going. And so once we plant the seed of what we're trying to do different, if it resonates with them, they come back around. And our big things are we'll deliver on time because we have mechanics who are happy and they want to be here. And you think they're on your airplane, think about the product you're getting. If that connects with them, we're a great fit for them.

Who's making the decision to go to you? Is it because I can imagine if I own a private jet, I'm probably not the guy choosing where it's getting maintenance. Is it the pilot? Is it the crew chief? Like, where in the decision tree goes to make that decision?

So most, like, we go to fleet operators, they manage other people's aircraft. So if you owned a jet, you probably put into management. That's, that's our customer. And within that, it's not the C-level person. It's usually the maintenance manager or director of maintenance. They're the actual decision maker for where the airplane goes. For maintenance. And I find it's very honestly easier to get in front of a company when we're talking about our vision and values with the C-levels. There's like, I love what you're trying to change the industry. And other C-levels are usually visionaries and open to disruption. And again, none of them are like, maintenance is going great for us. It's not a pain point. And then it kind of gets dropped to the maintenance manager level. And that's where it's challenging because they're next on the line. They're like, okay, it's not going well, but if I change and it gets worse or there's a safety or quality issue, it's a big emotional decision. I was probably naive to that last year. I'm like, if you say this service sucks, it should be easy just to go to the, you know, go to, go to me. And I'm like, well, no, it's actually a lot more emotional for them because they're like, yeah, even though they're late and there's these challenges here, I don't want to come to a new shop and learn the hard way that there was an issue or there's quality gaps because it's life or death in our industry. There's no check engine light up there. So that I was naive to the relationship and comfort level we had to employ to really get folks to commit to us. So the marketing for us is really putting our people first, like our mechanics, and talking about their experience and sharing that team with everyone. Because when customers visit, I go, I'm not on your airplane, so meet the team that does the hard work. And if you have confidence in their experience and you see our facility and processes and how we do things, that's, that's the sale. And so we invite a lot of people to our brand new facilities. They see that it's probably the cleanest maintenance hangar they've ever seen. And then when they meet the team, they go, wow. And we're running it 7 days a week, whereas most companies say, call me 24/7, but they're not really there. We actually run it, you know, 7 days a week open, same shift, same, you know, same labor capacity. And so our biggest challenge is marketing to get people to visit because in their head they're used to seeing these small shops that are ma and pa. And we're trying to say, hey, we're professional MRO meant to support basically an airline type operation.

That makes complete sense to me because like Anecdotally, if I go to like, I mean, I think, I don't know about y'all, but going to one of those like around the corner car shop where it's, you go there and you see everybody working on your car and then you go in for an oil change and they're like, hey, by the way, your engine's falling apart. You need to pay us $15,000 to put it back together. You obviously got scammed versus like more of a franchise where you go in there, everybody's clean cut, they're in uniform and you go for an oil change, you get an oil change. So what you're saying makes sense to me. Hopefully there's no aircraft mechanics that are similar to the first part of that story. But, but it makes sense to me about wanting to show that side of it.

But it's a big, it's a big change in industry. So again, the opportunity is, is there in the business jet world because it hasn't matured the way like the airline world has in terms of the aftermarket. But the challenge is everyone's used to doing it a certain way. So the ideals we speak about where it's not just we're bidding another project, we're talking about our mechanics first. We don't market, you know, we sell without selling. We share a lot of value at content online and said, like, I don't mind telling people how we're running our business. We even have this idea. We have this cool pay scale for mechanics where they clearly understand how much money they're going to make 5 years from now. And I'm like, just share online. I'm not worried about like this being a secret way to do business if it helps the whole industry treat people better. The hard part is executing. It's just like we talked about knowing what to do to be healthy. Like, I don't mind sharing what to do in business and what JetSumo is doing. So we're really open about it in our content. I don't believe that anyone can just execute on it. And so that's why we're a lot open because people will text me and be like, you just shared that, like, or you shared your pay ranges and on your job descriptions, you have full pay ranges and benefits and they're still not used to doing that. I'm like, yeah, I mean, if you want to go execute on that, great. And if we treat mechanics better, they're not going to leave the industry and it helps me. I'm not that big. So if high tides raise all boats, then great. But that's kind of how we focus on it.

You talked about starting the business, seeing a gap in the market for the service that you're providing. And you mentioned you raised capital with a business plan. And we've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs who have talked about the difficulty of raising capital, even successful entrepreneurs who've already had a successful exit from a business. Can you talk a little bit about that process? You saw this gap in the market. Did you write a business plan? Did you go to friends and family?

How did that work? Well, I have the best investors ever because I was the most fearful about that topic. Like, I've never raised capital, but I didn't want to bootstrap this business. I knew to deliver a professional maintenance service, I couldn't just get one plane, one mechanic, and then scale up. I had to build it and they will come if I wanted to, like, really execute on the vision. So I go, okay, I need to go raise capital and execute this right. And I'm like, I've never asked for money. Our first business my brother started, we bootstrapped it and grew it and he led that. So I've been naive and fortunate to never have that, that need of outside capital. I've advised a lot of like PE groups and family offices. I've seen, seen kind of how it all works. But now I had to do it. I was terrified. I was like, I got to ask people for money and I feel nervous. And I had a good friend of mine who ended up becoming an investor say, you should ask like individuals, like, I'd be kind of mad if you didn't ask me and you went and grew something cool. And I was like, oh, I always thought like people I knew was a bad idea because I thought that interest rate was higher emotionally. And he convinced me to like let him invest. He brought some friends and I actually did a friends round, got 6 investors. They all committed within 30 days. They looked at my business plan pro forma and funded it within 30 days. So I was scared it was going to take 6 months. I was ready for a 6-month process and it took less than 30 days to get funded. And we've done multiple rounds with the investors and they've been supportive all within weeks. So I've had a very— I hate to say, and they're going to watch this, but they're awesome and easy time, a lot of support from them, which comes with a lot of pressure because I'm like, this is too easy. But I've got a lot of support from the fundraising side and I just got to deliver on it. Right. The pressure is on because it was way easier than I thought in that.

