Jeremy Hunka·September 8, 2025

Hiring a CEO to Run Things (and Get Life Back) | Jeremy Hunka Interview

Jeremy Hunka, a 27-year-old former commercial real estate asset manager from Denver, bought Summit Cabinet Coatings — a cabinet refinishing company in Fort Collins, Colorado — in summer 2023 for $1.68m (~3x SDE on ~$500k SDE / ~$2m revenue), financing the deal primarily with an SBA 7(a) loan, a $150k seller note on 2-year standby, and ~$90k from a HELOC as his equity injection. The business occupies a niche between DIY painters and full cabinet replacement, serving homeowners with W2 technicians and shop-quality finishes at roughly one-quarter the cost of new cabinets. The early years were grueling: Jeremy drove 70+ miles each way nearly every day, failed to find a capable GM, wrestled with a slow-to-replace underperforming salesperson, watched the January pipeline evaporate for the first time in company history, and spiraled into what his therapist gently declined to label as depression. The episode's central theme is leadership growth — Jeremy, a self-described people-pleaser and high achiever with no prior failure experience, had to learn to make unpopular decisions, accept being disliked, and eventually acknowledge the limits of his own operating skill set. The turnaround came when he hired a strong new salesperson (sales rebounded well above the $2m baseline), then brought in a semi-retired business veteran as a fractional CEO at $75k/year plus a back-end payout, stepping back to roughly one day per week in the office while focusing on finance and strategy. At the time of recording the business was growing, reinvesting in headcount, and exploring franchising and expansion into the Denver market.

Deal facts

purchase price: $1.68m
multiple: ~3.1x SDE (just above 3x)
sde ebitda: SDE just under $500k
revenue: ~$2m (trailing 12 ~$2.1m)
financing structure: SBA 7(a) ~$1.54m + $150k seller note on 2-year standby + ~$90k equity (from HELOC)
notes: Buyer contributed ~5% equity via HELOC; seller note counted toward equity injection under SBA rules at the time. Business is cabinet refinishing in Fort Collins, CO. Buyer was not the highest bidder — sellers chose him based on fit and values alignment.

Why this business

It hit enough boxes: ~$500k SDE (right in his target range), 13 years in business, 13 employees (reducing key-person risk), asset-light, and a compelling economic position — premium to painters but a fraction of full cabinet replacement. There was also an interesting recession-resilience dynamic: discretionary spending fuels it in good times, while the value proposition vs. new cabinets supports it when times are tight. Sellers had treated employees well (W2, benefits, tenure), which aligned with his values.

What's working

Hiring a fractional CEO (his former business coach) at $75k/year plus a back-end payout tied to enterprise value growth — this gave Jeremy the operator-leader he couldn't be himself and freed him to focus on finance and strategy
Replacing an underperforming salesperson with a strong new hire, which drove sales well above the ~$2m baseline within about a year
Existing inbound marketing machine that generates leads reliably — the business's main gap was closing, not generating leads
Strong employee retention and culture (W2 with benefits and insurance), high tenure among technicians, which the sellers built and Jeremy preserved
Asset-light model with good margins (~20-25%) despite being a service business with W2 labor
Dual economic moat: benefits from discretionary spending when times are good, and offers a compelling alternative to $30k+ cabinet replacement when homeowners want to save money
Office manager who was skeptical at first has stepped up into a pseudo-COO/integrator role under the new fractional CEO

What's hard

Salesperson key-person risk materialized immediately — the incumbent top salesperson announced he was leaving during due diligence to get married and move away; Jeremy probably should have renegotiated harder or walked
Replacement salesperson underperformed for about a year; Jeremy was conflict-averse and slow to act, nearly depleting the January pipeline for the first time in company history
Distance: Jeremy lived 70 miles away in Denver, making daily commutes 3+ hours round trip, creating burnout and unsustainable early-stage immersion
Employees explicitly demanded his daily presence, which conflicted with his desire to run the business remotely; a team 'intervention' pressured him back to 3-4 days/week after he tried to cut to 2
People-pleasing tendencies made it hard to make difficult personnel decisions, reduce his on-site schedule, and accept that employees might not like him
No GM/COO in place — the seller's suggested internal candidate cried at the announcement and never stepped into the role, leaving Jeremy as the de facto operator
Sales slumped through winter 2023-2024, causing real financial stress and emotional toll — Jeremy sought therapy and described being 'a shell of myself'
Cash flow is still being reinvested in growth (hired ~4 more people in 2025), so profit extraction is limited even as revenue grows

Notable quotes

I always say I was never the lemonade stand kind of kid. I was never an entrepreneur from a young age.

I wanted to be able to still work full 40 plus hour weeks, but be able to do it on a schedule that could be dropping the — I don't know, picking the kids up for lunch at 11:30 someday and working at 10 p.m. that night and being able to control that time.

I knew it's going to be hard, and I think it's going to be harder than I thought. Eventually it was harder than I imagined it could be unimagined.

We are a bunch of big burly men who love each other — there's a very sweet environment within the company.

I love my life. We're on track for notable profitability and growth and we have an even brighter outcome ahead of us.