How to Buy a Seasonal Business | Andrew Harbin
Open on YouTube ↗Andrew Harbin is a former GE operations manager (mechanical engineering background) who left corporate life to acquire Venango Awning, a Pittsburgh-area residential and commercial awning fabrication and service business, in July 2021 for roughly $750k (~3x SDE on ~$250k normalized SDE). He found the business on BizBuySell as a for-sale-by-owner listing — the first such deal on the podcast — and navigated a challenging LOI and negotiation process without a broker. Under his ownership, revenue grew from $1M to $1.6M in roughly two years, driven by residential demand, digital marketing, and competitor attrition. The central challenge is extreme seasonality: spring and fall installation/take-down windows require nearly double the crew, creating staffing and customer-service chaos. To solve the labor retention problem, Andrew launched a Big Jerry's Fencing franchise in spring 2022 to fill summer employment gaps with the same W-2 crews, reaching ~$500k in year-one revenue. The episode provides a rich contrast between independent acquisition and franchising, and a candid account of the psychological and operational demands of owning a hyper-seasonal service business.
Deal facts
- purchase price
- ~$750k
- multiple
- ~3x SDE
- sde ebitda
- SDE ~$250k at acquisition (marketed as $300k+ but PPP loan embedded)
- revenue
- ~$1M at acquisition; $1.3M year 1; $1.6M year 2
- financing structure
- Self-funded (no SBA loan mentioned; for-sale-by-owner deal)
- notes
- Acquired Venango Awning (Pittsburgh, PA) in July 2021 via BizBuySell FSBO listing. Also launched Big Jerry's Fencing franchise in April/May 2022, targeting ~$500k revenue year 1. Goal: $5M combined revenue / $800k-$1.2M EBITDA within 5 years of first acquisition.
Why this business
Andrew came across awnings through a BizBuySell listing vaguely described as 'light manufacturing/fabrication.' He had personal familiarity — his father-in-law had awnings in Pittsburgh — and recognized the service value. He liked that it combined service and manufacturing elements, fit his operations/engineering background, and was cash-flow-positive with deposits taken before work. He also wanted to move back closer to family from Texas, and Pittsburgh had the best-fitting deal.
What's working
- Strong revenue growth: 30% annual growth since acquisition, from $1M to $1.6M in two years
- Recurring service revenue from ~1,000 service customers who pay semi-annually for awning take-down and installation, creating predictable cash flow
- Deposit-based model covers material costs upfront, making cash flow management easier
- Competitor consolidation in Pittsburgh — several awning companies closed during COVID, driving demand and new service customers to Venango
- Hired a service manager and shop manager, freeing Andrew from day-to-day scheduling
- Big Jerry's Fencing franchise launched in ~5 weeks and hit ~$50k/month revenue quickly, solving the seasonal labor problem
- Franchise supplier relationships provide better wholesale material pricing that would be hard to get independently
- Cross-trained awning crew to do fence installations, enabling W-2 retention year-round
What's hard
- Extreme seasonality — spring (April) and fall (October) are massive labor surges requiring nearly double the crews, causing intense stress and long days
- Key employee quit on the last day of March right as the peak season began, forcing Andrew to scramble
- Phone volume in peak season was overwhelming — outsourced admin answer service failed because customers wanted familiar staff
- Commercial awning growth has been harder than expected; commercial projects are relationship-driven and existing contractors are entrenched
- Franchise training (two weeks) was not enough to fully train crew for fencing; took months to get into a rhythm
- No crew lead ready to split off and train new fence crews, limiting scalability
- Isolation and loneliness compared to corporate life — no peer group of equals at the same level day-to-day
- Wage inflation has pressured margins; hard to pass through fully via price increases
- Franchise royalties never go away — a permanent cost unlike a paid-off acquisition loan
- Started the fence franchise in April (peak awning season) — would not repeat that timing
Notable quotes
It's easy to say on Twitter to just answer the phone. It's crazy how hard it can be when you run a super seasonal business like that where you do so much work in that little period of time.
I burned a lot of cash in December January getting ready to grow and you know getting ready for the spring... don't run out of money.
It's lonely. Other people have said that too. Before in my mid-level management job there's a row of us that were all similar in age and we talked, went out to lunch every day, talked to each other all the time. That's gone in this world.
I feel really good. I think it's gone about as well as I could have imagined. I've done some of the things I wanted to do — the previous owner was very involved in details, I wanted to make sure to get out of some of those details, grow the team, let them make their mistakes.
You have to understand what the cash flow looks like if you're going to have a seasonal business. There's good and bad about seasonal businesses. If you're willing to just buckle down and work really hard when it is crazy, then you don't feel bad enjoying the months where it's not as crazy.