Process, because this is relevant to me because I am that the bootstrapping idiot. It's like, hey, let's just go for it. And, and it's funny because at SMU you meet these young MBAs, the, the either the professional or the one year, two years, like, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. You're like, do you have any idea the level of pain you're about to walk into? But, but I think that's coming from my bias of bootstrapping it versus, hey, being smart and writing a business plan. And then— but I think that's just because of ignorance. Like when you're not coming from this type of world where it's like, hey, business plan, cap table, raise the capital, go execute. Like I just started doing it and now like I just wrote a business plan last couple of months ago and I'm 5 years in.

But there's no right or wrong in that space. There's not, right? No one told me you should go raise capital. I said I wanted to do it this way this time and in my industry You know, I can't just go to Home Depot and buy some tools and say I'll fix planes, right? There's capital investment, you need space, there's FAA regulations. Like, it's a very highly technical, very important role. I wanted to do it right from that perspective. So that told me I need to go invest capital and have the right people too. I couldn't say like in my first business, we convinced people to leave great corporate jobs to join us and grow. In this case, I go, I want to attract the best talent day one. Because this is aircraft maintenance and like heavy repairs and overhaul. We have to do it right. And if we don't in the beginning, there's no business reputation long term. So that's why it goes, I got to have capital to invest in it. And most of the investment is in people, not actually the equipment.

I get my overall point to that was I just didn't know. I didn't know you could raise capital. You know, I didn't— I mean, I do have capital now, but it was more like, hey, I'm investing in you. And the guy that did it basically said, I have no— I don't think I'll ever get the money back, but I'm investing in you, which was— I thought that's how it always was done. And now, you know, doing the MBA and talking to other investors and on this academic journey and intellectual journey, I call it right now, last 7 months, it's like, oh, that's what I was supposed to do. So now I'm trying to, you know, rewind the clock.

And it depends if you need the capital, right? So every business is different.

Oh, I need the capital.

Yeah. Okay. There you.

Go. Yeah, you mentioned in your plan that the part of that capital will be allocated to acquisitions. And you mentioned a broader range of businesses under the sort of aviation umbrella. Talk a little bit about that. And you did an acquisition early on of a non-correlated, maybe a business. What are your thoughts and do you have specific targets you know, of types of businesses that you're looking for?

So aviation businesses, and I want them under $1 million EBITDA. I want the ones most financial acquirers won't touch. So small is good for us, right? If it makes a dollar, I'm happy, but I don't want it too big. So I like owner-operated businesses in aviation from Texas to Florida, the South, just because I understand recruiting in that region for business. We love those businesses because one, we get the owner and a lot of this stems just to backtrack from previous experience going through like our business and going through a process and being really disappointed by financial acquirers and wasting a lot of time learning the hard way how hard that world is, or to recap a business, how hard it is. And now I know why a lot of owners, especially in my space, are just like, I don't want to even entertain it. It's too much work. Instead, I go, okay, well, I've been in your shoes and now I understand the M&A world. I'm your best chance to close. And I know what you're going through and I have a platform and very aligned with your people. We try to retain every person in the acquisition. And because of that, I think, one, they'll talk to us more than just maybe a normal business broker or financial acquirer. But two, I learn I have a lot of access to all these companies because I've worked with all of them before or I've crossed paths with them or they've heard of me like us before. And so that isn't like our main growth strategy, but we love looking for the small businesses that make a dollar preferably under $1 million in EBITDA, owner-operated, and for whatever reason, the owner wants to step back. But, you know, I understand how important what he built was. And so we're a good partner for him to help him take that next step and then also protect his baby that he's grown and then kind of take the business from there. So that's kind of how we focus on it and why we kind of pick the small businesses.

So on that, because it looks like you— standout transaction, you know, picked up a 45-year-old FAA repair station in Miami last year. Now, did that also fall in that model?

Yeah, it's been around forever. It used to be actually a really big business that was operated by somebody who got sick. The family kind of struggled with it after he passed away. And so kind of a sad story. It reminded me of like my, my dad's company. He ended up shutting it down. He's still around and healthy and all that. But I also saw it as an opportunity. Someone came to me and was like, would you be interested in it? Selfishly, it's in my hometown. I'm like, man, I got to have a business in Miami. Like, I miss it.

Excuse.

Yeah. You know, I can't move there because we're implanted in Dallas. My family loves it. But if business takes me there, then it gives me an excuse to visit a little more. And I'm very open about it. If my wife watches this, she already knows. But so when I saw it, it was in Miami. I'm like, well, we're going to look at it. And so Emotionally, yes, I wanted a business in Miami because we will grow our JetSummarail footprint down there long term. So it was a little premature because this was last February. So we've been open 2 months, but it worked out. It was just like, look, I get this repair station. It has great legs. It has employees that have been there 30 years. So they're artists with what they do. They're in the commercial space. So it gives me a little diversity from business jet, you know, depending on where the economy is. And there's no shortage of what they do, the demand for little part repairs because the supply chains rock. So manufacturing and and repairs are a huge need. So I go, okay, the demand's there. It's in my hometown. I get it. FAA and European approved. So, you know, awesome certification. Let's figure it out. And it just happened to work out, you know, financially and structure-wise, we could get the deal done, closed. The FAA has to approve the transition. So I had to go down there. They approved it right away and they've declined other acquirers of the same business. They were like, you can't sell it to these people, but you know, Suresh and his business checked the boxes. So it just worked out. But I was definitely motivated because of where it was located personally.

