 So 9 a.m. you're buying and then you're shipping daily or weekly or um I've come back this is I mean I was merchandise is heavy yeah so I was packing it up in 20 by 20 boxes and then bringing those boxes to FedEx by myself. How many boxes? Like 10 at a time. Wow. So you're like a professional mover. Yes. Yeah. And when I go to visit I only flew Southwest because they give you the two big bags for free and I load those with merchandise and I would just use my carry-on for my own personal things. Yeah. And I was free shipping. West building entrepreneurs. I didn't know Southwest. Oh yeah that we so for my project sites a lot of them are outside of the state and my crews fly all over the country. Michigan we just did a job in Grand Rapids and they fly all over and we try to fly them Southwest as much as possible. They just brought like two toolcases and stuff out to Iowa. Yeah it does. It's a huge tip. That's really cool. I have no idea. And so then you're looking to sell the business. So I had a woman approach me and asked if I could consult. She wanted to open stores. She wanted to open stores in my area. And asked you to consult or that's okay. Yeah. Wait in your area in Michigan. To compete with you. In our like they call it the tri cities. Okay. Like in the tri city area. Okay. Well I'm not going to just create my own competition. No. In literally a light bulb went off. I was like you're tired of this. Sell it to her. Like easy. She's trying to create that for herself anyway. Right. And of course I'll give anyone advice. But I mean that was a little too close to home. Yes. Like literally you want to build a store seven miles away. So I presented that to her. Not even right. I thought she'd laugh or something. She was like that's a great idea. I didn't want to ask you. But she didn't want to ask. Yeah. She just wanted what I had. This is a great, great lesson to always ask. And to always put your foot out there. You never know. Like who is holding back. You know. I disagree. Why? What if it was her idea the whole time but she wanted you to say it. Okay. That's fine. But like. I'm just saying. Okay. There's an inception component. You would have had to have the wear with it all. And have it in your head to be like I think this is going to be a better option for anyone. Yes. So to always put it out there. Paying me to console. Right. I think 10 times that. Yeah. You know instantly. Right. So you're interested or she's interested in the process. Right. What's your first step? You guys are reviewing the financials or we do. So I need to come up with what the business was worth. Yeah. And how did you do that so quickly? Good will is a big part of this. Like. Yeah. It really is. And like. What do you mean by that? So I realized that I was a big part of it as well and what I built. So. Oh. Right. More so the customer base. The loyalty. The employees that I had. The relationship with the university. All of that was like built up. And how do you put a price on like listen. Like I have an intern system. Right. Set up like maybe you could put my board seat or whatever. Like things like that. Yeah. Okay. How do you replace your impact there. Right. And know that it's all going to go to a good place. Right. So at the end of the day you just have to model your valuation based on your revenue. Absolutely. And a lot of it was you know just arbitrary in that way. And I was like prove me otherwise. Yeah. I think that's worth 20,000. What do you think it's worth. Okay. And she'd come back and say something. It was one year of negotiation. A year. Yeah. Wow. And in that time was she trying to build her own things still or no. Did she table that to find out if this is going to work. Okay. And this seemed like this was really going to happen. Yeah. She was dead set on a third location where she originally wanted her first store to be. So what we ended up we came up with a number. It was probably about 30% less than I really would have wanted. Okay. And I'm sure it's 30% more than she really wanted to pay. Yeah. You meant the middle. Yeah. Was it like one or two times revenue? I just decided at the end of it even though we broke it down it was one times revenue. Right. In a year. And at that point we were doing a quarter million dollars for one store. Okay. And we added in the second store and then I said also I would stay on as a consultant because we realized too it was my eye that kept us going. My access to things quickly in Los Angeles. So yeah. I also put myself in there and I had a job lined up for the next year which was great. Yeah. I thought that was cool because I didn't really want to part that quickly. No. And were you still buying for them? Yes. I'd still stay the buyer. So in the 11th hour I got a call from her attorney and she's getting cold feet. When I say the 11th hour so I jump here. He's my you know I'm saying husband, partner, life partner. Amazing. For 12 years we're not married but engaged. So people are like what's that? It's totally unencouraged. So JP decides he's like wow like this is amazing. Like something's finally