Adam Rao·July 7, 2025

Reviving a Covid-Crushed Business: $0 to $6M in 3 Years | Adam Rao Interview

Adam Rao, a former nonprofit professional and community banker with an MBA, partnered with Silus Morgan to acquire Showcraft, a trade show exhibit production company in Minneapolis–St. Paul, in September 2021 — a business that had generated zero revenue for 15 consecutive months due to COVID. They structured the deal as 100% seller financing ($1.22M, non-personally guaranteed) because the elderly owners needed an exit and had no other realistic options, then later renegotiated the note down to $780k via SBA refinancing after demonstrating how much new value they had created. The first year was brutal: inherited bad culture, missed revenue targets badly, bled cash through Omicron and hurricane-related show cancellations, and ultimately turned over the entire original Showcraft team. In January 2023, Adam added on Display Arts (a similar local exhibit company at $750k via SBA 7(a)), merged the two businesses under one roof in summer 2023, and rebranded as Triple 20 in early 2024. By 2024 the combined business hit $6.4M revenue and ~$700k EBITDA. Adam's distinctive thesis is using ETA as a vehicle for the impact-company movement: Triple 20 is both a Minnesota General Benefit Corporation and a newly certified BCorp, and he argues that acquiring established businesses is the fastest way to scale impact companies into the top tier of the BCorp universe globally.

Deal facts

purchase price: Originally $1.22M seller note; renegotiated to $780k via SBA refinance
multiple: ~3.5x EBITDA (rolling average including COVID years); Display Arts acquired at ~2x EBITDA
sde ebitda: Showcraft peak SDE ~$550k (2019); rolling average EBITDA ~$350-400k. Display Arts EBITDA ~$300-400k. Combined 2024 EBITDA ~$700k.
revenue: Showcraft 2019 peak $4.9M; 2022 post-acquisition $3.8M; combined 2023 ~$5M+; 2024 $6.4M
financing structure: Showcraft: 100% seller financing (non-personally guaranteed), later refinanced to SBA loan at $780k. Display Arts ($750k): SBA 7(a) with 10% equity (~$65k from investors + company cash). Additional SBA loans used to term out operating losses.
notes: Two acquisitions: Showcraft (closed Sep 30, 2021) and Display Arts (closed Jan 2023, add-on). Merged summer 2023, rebranded as Triple 20 in early 2024. ~$85k search capital raised; ~$75-80k acquisition capital raised from ~7 investors. Seller took 40% haircut on original note at refinance. Business had $0 revenue for ~15 consecutive months pre-acquisition due to COVID.

Why this business

Adam sought a fragmented, old-school industry with low differentiation where an impact-company thesis could serve as a meaningful differentiator for brand and talent. Trade show exhibits fit: thousands of undifferentiated competitors, an aging talent pool, strong underlying demand for face-to-face connection, and a COVID-devastated seller willing to do 100% seller financing with minimal personal risk to the buyer. He saw the opportunity to test whether acquiring and converting a business into a certified BCorp could accelerate both financial recovery and the broader impact-company movement.

What's working

Impact/BCorp brand differentiation in a highly fragmented market attracts clients and talent that competitors cannot
Mini roll-up strategy: acquiring Display Arts in 2023 allowed consolidation under one roof, dramatically cutting overhead (lease cost) and accelerating the turnaround
Complete team turnover at Showcraft and retention of Display Arts team produced a culture transformation that unlocked customer-centric behavior
Running EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) with a visionary/integrator split between Adam and partner Silus Morgan
Revenue grew from $0 to $6.4M in three years with $700k EBITDA in 2024, reaching top 10-20% of all certified BCorp entities globally by revenue
BCorp certification (received just before episode) provides third-party validation and structural requirements (living wages, healthcare access) that differentiate from competitors

What's hard

Buying a business with 15 months of zero revenue during COVID and inheriting a team with poor attitudes and customer service culture — one project manager told a prospect 'call me back when you know what size booth you want'
Business bled cash for the first nine months with Omicron, a hurricane canceling a major show, and unmet revenue projections ($500k actual vs. $1M goal in Q4 2021)
Inheriting a 36,000 sq ft space when only ~18,000 sq ft was needed created severe cost structure drag until they negotiated out of the lease
Turning over an entire team of 7-8 people is operationally far riskier than turning over 3-4 out of 22, as losing one person can eliminate a critical function with no coverage
Not knowing the trade show exhibit industry made hiring replacements very slow — they had to keep underperforming staff longer than desired because they didn't know where to recruit
High customer concentration at acquisition was a known risk that required deliberate new-business development to dilute
Tariffs, DEI policy changes under the current administration, and broader macro uncertainty are creating back-half headwinds in 2025

Notable quotes

I overhear a phone call from one of our project managers desk across the hall and it was a potential sale on the phone and I just hear 'Mhm. Well, you're telling me you don't even know what size booth you want. Call me back when you do. Click.' And I remember thinking to myself, there's a lot I don't know about the industry, there's a lot I don't know about this business, but I do know that that's really bad.

We worked out a 100% seller debt arrangement. Essentially, hand the company over to us. Here's the valuation that we'll give you and we'll start making principal and interest payments and kind of figure it out from there.

My instinct was we had a 50-50 chance of it working and the market was going to control the 50% chance of it not working, and if so, we would just kind of have to move on with our lives. But it seemed like it was worth the risk.

By acquiring a business, we immediately catapulted ourselves into the top 20% of all certified BCorp companies in the world simply by doing more than $2 million of revenue.