So, so when you look at those businesses, is it you look at it and go, okay, like, because 45 years old and it sounds like it's under $1 million EBITDA, sounds like it has a good foundation. But for whatever reason in the history of that business, they haven't learned how to scale or they have no motivation to scale. Now, when you find that opportunity, are you looking at it and going, oh, I have— I already have all these ideas that we can put in place that will take it to that next level? Or do you have a self-confidence that you can figure it out after you've acquired it? Basically what I'm asking is, do you have a long-term vision before you acquire?

In this case, no, it was— I could figure it out and they were small enough to where I'm like, I know what they do. There's a demand for their service. We just got to market it right, professionalize it, get it on the platform. And it's a low-risk acquisition and a lot of those don't happen. I've looked at hundreds of acquisitions to close, none of them until this one. And so it was kind of an opportunity, but definitely a figure it out. I didn't have like a grand 5-year, 10-year plan for the business. It was more I understood it, but the risk was so low that the figure it out factor kind of convinced me I was able to get over the risk.

So, so in that mindset, it was like it was low risk that you'll lose your money. But you may not make any big money.

Correct.

Yeah.

But you're like, it's not going to be a total loss. It's not going to be a big financial loser. We can figure this out. And the upside was far greater than the downside. It was kind of at its floor already, in my opinion.

And how often do you— is that what you normally do for all the acquisitions or all you're doing, or are you— is it more strategic? Like, I guess what I'm asking is, how do you strategize on what you're looking for other than just under $1 million EBITDA?

Strategic as well. You know, as a new brand, I love the idea of buying recurring revenue. So we look at similar companies, what we do now, maybe that support a different aircraft platform than we do, but have had a long-lasting recurring revenue model. And so the ones we're looking at right now, there's 2 of them and we want to do about 1 a year. We're really— we want their capacity, but that's not as important as buying their customers. So we do look at ways to grow our top line by acquiring a customer base through acquisitions. So that would be our focus probably the next couple of years as we're ramping up our new business. That, that kind of became the focal point because we can build a ton of capacity here, but the path to building recurring revenue is slower for us just because we're a young business.

I like that model, the below-million EBITDA, because you're not competing with family offices and private equity firms. You're competing with individual investors who may not be properly capitalized and don't have the business that you have and the ability to connect. So I like that strategy. If you're buying businesses that are not really positive cash flow, how are you structuring deals?

If they're not positive cash flow, we won't touch them. So you got to make a dollar. Got to make a dollar. I convinced myself because I think I can fix everything. That's my problem too, is every aviation company, because I've grown it Sometimes I'm naive. I'm like, oh, we can fix that. Should be doing, you know, $1 million a year, not losing $500,000. We've said it needs to make a dollar. If it makes a dollar and covers its expenses, the risk is low. But we are competing with a lot of independent sponsors that may step in the space. And I tried this, so I actually spent a little bit of time trying to acquire a business instead of starting it. And it took too long. Like, I am not built for that world. And I love the fact that we have Jets MRO, so I can go into an acquisition and say, look, here's a structure, here's what we're going to do. If you like it, great. If not, I'm just going to go back to growing my Jets MRO business. I'm around aircraft doing what I love. Awesome. When I didn't have that, it was very hard for me. And I really understood how hard it is to be a sponsor because when you don't get that deal, it's back to square zero. You don't have— my identity is in running and growing a business. And so I love this setup better, kind of having a platform and being able to go into a business. And I'm really open about it. I'm like, hey, I think it's worth this. What I use to base my valuation. It's not me negotiating. If you're interested, call me. You might get other deals or want more. Usually everyone always wants more cash, things like that. But here's how I structure it. Here's why. Call me when you're ready. A lot of them will go shop, but usually they come back and entertain us because we have a platform reputation and we can close. The certainty to close is what I try to sell folks. Absolutely. I've seen hundreds of deals and closed one.. And I tried to do this as a sponsor and it was so painful in terms of I just didn't have the patience for it that I love the fact that I can just go be transparent, put little time into it and look, we'll put the time in if it's a good fit for you. But I have my platform I can go back to, which is awesome.

So this conversation is interesting because Lane, Optima Mergers and Acquisitions, would you even like— like, I guess the question I would ask is for both of you. Do you have a consultant on these things? Because under $1 million EBITDA, I can't imagine you would pay Optima your fees for that. And also it being so small— so small, I didn't mean to sound like that way, but it almost doesn't make sense to engage with somebody like you. Yeah. So we're exclusively a sell-side M&A advisor and he's buying. So we would be on the other side. Okay. We would be. But we're upmarket from where he is for the very reasons that he's playing where he is. The close rate, according to the industry data for small businesses, million and under of EBITDA, is about 20%. So 80% of business owners that go to market and try to get a transaction in that space don't. And I think you are aware of all the problems.

I think it's like 1%.

That was my naive experience on it. Which is why I got into this space, because you think about the people that own businesses and they have the overwhelming majority of their net worth in that business and they choose to monetize it. And 80% of them fail. They don't get a transaction. There's something terribly wrong with that model. We focus on $2 to $10 million of EBITDA. So we're lower middle market now. So we're out of sort of the fray there. But where he's playing, he presents very differently. So if we were on the sell side representing a seller, we would love a buyer like him because he has an existing platform and he's done an acquisition. So many of the buyers that he would be competing against, they're not funded. You don't know whether they can show up at closing with the check. And they may or may— they may be financial buyers and have no experience in that business.

