Kyle Boyden and Jake Furfaro·August 25, 2025

Stacking Small Acquisitions to $5m in Revenue | Kyle Boyden and Jake Furfaro Interview

Kyle Boyden and Jake Furfaro are two former real estate investors in the greater Seattle area who pivoted to buying small cleaning businesses in 2022 after rising interest rates killed their real estate deal flow. Starting with a disastrous property management acquisition done with almost no diligence, they learned from the experience and developed a disciplined strategy of buying tiny, retirement-age-owned cleaning companies — residential house cleaning, window cleaning, janitorial, carpet/floor — almost entirely on seller financing with 0% interest in several cases, deploying only about $100,000 of their own cash across seven acquisitions that together generate ~$5m in revenue and ~$1m in EBITDA. Their final SBA-financed deal uncovered ~$300k in bookkeeping fraud by the seller's bookkeeper, which they self-navigated using a forensic bookkeeper and negotiated a significantly lower purchase price — exposing how little actual diligence SBA lenders perform. The platform operates as a full-service commercial and residential cleaning company, with commercial janitorial as the core and carpet, flooring, window, and exterior cleaning as cross-sell services under separate brands. Both founders held day jobs for years while reinvesting everything back into the business; they have just begun paying themselves minimal salaries and are now focused on organic growth and stabilizing the platform before any further acquisitions.

Deal facts

purchase price: ~$1m (SBA deal, purchase price negotiated down significantly from initial $1m after forensic bookkeeping revealed ~$300k revenue discrepancy)
multiple: Sub-2x on smaller deals; SBA deal at ~3x initially negotiated down
sde ebitda: ~$1m EBITDA at platform level; ~$650k SDE after debt service
revenue: ~$5m combined platform revenue (7 acquisitions total)
financing structure: First 6 acquisitions: seller financing, 0% interest in some cases, 3-10 year terms, ~$100k total cash out of pocket across all; 7th acquisition: SBA 7(a) loan via US Bank at 7%
notes: Total own cash deployed across all 7 acquisitions approximately $100,000. Five acquisitions to reach $2.5m revenue; two larger acquisitions to reach $5m. Last SBA deal involved forensic bookkeeping discovery of ~$300k in bookkeeping errors/theft by prior bookkeeper. Sellers of several businesses continued working for/with the buyers post-acquisition. Three former sellers now employed by the platform.

Why this business

They were real estate investors who hit a wall when interest rates rose in 2022 and deals stopped penciling out. While operating a property management company, they noticed they were sending thousands of dollars monthly to cleaning subcontractors and realized cleaning was a better business. They were drawn to recurring revenue, low customer concentration, scalability, and the ability to remove themselves as operators. Commercial janitorial was always the 'Northern Star' — controlling all facility cleaning spend for a client and cross-selling services like carpet, floors, windows, and pressure washing.

What's working

Seller financing with 0% interest on multiple deals, deploying only ~$100k of own cash across 7 acquisitions totaling $5m in revenue
Buying from retirement-age owners with no other buyers — businesses were often 30+ years old with loyal customer bases, and owners didn't know they could sell
Three former sellers now work for the platform, providing continuity, introductions, and sales support
Cross-selling model: house cleaning clients become entry points for windows, gutters, pressure washing, carpet, and commercial janitorial services
Two-partner structure — Kyle focused full-time on deal sourcing/commercial growth, Jake on operations/residential — described as their 'cheat code'
Hands-on leadership from the front: Jake was 'first in, last out' every day, which drove strong employee buy-in
Virtual assistants for admin keep overhead low
Proprietary outreach via Fiverr-sourced lists of cleaning companies across Washington state, making hundreds of cold calls
Platform now at ~$5m revenue and ~$1m EBITDA with ~$650k SDE after debt service, on ~$100k total invested

What's hard

First acquisition (property management) done with almost no diligence — found fraudulent bookkeeping, lost 30 doors in transition, though ultimately turned it around and sold it
Home cleaning has thin margins, difficult labor (cleaners as an avatar are hard to hire and retain), client-cleaner dependency, and anyone with a mop can compete on price
Stacking tiny acquisitions ($300-500k revenue each) was painful, slow, and required years without meaningful pay — described as 'taking one to two years off life expectancy' per deal
SBA acquisition revealed ~$300k in revenue discrepancy due to bookkeeper error/double-counting — SBA lender never asked for bank statements, highlighting limits of SBA underwriting as a diligence backstop
Both founders worked day jobs (Jake as ICU nurse on weekends, Kyle in sales) while building the portfolio for years before paying themselves
Deal fatigue after closing $2.5m of acquisitions in the final push; 'absolutely willed them over the finish line'
No third-party diligence firm used on the SBA deal — acknowledged as not best practice, justified by domain expertise in cleaning but cautioned others against it
Mixed residential/commercial platform may not appeal to a future strategic acquirer who wants pure-play commercial

Notable quotes

It took us five acquisitions to get to 2 and a half million of revenue and it took us seven acquisitions to get to 5 million revenue. So, the last two were much larger.

We are at pretty much just shy of 5 million revenue and just shy of 1 million EBITDA.

Total of our own money at $5 million of revenue now — which is 4 million of that is acquisition, about just shy of a million is natural growth — we're $100,000 of our own cash.

A lot of them didn't know you could sell businesses. So, we're not taking advantage of people that don't know by any means at all. It's never once felt that way. It's giving them an out that they didn't even know was there.