paid off. I think I could take a break. I'm going to go to Italy with my friends. Wait what? Yes. In like not really on my time but kind of. Yeah. Wait what? We're going to be good friends. Before it's signed. And he's on his way to Italy. Huge lesson. Effectively. In Italy. And I get this call. JP come on. And I'm like what time is it in Italy? Yeah. So at first. But you're home and you're like well okay screw me. I just built up this huge business and now I'm selling it. I've got this opportunity. You're going to Italy but you're here. He's the first to celebrate. In my mind I was like maybe I'll go. This is so strange. This is a red flag to me. I don't know. This doesn't make any sense. So whatever. So he's like well I get this call. Yeah. And when you say the 11th hour. Just so you know. Never do that. I don't have it in me to. First of all let's start with this. As an entrepreneur I'm literally very frugal. Just naturally. Everything you see here is Natalia's bougie entrepreneurship world. So I could live in a shoebox. That's from a flea market. Anyway. And you never sell. I mean in real estate you learn this quite literally. And you learned it right. You don't celebrate. It's just go for free from some random. You don't celebrate at all until there's signatures. Yes. Done. Done. So in your case. Money in the bank where you're like. Right. The wire has gone through. You're saving so you're checking and it's real money. It moves. Yes. Yeah. It's real money. When you say the 11th hour was the signature like expected that day. That day. Okay. And you get a call in the morning. She doesn't want to go through with the deal. That's insane. Hard no. And it's not your year. It's not. We'd like to revisit some points. We can wait. Is this an emotional response to everything? And he's like this is you know it's her decision at the end of the day. I was like. Was this the first time you had spoken to the lawyer? Or were you guys in contact? We were in contact just going back and forth. Which means his lawyer, my lawyer. With the terms. Yeah. Of everything. Good enough guy. I mean he was like I'm so sorry. He didn't update you before this? There was no like mumblings of this at all? No. So then do you contact the owner at some point? He said she wished not to be contacted right now. I'm like okay. So you just left with what? Well I felt my knees crying. So before I angrily called JP like get back over here. Yeah. Naturally. Because all of a sudden like well this was a year of my life that I spent literally going to bat for my business. Like you know what I'd built why it's worth this dollar? Okay I'll take a discount there and it was exhausting. I had said goodbye to my staff. I was really emotional just thinking about it. Yeah. It's emotional. They were part of the deal like they could choose to stay if they wanted to but you know they were They weren't gonna be fired. Yeah. And it just to then I almost fell into it. I was like I have to walk back in and be like no deal. Yeah. Just kidding. Yeah. And not only that I started to make other plans with my life because that was so many years of my life doing that. Yeah. And I didn't know what I wanted to do with that money but I knew it wasn't necessarily that. And I just wanted a moment to breathe again and sort of figure it out and find more purpose than what I was doing. But because I had already disconnected I was like I'll just go. That's so tough. So you closed? Well I didn't tell anyone so I went back to Michigan. You didn't tell anyone about the sale? Or the clothes. I had to tell my staff. Yeah. Like hey we're gonna you know she's not buying it you know let's resume as if everything's normal. I kept buying a little bit but I knew I was like ironically enough it was in in October. I was like I'm gonna go back for one month and I'm gonna wrap up shop for one month. So I showed up October 1st and I didn't bring any merchandise with me and that's the first thing I was like she doesn't have her suitcases. Yeah right. And I did a couple pop-ups which we've done in the past but I definitely was taking inventory out at the store and I was showing up at different universities, worry houses, moving it at full price. I was like I'm not going out with discounts. No no no you're going out and giving them an opportunity to buy there and it's a unique experience. Yes and it was all new merchandise it wasn't sort of that leftover stuff anymore. Sure. And then in the last week I made an announcement but we did it I think really beautifully on social media. It was I had a friend who's together a campaign she has a social media marketing company. She didn't charge me really I think her heart was like broken for me too and she just made these beautiful images and these kind of cool quotes that like it's it's a new season for us like it values us growing up and we're moving on to things. Yeah. It was so eloquently put that you were watching and you're like oh my god this is not a market. Oh wait they're out and they're gone. Yeah. And yeah and we've basically just rid of like gracefully got out.