The big barrier to entry in my industry is highly regulated FAA. You have to get FAA approval to transfer a certificate or even buy one. And so we check that box, right, because we already have two now and others don't or don't understand the regulatory side. And that could spoil the deal at the end. So that's another barrier to entry. There's a lot on the way with diligence, Q of E, legal, all this stuff. This is a big one in our industry, which is the FAA regulatory certificate and how to get that transferred. So I think that's why I like the space. Yeah, I would say the hardest thing too, if it's only 80% don't close, I thought it'd be higher that don't close. I was in the 80% once upon a time. It's emotionally draining to try to go back to work after going through that process, thinking there's an exit, like the emotional roller coaster I went through, like, like killed me. And then to go back and go, well, that deal fell through. I thought this was going to happen. I thought we're going to recap the business. Now I got to go back to trying to grow the business. It was emotionally draining. And so the sell is we'll try to avoid that. And that's why, like, my initial calls with the owners are like, I don't mean to be blunt, but I pay X times EBITDA. We'll audit it depending on your size. It'll be a full Q of E or smaller QOV. And if you like that, I can structure it this way and I'll get you an LOI in a week and we'll start the process. But I'm not going to waste any more of your time than I need to. And they're almost like, oh, we're used to like a couple meetings and a visit. I'm like, I've seen hundreds of repair stations. You know, I'll check it out. Like, we're going to check it out. But, but if you agree on the number and structure, it's worth the time. Until that, I'm not going to go through it to find ways to, you know, nickel and dime you down or show up and be like, oh, this is smaller than I thought. Because of what I went through, I'm pretty much straight to the point. And because time is valuable to me, I think that makes us different, but very upfront, almost scary sometimes.

It reminds me of a mutual friend, Abe Mankara, because what he was talking about on his experience with Shark Tank is like the deal that's made on the show, provided what the people say is true, they're going to good faith agree to what was said on the show. There's no back-of-house renegotiating, nickel and diming. If you said— if what you said was true, they're still going to audit, they're still going to do the research and make sure everything you said was true. But assuming that's all true, we're moving forward with the deal. So it sounds like it's very similar in that situation where it's like, hey, we'll pay X times EBITDA provided all the numbers you say is accurate.

Yeah. And we have a team like the way we built Jets on Rails. We have an awesome leadership team. They can take acquisitions, they can do the diligence. We have some external folks help us with legal and because I got advise on a lot of deals. I got to see how to map the process internally. And so our process for the first deal was 4 months start to close, which is super fast in my opinion. And it was, it was a great process just because we knew what to do and we had a process for it. We had people helping. It was neat to see it go that fast because I was part of deals that took a year of advising to not do a deal. And, you know, time for me is like the most important asset. And that was hard to see that go through a year thinking this business is going to— I get to go grow it. And then at the end it's like, never mind. I didn't have the emotional stability or thickness of skin to go through that. So I appreciate people that do and get through that process.

Yeah, I like you say, because in conversation with Lane about his business and he's like, yeah, it's 6 to 18 months and sometimes you go through 18 months, it just falls through. And but he says it with emotional fortitude where it's like, obviously it's a. Big deal, but what are you going to do? It's really painful. I read That's an understatement, probably. I read a report from Firmex, industry provider, that said that last year, 30% of deals that were under LOI didn't close. So to your point, you can go all the way to getting an executed letter of intent, and now you're going to due diligence, which, depending on the size of the deal and the buyer, may or may not include a quality of earnings and may or may not include the heavy legal due diligence. If it does, 30% don't close. 30% that are under LOI don't close.

That seems low. I thought I was like, again, maybe I'm naive in my sector and what I've been through. I'm like convinced 99% don't close. Yeah, I'm jaded, I guess.

But that sounds a lot. Maybe their clients, they're not doing an LOI unless they're set on closing.

Well, this is an industry much better at this than I am. So next time I should talk to you.

Well, you want to hire somebody, I know. Yeah, there you go. It's painful. I've worked deals for 12 to 18 months that fell apart and everybody has got a lot of emotional and financial investment into it. And it's just the nature of it. And emotions get involved. And there's a saying, of course, in the industry that time kills all deals. And I'm a drill sergeant on that when I'm working a deal, is to keep everybody focused and set deadlines and dates. And by this time, we're going to have this done. And I've seen quality of earnings that it'll drag on for 5 or 6 months. And who can take that?

Who can tolerate that? You know what's neat with Jets MRO? I have a baseline now. I go, look, now I know how long, how long and how much it takes to greenfield something. And look what we've done in 15 months. So now it's probably bad for the people who are acquiring because I can go at that price. I could just grow another Jets MRO elsewhere. I have like a legit baseline to say this is what we've done in 15 months, a full certificate, because a lot of people, the FAA certificate is a big part of the value of a business. So they'll sell it as, look, to get that, I've seen some people go, it's worth $5 million. Well, now I go, yeah, well, took us 12 months. We have relationships and we execute. We did it right. I now can say this is what we did from scratch and then use that to say, now I can value what you already have and have built. Not to be condescending, but it's really neat to see because I can look at it and go, well, should I spend $4 or $5 million for that? Or do I just take another couple million and go do another greenfield? And that makes it neat to kind of compare.

And sellers don't— my experience with sellers is they don't really get that. I think there's a term, it may have been Harvard, that has a negotiating group that publishes papers on how to negotiate deals, and they call it the BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So I have a seller I'm working with right now, and they've got an offer and they don't like the offer. Well, the offer is far better than their alternatives that they have. Right. And so trying to get someone to understand that is you may not like what the market says to you, right? But, but right now, another client, we have 27 comparable sales for, for their business, right? And, and so you can look at those 27 comparable sales and it's on a scatter chart. You just got this huge concentration right here. It happens to be at a 3.5 multiple of EBITDA, right? Well, they think their business is worth a 5 multiple of EBITDA. Well, look, here's 27 transactions you know, and they're all clustered around 3.5. So why do you think the market's going to pay, you know, this huge premium for you? But I think sellers struggle. It's not like selling your house where you can go to the Multiple Listing Service and say, well, 10 houses sold in my neighborhood and here's the range per square foot.

