Hubschrauber-Touren: Wachsen trotz 30 Minuten Arbeit am Tag

0:00Unternehmer/Gast During COVID, I learned to fly helicopters out of boredom and a coping mechanism for my first company that went bankrupt. Heard. Um I liked it so much that we ended up I ended up starting a a helicopter tour business. So, we sell helicopter tours to tourists and corporate groups in Melbourne and Sydney. So, we've got two locations. At the moment, we're doing um a million and a half in revenue and about 250 250 300k in profit. Yeah. Um I've become somewhat um I've removed myself from the business.

0:31Alex So, I work on it maybe half an hour an hour a day. Right. Um and it's bought back my time, which I really enjoy. My personal ambition though is I'd really love to run a company that's doing at least half a billion in revenue. So, 500 million is my personal goal. Okay. Um what's stopping me is actually something you said in one of your videos, which was not all assets are worth owning. And I feel like the helicopter business is heavily constrained. It's location-based. >> True. It's niche. There is less than 1% recurring customer revenue because it's ticking the box experience. Cool. Um and so, I am conflicted as to whether I pursue the lady in the red dress and tap into an opportunity that would allow me Yeah. to do 10x the same effort and input that I would put in the helicopter business. Yeah.

1:11Well, um in this particular situation, I actually think it's pretty straightforward. So, you could do $500 a year if you said I want to go global with my helicopter touring business cuz I have a superior acquisition model compared to other, you know, ragtag tourist groups of a dude with a helicopter in Vegas. They are they exist. >> there are a lot of them. Yeah, yeah. Right. Did you take a ride on one of these ones just to get the >> Um flying the Grand Canyon on Thursday, actually.

1:37>> Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it starts like 2,500 or 5 grand. It's it's not cheap. Uh it's cheap when you're a pilot and you rent the machine, but yeah, it's expensive. >> Yeah, for the tourists. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, um so, I guess question one is what I just described, I think could get to $500 a year. The question is do you want to build that? No. Okay. Well, then if you don't want to build it, then I don't see it as one of the red dress. You just like you know, you you you're deciding to not get married to a girl that you're dating.

2:04Alex Mhm. Yeah. You're like she has different she doesn't want to have kids, I want to have kids. And so, that's why it's a non-negotiable. Right. And so, I think as soon as you determine that this isn't going to get you like if the ultimate version of this business isn't what you want to own, then get out tomorrow. Yeah. >> Obviously, you have your own, you know, financial needs and whatnot, but like I would make my exit plan and build the business that I would want to own and see a a future version of it. Now, the nice thing I will say this just to give you a little give your own business a little kudos is that it's super AI-proof.

2:35It's not going anywhere. People will keep visiting parts of the world all the time. And like I mean, you might get robo helicopter people, uh you know, robo tourists, but like you could invest in that. So, like you would you I don't think the demand for the service will go away. I think the way you deliver it might change. >> Yeah. So, from an enduring perspective, I kind of like the business. Um so, I just say that as a little bit of a hedge, but I don't want to get into what you want to do next because that would be a much longer conversation. >> No, no, I think you've helped me help me clarify. I guess the business I've got now is sort of running mostly without me. True. Um I have serviced the market to see people would want to buy it.

3:09>> Yeah. But it's just so niche Um I think people will buy it. It's I mean, I've been trying for 6 months and there's just no there hasn't been any feedback that people want to move into that market and acquire an existing operator. >> Sure. So, what would I do with it? Well, you can shut it down. You can sell it to the employees. Uh which is a really wonderful way of exiting a business. >> So, I am the only employee. So, So, you're the one doing the helicoptering? Well, actually, when we started >> you only work in 30 minutes a day on this thing if you're the guy who yeah.

3:36>> [laughter] >> So, when we started, I bought a helicopter and then I started flying. I was doing customer service, doing marketing, doing everything. And we didn't make any money for the first 2 years. We lost 50 grand the first year, 30 grand the second year. >> Cool. I sold all the machines. I I uh fired all of our pilots. And now we have no aircraft and we just sell unused capacity. So, we basically cross-hire machines and we have pilots that work as contractors. Neat. And then last year, we did 250k in profit. So, it was the first year that we were profitable and I didn't have to work full-time.

