21 May Acquiring Minds: Rolling Up an Industry with 1.5x Multiples
Today’s episode is a deep dive into a type of business you’ve probably seen on BizBuySell but scrolled right past: Nail salons. Truc Nguyen grew up around nail salons. She is Vietnamese, and like many immigrant communities in America, hers carved out a niche for itself in a particular industry, nails. So part of Truc’s motivation to become an entrepreneur in the nail industry was a desire to reconnect with her culture and her history. But that alone wouldn’t be enough; nail salons also had to be good businesses. Truc knew that they could be — and you might be surprised. One thing about nail salons is that they sell for very low multiples; we’re talking 1x or 1.5x. If you can marry low entry price with operational improvements that grow EBITDA, in a highly-fragmented industry with dozens of targets in every market across the US, then execute that playbook programmatically — well, that starts to look like a compelling opportunity. Not to mention the business-buyer fit here. Truc is a Harvard-educated Vietnamese immigrant, seemingly the perfect person to engineer a consolidation while also relating to the owners and technicians who predominate in the industry. See what you think. Here is Truc Nguyen, owner of TTN Ventures.