It's their baby too. It's emotional. It is emotional value in there. And their hard work that no one saw, what they put into the business is always worth a lot more than someone looking from the outside in because they didn't see that or walk those shoes.

And it creates a huge disconnect, particularly between financial buyers and sellers. Strategic buyers may be, they may be a bit more flexible because they see additional value if it's a platform acquisition or something. But there is a lot of emotion on the side of sellers. And I think a lot of reasons that deals don't get closed is unrealistic expectations on the value of their business. And I think a lot of people in the M&A space don't do a good job of educating them and saying, Look, I understand what you think your business is worth, but let me tell you, here are 27 transactions in businesses your size and your, your SIC code, you know, that have transacted and here's where they're trading. So this is the market. Yeah. If the market valuation on your business doesn't work for you, you need to go back and figure out what levers you can pull to make your business worth, you know, that valuation at that multiple. Instead of going to market and spending a year being, you know, being told.

That you're not worth that. I think to being like a business owner who's acquired now is like, if I want to go recap our business or one day if we want to go sell it, we're building it now for that, right? I think that's, that's probably the thing that business owners don't do because they're, they're delivering a service or product the way they know best, but they're not thinking about the exit. Right. And so now we're very process-oriented. We document everything. Basically, if we wanted to sell in 5 years, it's going to be— we're going to have our own Q of E internally. Yeah, we're going to deliver that product so that all that back and forth typically in a transaction where that's not done is taken out of it. Not that that's our goal to like exit, exit, but like knowing what we need to produce to be ready to sell and where we need to be. That's part of how we're growing our business. Clean slate. So that's going to make us really dangerous and efficient. We need to go raise capital or recap or do some big acquisitions. Because all that stuff, all the questions that we know we're going to be asked, we have yeses to already. We kind of self are growing it for that purpose. Real quick, Q of E. Yeah. What is that? Quality of earnings. So I didn't know that either, like 2 years, 3 years ago. And so I was like, yeah, what's that? It's the financial due diligence, if I'm saying it right. That's all it really is, just verifying cash flows. And there's degrees of Q of E depending on size of company. And yeah, they can cost a lot of money, I learned, or not depending on size of the business, but A.

Deep, deep dive into the financials. It's typically done— well, it's done by accounting firms and they're going to put a team on it. And it would be typical for a quality of earnings when I'm representing a seller, if it's like Baker Tilly or somebody on the QoB, to get a document request from them that may be 5 or 6 pages long with 100 different requests. And for a lot of small to medium-sized business owners, You know, 50% of those questions don't even apply.

I spent $30,000 on one to not do the deal. Yes, personally, I was like, yeah, like, aren't you glad you know this? I'm like, no, no, because I spent $30,000. I— it basically all it does is— not all it does. It's important and I see the value in it. It basically confirms the financials we got check out. It's a third party saying, yeah, that's, that's exactly what we see as well or not. Here are the deviations.

So deals get retraded. Sorry to interrupt, but a lot of times what happens is you enter into a letter of intent to buy the business based on what they've told you and represented to you. And then the Q of E firm comes back and says, you know what, we got a problem over here, we got a problem over here. And then they want to retrade the LOI. They want to come back and say, well, we're going to adjust the price. Sometimes they do that in a way that, you know, may be on the. Boundary of— So that's what like Ryan Financial or EY, that's what they do. Q of E, right? Like a part of their business, a book of business. Big accounting firms typically have Q of E departments. And then like Enron wiped out some of the bigger ones.

We use— you know, shout out— we use Whitley Penn, big supporters of them. They've been our go-to for CPA and Q of E since my first business. So there's a lot of resources for that. But, you know, you're right, it's, you know, it's a financial dig to confirm what they're showing you is right. But the way I structured LOIs now is, is yeah, we put a purchase price, but we put— it's based off the audited EBITDA on this valuation. So whatever the third party comes out with is what we're going to do it. So, so it's less of a surprise if they— if EBITDA is down, great. But sometimes it's been up. Oh great, we'll pay you more. But it's based off a multiple of EBITDA and there's the multiple. That's how we structured it. I kind of fix that deviation so I don't have to come back and go, I got a Q of E to tell you why your business isn't worth as much. Because I feel like sometimes people go into deals saying, I'm using that to see what I can knock off. I said, if it can be higher or lower depending on add backs, things like that, I'm just telling you, this is what it's worth. This is what I can finance and pay back. And it works in our models. And so it's, it's based off audited financials, multiple of EBITDA is how we structured our LOIs.

So real quick, only because you brought it up, BATNA, and yeah, the reason— circling back a little bit earlier in the conversation, why I wasn't here to set up is I'm currently in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. And yesterday I was in the negotiation clinic and they brought up BATNA, which is best alternative to negotiate agreement. But I got another one for you, which is ZOPA, Zone of Possible Agreement.

Zone of Possible Agreement.

Okay. Yeah. And that's my addition to this conversation. Yeah. Well, again, it's sellers have— it's their baby. They founded it, they've grown the business, they put their heart and soul into it. And it's very difficult, I think, for them to step back and try to see it through the lens of a financial buyer who's saying, You know, if I buy your business at a, you know, 3 multiple, it's priced for a 33% return on equity. And that's what I require in order to buy a business. And it's really difficult for them to understand the mindset of the buyer. And but oftentimes, you know, the explanation is, well, if this is your retirement trade and you're going to dress up and go to market and the market comes back and you get offers and the offers are all right here at this multiple, That's the market. What is your best alternative to that, to that negotiated agreement? Is it to continue to run your business for 5 years? Well, what's going to be different? How are you going to— what are you going to do differently to monetize it other than just continuing to run it? So, well, I think with your, your model of like, hey, this is what we pay, if the numbers work, that's what we're paying. And I think a lot of people, I would assume rather, because obviously I don't have the experiences that you all have, is you want to buy the business. The reason you want to buy it is because you don't want to do the 15 months of building it from scratch. And I think, you know, having that agreement that there is a, hey, a good faith agreement that, hey, I want to pay you this because I don't want to do that. But if you make my life difficult.