4:03But you still fly? No. Oh, wait. Okay. So, See, if I Where did I start here? Hold on. Wait, what? >> [laughter] >> So, I I literally sold the aircraft and I stopped flying full-time and that was the first year we became profitable. Right. So, I was saying you could sell to your employees. There are none. Okay. Here's that's where I was. Okay. >> Okay, yeah. So, you're not flying the planes. No.

4:30Alex Who's Think of us like a a private helicopter broker. That's what we pivoted to. So, you >> So, we don't own aircraft. We don't employ pilots. Okay. >> We just resell unused capacity. >> Oh, yeah. You're a broker. >> And that's actually profitable. Yeah. You're just >> don't have to work. Yeah. Well, you sell, right? That's basically >> I just sell, exactly. >> Okay. Got it. But it's set but it's set up to run itself. Except the the hour a day that I do need to be involved. >> Yeah. So, you do lead gen to sales. I I would just maintain the machine. So, escalations and just um And by machine, you don't actually mean the machine. You mean the black

4:59>> the the the black box that I built. The the business. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. >> Yeah, yeah. We're going No, I don't have a red >> No, this has been the clearest conversation I've had in a long time. >> [laughter] >> So, >> You can imagine how clear it is in my mind. >> Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> So, you've got Okay. So, you're a broker and you have a way of generating leads and closing the deals. That's what you have set up. Okay. >> So, um yeah, I mean, you you basically have like a a solo you're a you're a solo salesman, basically. That's kind of how it operates right now. And so, to that degree, it's not a business business. Um if you get somebody else to do the sales for you, then you'd have something. But again, if you got somebody to do the sales for you, then you could just sell it to them. Well, that's on autopilot. So, we have organic and I have a customer service person takes the calls and closes the deals.

5:44Who doesn't work for you? Contractor. Well, yeah. Da da da da da da. Come on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We have two contractors, one marketing, one customer [laughter] service. Yes. I'm kidding you. Yeah, I know. I know. >> [laughter] >> So, Okay. So, the business has limited value, fine. And so, it's just what do you want to do? Like you you're going to have to start something like you can yeah, you'll have to start something else. >> Yeah. Uh and you can wind this down.

6:10Just let it die. >> it to the contracted employees. The virtual assistant in the Philippines? Which she's probably not going to want to buy it. No, really? Well, depends on how much money she makes. So, here's I mean, actually fun fact on this is that like you could absolutely sell it to them and you'd say, "Cool. Uh you just need to pay me the profit for 2 years." And then after the 2 years, it's yours. Right. And I'll teach you what to do. Or if you want to be super savvy about it, you can say, "Here's the deal. I'll give you half the profit. Never call me again."

6:38Even better. Yeah. And then you just keep your cash flow. Okay. Like that's the deal. So, when I have these conversations, I'd say, "Here's how it works. Uh this is my phone and I'm going to give you half the business and we're going to self-finance it for now until forever. Uh and the deal is you get that half in exchange for this not ringing." And so, let's play it out. So, customer, you know, slips and falls and has a boo-boo, what do you do?

7:04Alex Every answer that's not call you is the right answer. Right. >> [laughter] >> And I I literally do this like almost tongue-in-cheek with every time I've had to have this conversation. And I'm like, "Cool. Let's role-play another one. Let's say the helicopter breaks down in the middle of a flight and somebody has to come back early. What do you do?" Not call me. Not call me, right? Like dude, you're crushing this. Dude, do another one, right? Like you keep going. You keep doing it. It's like you got the point. They're like, "Yeah." You're like, "All right. So, we're starting now. We'll self-finance it. And then you can do whatever you need to do." And 50/50, they take the profits and then I take the other half in exchange for no time. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. If you're a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 scaling roadmap, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly, where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so, we broke it into these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources, and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisition.com/roadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstruct the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you can just book a call with my team and we will look at the business, see if we can help. And if we can, we'll go to Chad in Vegas and we'll do this in person live.