Bryan Houck·August 21, 2025

4th Time's the Charm: 3 Broken Deals to Buy a Great Business | Bryan Houck Interview

Bryan Houck, a 58-year-old serial entrepreneur and former corporate executive at Cintas, bought ECP (Extra Credit Projects), an 18-year-old full-service creative advertising agency in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a satellite office in Detroit. After 10 months of proprietary search through buy-side advisor Calder Capital and three broken LOIs — including one where a seller used his LOI as leverage with a pre-existing buyer — Bryan closed on ECP at a 3.92x multiple using an SBA 7(a) loan (~80%), a 10% seller note with a two-year standby period, and roughly $400k+ of his own equity. The business has 10 W2 employees, wins national and state-level creative awards, and operates a differentiated full-service model combining ideation, creative production, and media placement for mid-to-large regional and national clients. Bryan's key insight from a difficult search was to build closer personal relationships with sellers early; and his key post-close challenge was navigating client contract assignment in an industry where relationships are everything — he went 15-for-15 in retaining key clients. Despite having no marketing background, Bryan sees deep parallels between creative problem-solving and the entrepreneurial turnaround work he has done his whole career, and describes the acquisition as the most energizing chapter of his professional life.

Deal facts

multiple: 3.92x SDE
sde ebitda: SDE in the $500k-$1m range (not stated exactly; described as 'what self-funded searchers hope to find')
financing structure: SBA 7(a) ~80% + 10% seller note (2-year standby, then repaid over years 3-5) + ~10% equity (~$400k+ out of pocket)
notes: 10 employees (W2) plus 1099 contractors; business ~18 years old; offices in Grand Rapids MI and Detroit MI; buyer used Calder Capital as buy-side advisor at $5k/month for ~10 months (rolled into closing commission); 3 prior broken LOIs before this deal

Why this business

Bryan wanted to pour his talent for seeing around corners and fixing businesses into something he owned rather than consulting on. He was drawn to ECP because the owner Rob Jackson had already begun stepping away post-COVID (reducing owner dependency), key employees had declined to buy it (no sour-grapes insiders), the financials were very strong, and the team culture was exceptional — collaborative, ego-free, and award-winning. He describes it as buying 'a Super Bowl team' rather than a fixer-upper.

What's working

Exceptional team culture — ideas are critiqued without ego or defensiveness, which Bryan sees as the true secret sauce and primary competitive moat
Strong national and local creative awards give ECP credibility when competing against much larger agencies, supporting premium pricing
Full-service model (creative + media placement) creates more value for clients and gives the agency multiple value propositions when price pressure arises
Previous owner had systematically stepped away pre-acquisition, so clients were already accustomed to receiving the product without depending on the founder — all 15 key client conversations went well post-close
Bryan's background as a corporate turnaround specialist and serial entrepreneur translates directly to running and growing a creative business, despite no prior marketing industry experience

What's hard

Project-based revenue model is inherently less predictable than recurring revenue — a common concern for buyers evaluating the business
Customer concentration: 3-4 larger accounts represent a meaningful portion of revenue, creating dependency risk
Client contract assignment at closing was the scariest moment — contracts in creative agencies are essentially purchase orders with no hard assignability, so Bryan had to buy the business and then introduce himself to clients afterward, hoping they would stay
Three prior broken LOIs (one where the seller used Bryan's LOI as leverage with a pre-existing buyer) cost approximately $50,000 in buy-side advisor fees and significant emotional fatigue before the winning deal
Entering an industry (marketing/advertising) he had no background in required a steep learning curve
Personal financial risk at age 58 — SBA personal guarantee encumbers everything; used up most of their liquidity

Notable quotes

I ended up buying a Super Bowl team. And I got to take over a Super Bowl team. Try being the head coach of a team that just won the Super Bowl and you're the new coach. It's like, well, don't mess this up.

The real secret to the business is that culture and so that's really what I've committed to since I've come in here is to say I need to protect that and then grow that. But that is our secret sauce. That's what makes this place different and that's what you can't replicate very easily.

Of all of the decisions I had to make and all the risks I had to consider, that was by a mile the scariest point of the whole process.

If something's stupid, the way I define it is you involuntarily smile when you think about it. You just can't not smile when you think about it. That is why I'm doing what I'm doing.