I can do that. Yeah, I think we employ a term called tactical empathy. I really try to understand what the seller— we both end up— we both— we want to really understand what the seller is going through. Through, and I put myself— if I sold my business, how would I feel and how would I react to what I'm saying to myself? And I have that benefit because I've been on both sides of this. But you got to really think about that. So before I say something or quote unquote negotiate, I had to remember is how would I react to being in the same position as this individual, and I'm saying this stuff to me. And so I gotta make sure I convey that in a way that I would listen to it and maybe accept it. Sure. Or not. I'm wrong all the time, but I think about it from a tactical empathy.

Point of I want to circle back to the broader aviation industry. And you touched commercial aviation as well. I grew up flying in small planes, as I told you, with a father who was building Holiday Inn franchises around the Southeast. We sputtering around in our Twin Bonanza 22 Whiskey. Yeah. And, but, and so I'm not a fearful flyer. I had every experience you can have flying through thunderstorms in the Southeast as a child on a small airplane. So I'm a very comfortable flyer with commercial aviation, but I've got a family that everyone is very— they're all nervous flyers. And there has been a spate of incidents with commercial aviation and even private aviation here over the last few months. And of course, the media, you know, there's something like 45,000 deaths a year in the U.S. on highways, right, in automobile accidents. And, you know, if they published every accident that happened in an automobile at night, that would consume 30 minutes of the news. But when an airplane crashes, it is huge news. And I think that it gives this false perception of the risk associated with air travel. At the same time, it appears there is a legitimate shortage of air traffic controllers. It appears that there is more business aviation jets in the air now because of that use of the fractional use of the planes. Is there something going on in aviation where it's becoming less safe, or is this just happens to be a random series series of events that occur in a cycle?

Well, it's not less safe, but there's more visibility because of social media. So if you look at the numbers, they're public data, um, NTSB, the number of accidents and incidents has not gone up. So that, that is much safer to fly every year than it has been the year before. So nothing to worry about there, but there is definitely more visibility of it and probably very avoidable incidents and accidents. And so like in the business jet space, my biggest concern is, yes, utilization of aircraft are going up. What we're trying to change in our industry is, you know, making sure that people aren't making decisions based off relationships, but looking at the quality aspect of aircraft maintenance. Because you think in the labor force, the average age and experience of a mechanic right now is going down because they're retiring. New guys are coming in. There's aviation schools all the time. And that's how we're combating the labor shortage with mechanics. That's really personal to obviously our business. And so even though we're replenishing as many mechanics as we can, it's with new mechanics. So your average experience goes, goes down. And so that my biggest worry is, you know, we attract really good talent, experienced talent, but we pay a lot for it. But at scale, that's industry challenge. Is the operator, the customer too, is it looking at that and is still looking at in terms of business jets, the sales cycle traditionally being more relationship-based. And I think they need to look at, hey, We need to invest more in maintenance and quality to make sure we don't go on the news, not just follow what we've been doing for the last 20 years. We need to ask the question. And so when I was the operator, I'd ask the question of, you know, what's your retention rate on mechanics? And some of the companies, one of the companies told me 8 months. And I go, yeah, we lost like half our workforce and we've been doing business with them for years. I'm like, well, I'm glad I asked the question. I told my team, like, we got to get out of there. We can't with our age of aircraft. It was just too big of a risk. And so that's not being talked about enough. It's still too much on the sales cycle, making decision of where to take your airplane on cost, even though they say that's not important. It still is. I probably lose a bid once a month because— or more than that now— because people take my cost and undercut it and we don't play that. I go, well, the time it takes to do it didn't change. That's all I can tell the customer. I've struggled with how to digest that, by the way, is is if someone takes my bid and cuts it and I know they're doing it faster and cheaper, that's good for them. But I don't combat that because there's no way I can all of a sudden do it faster and cheaper. And all our bids come from production, from the mechanics. I don't have sales folks in between. And so my worry is, if that's happening, how did they do that? And so I've been trying to follow up. I don't have an answer for this. It's more of a question of how do I combat that or tell the operator, like, okay, if you found a cheaper, faster option, great, I wouldn't make that decision on those two premises, but it's safe. Like business jets. I think the utilization is going up. Yes, but the right, the right questions aren't being answered and they should be challenging maintenance organizations to what's your labor turnover and can you really perform like you did 5 years ago or 10 years ago when you had a robust, experienced labor force? Because no one does it. It's all changed. No one's asking how that changed. Commercial, I think, is super mature. It's fine. Air traffic control is a separate issue. Yes, there's more traffic in the air, like by, by major percentage points every year. I think there's a good focus now. Unfortunately, it took some big events, but to get that staffed up, whereas the last 5 years I saw getting staffed down. But my biggest push being on the maintenance side is bringing awareness, this decision-making of where you take your aircraft and asking some different questions than people have ever asked before.

Would the quality of labor for private be higher than, say, commercial? Just because I'm assuming you'd probably pay more than like American Airlines or whatnot.

Or is it all— No, I think the airlines are more competitive, but it's different. So like a mechanic, my opinion, and people have different opinions on this, if they go work on an airline platform like a 737 Airbus product, I can't just throw them on a business jet platform. I would argue the commercial side is more mature, that the aircraft have been around a lot longer. So they have a lot more support and knowledge on these airframes. Like a 737 has been around forever, right? In the business jet space. Again, these planes were not built to fly every day like an airline. They were built to fly a couple of hours a month, and now they're getting flown way past what they were normally built for. And so there's not a lot of maturity in their manuals, like the support. It's a lot smaller. If you look at like a Boeing manual and like a Textron manual for a jet, they're a lot smaller. So I have to really bank on experience to fill the gaps in because there's not much knowledge on the aircraft. As many hours flown as there are in the commercial space. And that it's nerve-wracking, but that's why we invest in experience. So it makes a lot harder to just train someone. And I can't just pull someone from the airline sector and throw them on a new aircraft because there's still a ton of experience that only applies to the aircraft that you just have to know that it's not just translating because you have a mechanic's license to every different model. So that's the gap. And the challenge is maintenance companies can't just do every aircraft and a mechanic's a mechanic. You got to be hyperfocused on some platforms and you have to have that specific experience because there's a ton of things not defined that come with experience that you have to go find.

Well, on that subject, like, I'm not, I'm not an aviation guy. So when you say 737, I can assume that an airline has a fleet of them. So their, their, their entire staff knows everything they know about 737s. In your business, and I would assume in the private sector, there's just endless amounts of planes. In different types of platforms. So how do you navigate the complexity of having that many types of aircraft they got to work on? Or do you specialize, we only work.

On one type of plane? So from our point, we picked 5 airframes to work on. So we do Citation jets, Hawker jets, which is older platform, Learjets, Challenger 300, 600 jets, and Beech jets. There's still a lot of variance under there. And that was us trying to be focused, but I wouldn't call us hyper-focused. I wish we can get more focused. But those are the 5 we focus on. We have the team. The FAA has authorized us to work on other platforms. We could work on a Gulfstream. But how we looked at it was it was kind of luck of the draw. I didn't go in there going, I want these 5 airframes. I looked at the team and we built a matrix and said, where is their experience come from? You know, what are they most comfortable with? And that's how we built our focus was the team we were able to build because there's so many jets. And again, the demand's so high. It wasn't like I came in saying, I know that there's a need for Gulfstreams or Hawkers. So it wasn't that thought out, honestly. It was our team is very comfortable and experienced on this, so they can cover a lot of gaps, know how to navigate these aircraft. These 5 we're going to be really awesome at. And so we get requests every day for other aircraft and we turn it away because I say, look, even though we're authorized and could work on it, my team aren't— they're not experts at it. And therein lies the risk and reputational damage if we take on something that we're not you know, experience that, that's where the dangers come in. A lot of folks don't say no enough, in my opinion.

So when you see an XYZ company with under $1 million EBITDA that works on a jet that you don't work on, that would probably excite you.

Oh yeah. We found one that works on one jet doing it for 30 years and they do it great. I love that. That's hyperfocus and they do it awesome. And so that's intriguing for me. The ones that actually are red flags is that they're like, we work on any jets. And like, well, that's— or we'll work on pistons and turboprops and jets. I'm like, you can't be great at everything. And same, same model at Southwest implies the 737. The more aircraft models you manage on the operator side, the harder it is. Same thing in maintenance. The more aircraft you try to do, you can't be great at everything. And that's where mistakes can be made or things can be lost.

There are some technological advances, changes that may change the type of aircraft that are in the air in the future, the fuel that they use. Been reading about sustainable aviation fuel. Gulfstream and Bombardier say they're going to reduce emissions by 80%, and there are electric prototypes now. I know that when, when we had the first electric cars and they started being adopted, the thought was, oh my gosh, and that, you know, the gas cars will be out of business. Well, that's— it looks like that's going to be a very long time to play out. How do you, how do you view the new technologies in aviation?

Very jaded. It's going to sound bad. I'm not naive in the sense that technology will incorporate itself in our industry and I have to be thinking ahead, just like, you know, the drone market. Why can't we do maintenance on drones? We've thought about that. But with like electric aircraft, things like that, you know, barrier to entry we talked about was the FAA. So getting these things certified, and I love that the bar is really high and it's super hard to certify these things. Because they're flying, you know, up in the air. There's, there's no room for error, right? It's cold up there. There's pressures. There's so many technological complexities to fly that I'm glad it takes a long time. But people, I mean, 10 years ago said we'd be flying electric aircraft by 2025. I think it's still a 10, 15-year horizon, let alone to scale like commercially, like you and me being able to jump in an aircraft. I think some prototypes, experimental aircraft will come out in the electric space. But we're not strategic enough or gearing up to, you know, fix anything besides jets that we think will be flying longer. So older jets flying longer is what we're betting on because there's not— the manufacturers are catching up. There's no new aircraft models coming to take their jobs in terms of the aircraft. I think the certification is just too long, as it should be, and they're not going to be throwing aircraft up in the air at scale. And so if when people are like, oh, look, someone just put an order in for, you know, 100, of these electric aircraft, I laugh at it. So I'm like, when are they going to be out there at that scale where you could actually sell capacity? I might be retired by then, if alive. Like, it's going to take that long to actually build something to scale. It's not me saying that technology won't enter our market. It's just me understanding that the regulatory certification requirements to get to that kind of scale, it just takes a long time, as it should. And so it's not going to be a quick, innovative thing. From an outsider or someone with a lot of investment to say where it can produce. And you've seen that with the electric drones and the quadcopters that can take people in it. It's all taking a lot longer than we thought. It's going to be a long ways. They'll get there. And so there's going to be a time where as a business, if we want to be strategic, we got to be ready for maintenance on those types of platforms. But it's not on our line of sight right now. One, because we're young, but two, my skepticism is that it's still way too far out. Especially for a young business to think about 15, 20 years from now.

Well, anecdotally to that point is like you look at the Cybertruck, you're talking about something that was announced and it seeming— I don't know what the years was, but it felt like 5 years before it was on the roads. I mean, somebody could fact-check me, it's probably like a year and a half or something, but it felt like a forever. But you're talking about a product that has a ton of people that could buy it versus aircraft, which is a very, very small niche of people, plus all the regulations you were referring to.

The regulatory, I love that the bar is high, but the FAA should scrutinize any new technologies, not to a fault, because you want to see innovation actually thrive and you want to see people motivated to bring new ideas to industry. But again, like a new aircraft model or changing fundamental engineering principles to put something in the air, you got to make sure it's ready. So it is hard. I mean, you're flying up there in negative temperatures with pressures. And again, the Cybertruck, at least there's a check engine light. You know, worst case, you pull to the side of the road and you say, oops, this car is not reliable. Stalls out. Reliability issues in the air. I mean, that's a different animal, right?

So as we come to a close, one of the things I wanted to finalize my thoughts on were peer groups like YPO and whatnot. Like, what is the value to you? Because like when you're in aviation, obviously you're in a niche of a niche of a niche. But like, what do you get out.

Of the peer groups? I think it's, it's more of like a, like a personal board. And so like, I love peer groups, big fan of YPO, and it's really helped me make decisions that I may not have the network to ask certain questions about. And I would say it's an equal amount of personal and professional. I think in business, especially in leadership, it becomes more emotional than just logic. It's not like, again, it's kind of obvious. I can write on a piece of paper what I should do in my business to be successful. It's 10 times harder to execute and have the emotional intelligence and discipline to keep up with it. So for me, I need accountability and a peer board to help me with the decisions. In all honesty, what I think doesn't happen enough in leadership is I don't know. I don't know sometimes what to do day to day, and I'll take my best guess effort at it. So having a network to actually ask the questions of, hey, this is what I'm thinking about doing, is really important. So they help me with the I don't know gaps and just personal journey, how to balance life while going through an entrepreneurial endeavor. That's been the biggest value add for me that I've been able to learn from other people's experience, shared experiences of how they did it. And then I can take those shared experiences and kind of say, oh, let me implement that, or I didn't think about that. And that's far more valuable than network. That's what I've gotten out of it.

One of the things I've learned from, from doing this podcast with Lane is we all have the same problems. It's just where's the comma? You know, I may have a one comma problem. You may have a three comma problem. Lane may have a five comma problem, but it's usually the same, same problems that we have.

Yeah. Sometimes you just got to talk it out. Like just talking through it, you kind of— I'll talk in a circle and go, and people will just be looking at me. I'll be like, well, sorry, I guess I kind of asked a question, but I answered it myself. Sometimes you need that group, group to do it.

I saved my most important and compelling question for last. You're a Florida State graduate and an SMU graduate, and now they're both in the ACC.

To bring it up, who are you pulling for? Well, last year was really rough for me because I was not ready for a season where at least my football team— I grew up in Miami, so, you know, I went to Florida State, so huge football fan. I was not ready for last year where one team I thought my Florida State team was going to do awesome went down and then SMU went up. And so I felt a little bit like a bandwagon fan because like my SMU gear started pulling out more and more shirts during the year. But it was super cool because I live here. To see the switch. Now I want them both to do well. Yeah, I need Florida State to get back to business. And but it was a weird year for me. Everyone asked me that. I came here dressed in Florida State gear to SMU for the game. So all my alumni friends and fraternity brothers came in. But it was such a weird year that, that SMU for everyone, SMU shot to the playoffs and FSU just lost every game.

Like, totally, totally nuts. So speaking of the bandwagon fan, because this is my first year with SMU and it's is technically you're not on the bandwagon because you bought a ticket, you know, because SMU is kind of pricey.

It is. And then, yeah, I went to school here and, uh, yeah, I did. I made the investment, you know, getting my MBA from there. But I would argue they've given me more— they've given more to me than I've given to them. So they, they are a huge part of my success locally, staying in Dallas, just, uh, just technically, like, they taught me a lot in business. And I grew my first business while I was in grad school. I would come to class literally like, hey, I'm trying to grow this business today. And I probably annoyed professors, but make me sound smart. What would you do in these scenarios? And I would take that to work the next day and help grow the business. So even though, yeah, it had a cost to it, that's pricey, they— I have taken more from SMU than I've ever given them.

One of the things, um, because I went to undergrad at North Texas and got, other than a degree, a piece of paper, I didn't— I did not take advantage of the university. I'm sure all universities have ways to promote their students and help develop their growth. Stuff. But like, it seems like with SMU there's just countless opportunities. Like, that's how I met Lane. Lane's a guest lecturer at the, at the business school. And it just feels like there's so much opportunity that just thrust upon you versus— at least when I was at North Texas, I was probably just too young, naive, and dumb to actually see that was happening.

It is. It's like, I live in Dallas, I'm staying in Dallas, it's a, it's a huge part of Dallas. And so that was another thing. It ingrained me in Dallas and I live so close to the campus. It's, it's neat to see that and like be part of that story. But I took it for granted. And the biggest thing about SMU is some folks go there for the network. I didn't go there for that. I legitimately needed to learn business fundamentals and different tools to go grow my business that I didn't technically— I didn't have the technical knowledge. And so like I was in the school 7 days a week learning everything I could because I was behind the curve of where a lot of my classmates are on the business side. And then, yes, the network and all the other benefits played into it after the fact. And I'm always looking for ways to give back to them. So I'll try to mentor at the business school or go to all the events. But initially it was, I don't know this stuff, you got to teach me. And they were phenomenal at it.

You know, thanks for being here.

And of course, Tony, up.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Appreciate you being on the Deal Table. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun.