This Entrepreneur Changed Senior Care Forever

I think you have to place a big enough bet that you have no other option. Like there's no plan B. Took on $700,000 of debt with a wife and a baby. You are psycho.

That's also been just a really great challenge. Two completely separate companies in two completely separate industries. The IBJ Excellence in Healthcare Award. What's the plan coming up 2026 and beyond? From South Bin to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.

I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. If you've been hunting for a brunch spot that understands food allergies and has bold flavors, look no further than Fire and Ice Cafe in Indianapolis. This hidden gem serves up European inspired dishes that are entirely gluten-free. They're also completely free from peanuts, tree nuts, soy, sesame fish, and crustaceans. We're talking biscuits, sandwiches, crepes, falafel bowls, pastries, and of course, all your favorite brunch drinks. Crafted with serious care and a whole lot of flavor.

Whether you've got food restrictions or just interested in great taste, this place is a must visit. Seriously, I don't have dietary restrictions, but the food actually rocks here. You definitely need to check it out. Grab your brunch and head to Fire and Ice Cafe at 6211 Allisonville Road, and your taste buds are going to thank you. Now, let's dive into the episode. Today I'm joined by Matt Eusen, owner of the Restore, a group of innovative patient- centered senior care facilities spread all across Indiana.

Now Matt has a strong background in business and a heart for community impact. He has helped redefine what ethical highquality elder care can look like. Under his leadership, the Restoy recently earned IBJ Excellence in Healthcare Award for Community Achievement. And he continues to make Indiana a better place for Hoosiers in their golden years. Today we're going to be covering his journey through business. uh as a graduate of Burbuff High School, we just found out uh what this crazy train of the of the Restories these past few years has looked like that's gotten them this amazing accolade from the IBJ and we're going to chop it up a little bit about South Eastern Indiana.

You'll probably hear some wrestling talk in here and I'm really excited to get into it. Matt, welcome to Get In.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I am uh I'm super pumped for this one. One, our first encounter came at a wrestling tournament. Yeah.

Um so I had known the last name EM for a long time. So, I've been the head coach at Chitaard for

Oh, man. This would be year six for me. And we always knew when you get out to Newcastle, there are these boys from East Central that are ready to wrestle. Uh that you're usually going to draw like somewhere in the ticket round. So, you are the father. How many How many sons do you have?

I have three boys. Two of which um wrestle.

Uh what years did they graduate?

Uh Charlie graduated. So, he he'll be a senior this year at IU. So, I don't know. Back it up three years. He was like 20 22 maybe.

Yeah. Okay. Um and we remember Yeah. There was some overlap there. super fun. But then I mean

and then I got and I still got a I got a I got Niden who's who's a junior this year who'll be a senior next year. So I still got one more year with my kids doing this. So

one more year. This is the year. This is the year.

I will say that junior to senior year jump is like like we had that took a huge jump from junior to senior year. If you like put in the work and get there,

this will not I I do promise listeners this was not an only wrestling podcast, but that jump is coming and it's really fun to watch.

Yeah. I mean, I you know, Sam, uh, the kid that you just mentioned that you coached, um, I I coach, I had the privilege of coaching him. He was on my team at Virginia Beach last year for the for the national dus. And, uh, uh, just watching his development, his growth was incredible. And, and he wrestled his his tail off out there. So,

yeah, he's a he's a really good kid. And we're excited. He's going to Ohio University. And this is like a crew. This is what kids doing in high school don't understand. He's a GPA guy.

He's got like a 4. 2. He's getting a roster spot there. He's a hard worker. Yeah. He doesn't have like a state championship, but like the best wrestling's ahead of him.

And it's like if there are kids or you're a parent, tell your kid to hit the books and he can end up on a D1 team. But we're going to get out of wrestling talk and we're talking Matt your journey. It's very very interesting to me and we're going to talk a little bit about uh how you ended up getting into the restore and and the great work you're doing for uh seniors here in the state of Indiana. But before we get into that and uh and all the fun work you're doing there, let's back it up a little bit because there's an interesting story about like your first dip into business and and like a family business. You know, kind of a rough start to life. Parents divorced when I was seven.

My mom raised us over on 34 uh 38th and High School Road here on the west side of Indianapolis. Um two jobs. Dad moved down near Cincinnati. Uh he was a like a manufacturers rep for different um companies. So he's basically just full-time sales guy. Well, one of his biggest clients was uh decided to divest themselves of of a fire protection business in um the late 80s and he basically bought it for the inventory and um but he was living in Cincinnati full-time.

I'm living here in Indianapolis, Indianapolis full-time. You know, paid my own way through school. Work study kid at Rebuff to help cover tuition. Um

they have work studies in high school.

Yeah, they have work study programs at at at PBuff. They did at the time. So if you if you can't afford the tuition, then you would mow grass and and and you know, clean toilets and buff floors and

pick all the gum off the underside of the desk.

Honestly, that's exactly right. You know, move desks around, move, you know, just do whatever uh facilities um manager needed you to do. Um that that gentleman's name that headed up that program was Art Diaz, and he he has helped a lot of kids in his life.

Amazing.

Uh take out school loans, go to Indiana State, get a finance degree, take a job with John Hancock out of school. So I think I want to do financial planning. I mean, I I I clicked with finance and and I was decent at it. Um, but I thought that's what I wanted to do. Well, about that time, you know, my dad's uh calling me up and he's like, "Hey, I'm struggling financially. I'm in some trouble. You know, do you think you could um come down and kind of help me with this business? You're the only person I know that's got kind of a financial background." I was

How old are you at this time?

22, 23. I was the first person in in both my mother's side and my father's side ever to graduate from college. So, well, where did you like get that uh instinct or the the knowhow that like I have to go to college and do this thing?

Uh, I just didn't want to repeat what everybody else in my family had repeated, you know? Um, I wouldn't say that anyone up to that point had been a big success in in financially. Um, great people, great family, just uh

everybody in my family is always a paycheck to paycheck person, hourly worker. And so, I I didn't want to repeat that. Some people early on find out like, hey, if you grow up maybe in, you know, a less affluent household, you like, hey, college is the answer. Like none of my family I was like from, oh my gosh, I don't from my mom and dad, like my immediate family, I was the first college graduate and I knew and it was like instilled in me early on from my parents. They're like, "Hey, you're going to go to college." And I was just like, "I'm going to go to college." Were you getting that from mom and dad?

Yeah. I mean, I just just watching my mom struggle so hard uh uh from the time I was seven, you know, all the way through um out of college and the sacrifices that she made for my sister and I.

Older sister, younger sister.

I got a younger sister who who who also became really success or has become very successful in business. She's she heads up um sales nationally for a a medical device manufacturer.

Oh my gosh. Your mom has to be proud.

Uh my mom's very proud. Yeah, we talk about it a lot. But uh just watching her struggle, I I just could remember from a very early age telling myself this isn't going to be me. like this this just isn't gonna be me. Like and you know even going to Burbuff and being like from a less affluent family. I didn't wear the same clothes. I didn't have the same stuff. I didn't you know we didn't take vacations.

Everyone's like spring break in like Mexico or whatever and you're like I'm going to like move some desk,

right? Or like families are going to Aspen or something. That wasn't going to be my life. Uh

so

I just told myself whatever it takes. And um I didn't even know what major I should do. Um I I I didn't get into Indiana to IU. I wanted to go to IU, but I didn't have the grades. So, I got into Indiana State and um I picked business as my major, but I didn't really know what. And um I'll never forget it was my junior year. I started taking my first finance classes and for the first time in my life, it felt like I understood something really well. Like it just I was naturally good at math and I was naturally good at applying math. I think I I kind of latched on to it. um declared uh finance as my um my my major focus and uh and graduated with finance degree. So,

from Indiana State.

From Indiana State. Yeah. Shout out to the Sycamores. Um

Yes, sir. So, you graduate, you get the job at John Hancock, which is like uh like Edward Jones like Yeah. But I'm only there for like like honestly like six weeks and my dad's just pounding on me like I really need your help. And go down there. I I investigate like what it's going to take to work with my dad. He's in Cincinnati. I'm living in Indie. Um, I did not want to move to Cincinnati because um, my whole network was in Indie and so, you know, for whatever reason this didn't work out and there was a high likelihood it wasn't going to work out. I just wanted to make sure I had a fallback position. I ended up not only helping him just, you know, from an accounting standpoint, stuff like that. Uh, we started doing some strategic planning, but also I just went into business development. So, just

So, you had quit your job.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, dad's like, I'll pay you like you can, you know, you'll work for me down here. And again, I I I think I just

Are you still living in India and just commuting? still living in India on commuting and and and I I think I just felt bad for my dad. You know, after the divorce, he just always struggled. Lived in an apartment, you know, just couldn't get it together financially. Um, great guy. Like he's the nicest person in the world. Everybody that's ever met my father, he's passed away now, but loved him. Kind of a mess financially, you know, uh, always a lot of credit card debt, you know, just just couldn't quite figure it out. So, he ran his business the same way as he did his personal life. So, so the business was just a mess. Sometimes the best entrepreneurs that'll have like ideas, can sell stuff, are charismatic, like maybe like attention to detail in finance in that piece like isn't their strong suit.

Yeah. Yeah. You I mean you nailed it. You just described my father. I mean um had a mind for chemistry. He had a charismatic. He could sell anything. Uh the nicest guy in the world, but you're exactly right. Like when it when it comes time to like cost controls, processes, procedures, discipline, not happen. Yeah. I mean the business just lived on its next sale and could it make another big sale? The business is um special hazard fire suppression systems for for mission critical facilities and processes. So think like uh protecting Toyota's painting operations or North American Stainless's uh cold rolling mills or um you know data centers and things like that. So

so like like not just like general fire suppression. No, not at all. This is like highly specialized. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, you know, most of the fire protection companies in in in the Midwest would subcontract us like for their specialty work. So, you know, if you're going to put sprinklers in a building and and and then within that contract is maybe this little piece that's like takes something special, that's what we specialize.

Yeah. Like where the like the crown jewel of whatever the facility is like this can't get messed up.

Yeah. If this process goes down, the whole thing goes down. So then we would protect that with something typically non-waterbased, but also sometimes fast acting acting detection and stuff like that. So that was the business. But it never did more than a couple million dollars a year. It always had about 15 to 20 employees. And and so by by like three years in the whole thing's crumbling and then the indictment comes down. So that was kind of a blow and a shock. Um

did you know this was coming?

No.

Take me through the moment.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm in the office when when when we get the the certified letter like you know we get served.

Did someone come like supposed Yeah. And like whoever your dad's name is like hey is is he like wearing disguise or whatever?

No no no nothing like that. He just came in the office. They just left it with the with the secretary, but she she she brings it back to me and it's from the Department of Labor and uh it's an indictment that dad's been stealing money out of the 401k. You know, he wasn't really stealing the money. He was withholding the money from people's paychecks, but then he instead of paying the money uh to the fiduc to the third party administrator, the fiduciary that that oversaw the 401k, um he was just using it for operational expenses to try to keep keep our head above water. Well, so he's robbing Peter to PayPal. He he he thinks that he's going to be able to get caught up, but then the hole becomes so deep he can't get caught up.

Oh, we're withholding 4% or whatever for your 401k,

but it's not actually going into their 401k because he needs it to pay their paycheck for next week.

100%. Yeah.

I mean, in very simple terms, right?

Yeah.

Times like five years, 15, 20 employees. So, it grew to like a quarter of a million dollars before the Department of Labor was notified of it. and they were they were notified of it from a disgruntled employee that had left and was just getting the runaround on the on the rollover for their 401k. So then they they you know called like a a tip line or a hotline and then the Department of Labor investigated it kind of like behind the scenes and figured out what was happening. So they they hand down the indictment and my whole world is caving in at this point because um you know I'm trying to help keep this thing afloat.

How many years have you been working there at that point?

Uh uh three and a half years.

Okay. So you so it's like you kind of went down there and thought it was rocky but like after three and a half years you kind of got something

like you know well you know it would we would see light at the end of the tunnel and then another setback. We'd see light at the end another setback. And what I mean by that is you know we may lose $200 or $300,000 in a year but the next year we'd make 300, you know. So like we were just always right on the verge of failure but then like we come back a little bit. But the indictment was just the nail in the coffin because we at the time we were banking with First Internet Bank. uh dad had a a maxed out $700,000 line of credit he had not paid any money back on in years and the bank just kept renewing it for a year and kind of rolling it over.

Well, when the indictment came down and they caught wind of it, it was a, you know, kind of a loan covenant, you know, breach and so they called the note due immediately. We don't have $700,000. Um we're on credit hold virtually every vendor that we had.

From your perspective, you're so early in your career. Yeah. And it's like this is like your a little bit of your I mean a lot of it your reputation

100% is my reputation. And so but but I always knew like in in the back of my mind I was like I can always just go get another job. Like I can leave this, you know? I can I I have I have a degree. I I'll go back to what I was going to do. It's going to be okay.

But then I'm I'm getting like as it's spiraling down, I'm kind of getting more and more sucked into it. Um and the bank's like this is how the buy sell happened. The bank said, "We're no longer going to bank with your father. In fact, we're just going to call the note, dude. We're going to bankrupt the company. We're going to get what inventory is there."

And I said, "Well, let me tell you right now, the inventory that it says on the books is not the inventory that's there." Like, there's nothing to this business. There's nothing here. We lease the space that we you know, that we have, there's really no inventory. Like, there's no there's no assets. Like, so you're going to bankrupt it and it's and it's not going to yield you anything.

And the guy's name is Woody Fenton. And I'll never forget that he looked at me and he's like, "Well, what do you what do you want to do?" I guess you could sell me the business and I'll assume the $700,000 debt. And if you just termed the debt over a period of time for me, like five to seven years, where I could try to pay you back, then at least none of these people will lose their jobs. My dad has a chance of staying out of jail um and we have a chance to fulfill the contracts that we've promised to people, you know. Well, so the business is incorporated.

It's it's 3S incorporated and it's incorporated in Ohio. So the very next day I went out and I incorporated 3S Incorporated in Indiana and hired all the employees over to um my new company and that's that's how it happened. So it kind of all happened like very quickly almost in an emergency.

The bank said like yeah we'll do that.

Yeah. Well yeah because the bank's like we we want something back, you know, but but this guy's not bankable anymore.

You're 25.

Yeah.

And you're like yeah I'll assume $700,000 of debt.

Yeah. And I had really I mean I was very a very tip I I was making like $50,000 a year, you know? So like I I I owned my home, but like I maybe had $30,000 in equity in it and maybe $10,000 in the bank or something.

So now like I have

you go you go from like, oh, I have an emergency exit. Like I have an escape plan. Like it's f I can get out of this. I could go sell I could go be a financial adviser. Cool. And then you're like, you go from there to

now I'm

$700,000 in debt

of not your fault,

right? Not my fault at all. So like most people like entrepreneurs talk about how hard it is to get started, but most don't start in the whole million dollar. So not only were we not only was it 700 grand, but our we had accounts payables of 1.2 million against receivables of about 300,000. So we're also like 900k, you know, upside down just receivables to payables.

You're like a million and a half in the hole. about a million and a half in the hole. Yeah. Is what I told him. So

like starting this business at granted you do already have some sales momentum and like some track record and stuff.

No doubt about it. So you know we had a decent reputation with our clients for doing quality work and that was one of my dad one of my dad's strong suits at least like if he said he was going to do it with the exception of 401k. If if he said he was going to do it like to a client he would follow through

like good good at like executing the thing like good at like making the

Yeah. just not great at the fiduciary piece of it. And by the way, Dad was all in. Like he he was okay with this. Like he he was a little worried about about going to jail over the indictment. Yeah.

He he he was like, "Look, I'm a sales guy. I I can't run a business." And and unless you're willing to come in and step in and do it, I'm going to be bankrupt anyway. So dad was pretty on board. I I had a brother that was not on board. I still have a brother, but he was not on board. Um and so

was there like a tumultuous relationship there?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, he and dad had a tumultuous relationship because um dad kind of did the same thing to him as us. Like his first wife was in St. Louis, had had my brother and then left, went to Indianapolis, started a new family. So, like kind of a similar type.

Did he convince him to come to Cincinnati?

Well, my brother had gotten out of the Marine Corps and didn't have a whole lot of options and and decided that he was going to um come work for dad. But I would say that the relationship was always very strained. My brother and I had a really great relationship early on, but then as I joined the business and I started making demands on um you know discipline, processes, procedures, um our relationship started to break down too. You know, the bank was w willing to bank with me. They were willing to take a chance on me. Not so much the case with my dad and my brother.

So um my brother did not um assume any of the ownership when I assumed all the debt. Some of that was me like look, if I'm going to take this huge chance, I got to bet on me. But some of it was also just that he and I were at odds on on the direction of the company. So he left the business in 2008 and I haven't spoke with him since.

So that's been tough.

Yeah, that is.

Yeah. But but again, I mean

the the business was in such a bad place and and and you know, a million and a half doesn't sound like a whole lot of money unless you don't have any money.

I I don't know what you're saying. A million half sounds like a ton of money.

And and when you don't have any money, you know, it's just it's it's

Yeah. Like being 25, starting a business,

right? Um, okay. So, I So, I like I had never had I didn't know what anxiety was. I didn't I had never felt anxiety.

Yeah.

And so, I can remember distinctly about four months into it, we we couldn't make payroll. I'm driving around the country trying to get checks. I'm asking employees to hold their checks. Um, you know, we had we had one employee, Doug Schmidt, still works at 3S. Um, that didn't cash his check for like six months just to try to help me, you know, be able to make payroll.

Okay. I I just had some inc incredible like like good people

incredibly good people just like just the sacrifice that people made. We I did ended up terminating about half the employees like within the first month because

we just couldn't sustain the payroll. And then the other thing is I did I I fired half of our customers. So if you were a pain in the butt at all, if you didn't pay your bills, if you didn't um if you weren't easy to get along with, if you if we had to jump through too many hoops, I just terminated you. And so we just we just focused on a very small core group of customers that we knew were good customers and that wanted to see us win too

and like get your foundation right.

Yeah. Get let's get the foundation right. Let's let's

How did your dad stay part of the business?

He did. Yeah. So he he he took a sales role and oh by the way um I hired an Orisa attorney w with my own money and we fought the the the Department of Labor charges and then ultimately ended up settling and um and so then the indictment uh did not uh ultimately turn into jail time, but he uh we were able to work out like payment plan and get everybody paid up. And so over a two-year period of time, we got everybody caught up.

Was that a hard conversation to have with your employees?

Uh oh. Yeah. to get them to also stay and continue to trust you guys.

Yeah. I mean, and I think this is one of the the best lessons that I learned and and I'm and I'm so glad I didn't take over a successful business where maybe I would have like a a more entitled view of employees. Um, but I realized early on that like I need every one of these people and and and they don't necessarily need me. They can go work anywhere, but I really need them. And so I think I focused early on on employee recognition and um treating people like I would want to be treated and providing opportunities for them to grow and develop and just everything that I could do to to keep a team together that sometimes wasn't getting a paycheck.

And you're explaining to them like your dad probably has to go in there and be like this was the situation which I think that it does help when you're like it's not like your dad was taking it and like vacationing to college.

No, not at all. They knew he was living like in an apartment and driving a a van with 200,000 miles on it.

Yeah. Like he's gr and he's like this is just a situation we were in. We're trying to make it happen like

and then so you end up halfing the company, having the customers, but you end up building back.

Yeah. So, and then I was just going to say I'd never felt anxiety before and I I I'd never felt panic. And so, um I can remember distinctly about about four months into trying to turn it around making all these hard decisions and and um I I I was at my desk. I thought I was having a heart attack. Um because I never felt pan I've never had a panic attack or like anxiety, you know. So um I think I'm having a heart attack. I rush to the hospital

and I'm on the EKG machines and all this stuff and the doctors are just like, "Are you under a lot of stress?" And I'm like,

"Oh yeah,

I have stress for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day." Right.

Also, I had a wife and a 2-year-old in Indianapolis, so we're also like just starting our family.

She's working, too.

You took on $700,000 of debt with a wife and a baby. Yeah,

you are psycho.

Crazy.

The best kind of psycho.

And by the way, my mom and sister told me I was an idiot too, right? Because they knew they knew the situation with dad. So, started making the right decisions, started treating people better, started making better hiring decisions, implemented policies, processes, procedures, discipline, organizational structure, strategic vision, started calling on cold calling on the right clients. and and and and when everything turned was in 2008 when one finally hit. Caterpillar in Decar, Illinois decided they were going to revamp all of their test cells, their truck test cells. They built like dump trucks of various sizes. Yeah.

And um and I think they built a uh excavator too uh and a road grader. But um they were going to revamp all their test cells and I won the contract to do all the fire suppression and and valving and valve control.

Fire suppression or the custom? Well, the c it was the all of it was custom, you know, so it was a a multi-million dollar job at great margin and that was just like the turning point for me where I could finally get my feet under me.

Yeah. I mean, you start to make a good margin on a couple million dollars and it's like we can breathe.

We can breathe. We have like a little bit of money. I don't have to go to the hospital. Went went twice. Um but yeah, I I you know, we have finally have enough money in the bank that I think we can um we can get.

And how are you doing on servicing the debt? I never missed a debt payment.

Um I did the same thing with uh even if I even if it meant not getting paid myself. So um I I did the same thing with our with our um vendors. I called the vendors. One of them was Tao, you know, massive company. Uh they they manufacture a product called Anel, which is like a uh you know, suppression systems. And um at the time we owed them about 120 grand.

And so their their credit manager was like, "Well, you're on credit hole. You're not getting any more." And I said, "Well, here's the deal. I'm going to default on the 120 that I owe you because if I can't get, you know, more product, then I can't keep cash flow. And if I can't keep cash flow, I can't pay you. In in kind of an unheard of move for a company that big, they did they they created a payment plan.

So they they took my credit back to zero and then took the $120 that I owed them and said, you know, pay pay us $7,000 a month till it's paid off. And so

I mean, how much of that is like you just being willing to go in there, be vulnerable, and like ask for the thing you need?

So you hit the nail on the head. I think the vulnerability piece was the biggest part. Like if you're just willing to be honest, I think a lot of um entrepreneurs have pretty big egos and stuff, but at the time I had no ego. I had no money and and and flat broke for, you know, at least four years.

Not just broke. You're in the hole.

In the hole. Yeah. Awful.

You have like a negative net.

Like every day is a cash dance balance. Like you know, I I drove all night one night to Lincoln, Nebraska to get a $19,000 check just so on Friday when I got back, I could make payroll that day. I mean, just dumb stuff, right? Like, but that was I was just doing what I had to do. There's no survival.

There's no Stripe at the time. There's no like you'd have to like overnight like

you'd have to overnight, but it but I'm talking the guy into it at Thursday at 4:00 like, "Can you please pay me? I'm I'm going to miss payroll." And so,

and you just get in the car and drive to Lincoln.

Get in the car and drive to Lincoln. Yeah. So, I And it was But that's stories like that.

You have to do that early on like if you truly want your business to survive. And it's not always like that. Like I think there was a like a big thing. Another lesson that I learned both at 3S and then this with this new company. I think you have to place a big enough bet that you have no other option. Like there's no plan B. You know fear is an amazing motivator. A lot of a lot of entrepreneurs like I just don't know how you find the motivation or I don't know. Oh, you know if if it's that or homelessness like you're probably going to find the motivation to do it. I value my reputation like like I value if I tell you I'm gonna do something like I want to be known as a guy who like follows through on his word. And there are times where like life circumstances come up and stuff and you're like and you have to be like you have to own it.

Yeah.

Like take accountability for it but like it is

like my least favorite feeling of like oh so like when I say I'm going to do something or like I've announced to the world I'm going to build this company and do this thing. It's like I'm going to like work my ass off to make sure it comes to life. And I love

that's a ton of that too.

2008 rolls around, we land this contract with CAT, things are going really well. Um, we've we've turned the business around for the most part. And then, you know, in what was counter to intuitive to the 0809 downturn, a lot of manufacturers used that opportunity to retool. So, um, you know, hey, we're not we we're we're not running all day and all night three shifts, you know, because because, uh, demand's down. So, why don't now's the time to fix that one thing on the production line that we were always going to fix, that type of thing. And so really business for us was counter cyclical and it went up. So you know we went from losing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to all of a sudden making three four million dollars a year in profit. And um it was the most money that I'd ever seen in my life and and plus I just had the PTSD of like

but where did you feel like oh we're now like a normal business?

The first payments started coming in for the cat jobs that we landed then that's when I felt like ah I got money in the bank and we were growing. So, you know, it's it's it's it's really tough when you to have no money and you're growing because you got to feed that growth. You know, I made a huge bet in '09. There was a building right on I74 at the at the dry fork road exit. Um it inside Ohio had come up for sale after after company went bankrupt and it was perfect for us. You know, it was, you know, 30,000 square feet right on the highway, you know, dock, rollup doors, everything.

And so, um I offered to buy it. I bought it for 825,000. I think they built it for like two and a half million or three million bucks. and I moved the company into it uh in 2009 and that's when I felt like we are now operating like we should be you know we we have a a controller we have an accounting department we have you know we have all these things it's not Matt doing 10 jobs and so then we started hiring the right talent too in 2012 at that point we were probably the largest special hazardonly fire suppression business in the in the United States we were approached by API who's the largest fire protection company in the world right w with an offer with a cash offer and and and by '09 I had paid off all the debt except the building. So for the for you know 10 11 12 I was making good money like life was materially different for me than it was.

Yeah.

Um

how how many you had three kids at that point?

Three kids at that point. I had one in ' 04

06 had you all moved down there?

I moved the family down there in June of 2009. So, bought the new building and moved the family down basically as soon as I had some breathing room and I knew it was going to work to like, you know, '08. I'm like, it's time. I was driving back and forth four times a week to Indie to Cincinnati. I would leave the house at 5:00 a.m. and I'd get home at 8. I'd see my kids for like 15 minutes before they went to bed. And then when things turned around, I got I got used to working from home on Friday so that I could at least spend a little more time with my with my children. But I'll be honest, I didn't see my kids a whole lot for the first probably five or six years of their life. But then when I moved them down, everything changed, you know. So,

and the business is like growing, doing well.

Uh, so from 2005 when we when we did the deal to today, I don't think that 3S has ever had a year where revenue was less than the previous year and where where profit was less than the previous year. So, it was really growing on a great trajectory. And but API comes in with a cash offer. In hindsight, I I could have probably kept the business. I should have probably kept the business, but I really I had never seen that much money in my and it was gamechanging for my whole, you know, eight figures is gamechanging for anybody, but but from some kid that grew up at 38th and High School Road and who got up graduated above with like a 2. 5, I'm like I this is this is crazy.

So, it was like the it was like the to me it was like this amazing success story. I helped my dad. I fixed the problem. I saved the business. depending on ownership structure and equity and all stuff. I was like, I don't know.

You probably could just like chill for a while, you know?

Right. So, no. Well, yeah. So, I I own the whole thing, right?

Yeah. I mean, like,

so I get this check, I sell the whole thing. I kept I kept the building. I still lease it back to API.

It's like today hindsight's always 2020. It's like you probably could turn you probably put an operator in place and like it could have turned off cash for you on

I mean, it's the story the real story is even better than that. So, I had an earnout. So, it wasn't like I got to walk away day one. So I stayed I stayed on board. Um Sean Copenhaver who is now the president of 3s Incorporated I I he worked for us in high school right when all the the like 2005 like when the bad stuff was and then he he got a degree in aeronautical engineering. He wanted to work for GE

couldn't get a job because it was 2008. Comes back to me and he's like can I work for you? I'm like so he stopped he started at the very bottom of the company earned his NBA or you know now he's president. Um, but the same thing with Jeremy Wheeler and Brandon Lynhoff and Holly Stone and these people that I hired all along and developed him all right out of college, you know, and now they are the president, vice president, vice president of sales, chief operating officer of this $100 million a year company now. So, it's it's it's really cool

that that it that it played out the way it did. So,

by 2018,

how long was your ear? So, you sold five year earnout.

So, you sold in 2013.

I I I sold like basically the start of 20 2013. We closed a deal at the end of December of 2012, but like 2013 was the first year that I was working um for API. Phenomenal company uh at the time owned by a guy named Lee Anderson.

Was it hard to like work after like working for yourself for your whole career basically go work for someone for 5 years?

It it was hard, but it wasn't hard. And I'll tell you why. The company's just an amazing company. So it was owned by one guy, Lee Anderson. 35% company was ESOP, but 65% owned by Lee. And then um the CEO is a guy named Russ Becker who I still stay in touch with today. Amazing guy. And what they focused on their motto, their tagline is building great leaders. And so they just poured all of this like really structured leadership development into me that I had never received before.

You're kind of teaching yourself,

right? Right. I'd never had a 360. I'd never had a MyersBriggs assessment. I'd never had a a natural abilities battery. I'd never had I didn't even know what emotional intelligence was. I didn't know it was a thing, you know. So, um, but now here I'm getting emotional intelligence coaching and I'm going through all these assessments and everything and, um, and they just had a very great, like a really structured great program, uh, where they where they held like, um, leader labs a couple times a year. We'd fly to Minnesota and get very in-depth leadership training.

How does the process of an earnout is it like you get a portion at the sale and then it's like every year you have to hit metrics or something?

Yeah, I mean, you basically have it so you you get about 80% of your money up front, but then they want to leave. be real hard to go to work after neighbors of your money up front.

It's real hard. Yeah. Um but then they leave a a big enough uh tail that you that you want to achieve it. But yeah, so let's just say that's like well the business has been doing um you know $4 million in IBIDA.

Look, you got to hit at least 1 million before the the earnout portion kicks in and then you earn a portion of of that back. So, so the the the the bar was pretty low, but it was there so that you had to

remain. Well, they want to make sure it's not just going to like crumble if you're not there. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. So, so it's it's um it's like 2018 I'm coming to the to the end of my earnout. And um and it just so happened that about that time

uh Lee decides that he's going to sell the business. And so he sells it to a spa, which is a special purpose acquisition company led by a guy named Martin Franklin. And Martin's goal was to take the company public and uh and they s which they successfully did

and right around that time 2018 like spaxs were just starting but they go on like a heater. Everything was a spec.

That was one of the first ones. Um and so uh Martin is it usually is ahead of his time.

Did you have equity in the full thing?

Yeah. So and here's what's really cool is that the company all along has been getting profit sharing. The employees have been getting profit sharing. So, one of the things that I had agreed agreed to as part of my earnout, which I didn't have to, was that we were going to pay uh profit sharing to the employees, but it was going to go against my potential earnout. But I was so confident that I was going to make the earnout that I really wanted the employees to participate in to be able to participate in the upside on on the profit sharing, you know, like the shares were valued kind of like at book value, not at like, you know, not at not at like market value. Yeah.

And so the day that that that API went public, the shares like tripled in value and even since then um Russ has done a great job of increasing the share price to where it is today. So what that means is is that you know we had employees with maybe $250 $300,000 in their retirement account that that are doing very well now.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So I felt great about that too. And that's like like blue collares complete 100% where it's like you know they're worked their whole lives and they have 200,000 that's now like

600 700,000. Yeah. So it's

it's amazing. Um you know there were definitely at at 3s some millionaires made um in that process. So again I I felt really great about that. But there was something itching

at me.

Yeah.

I'm in my early 40s

in 2018 2019.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm 48 right now.

Okay. Like in the back of my mind, it's like am I a onetrick pony? You know, did I get lucky because yeah, I started in the hole financially, but like but we had a we had an existing customer base. We had we had some good employees. Like I didn't really build it from scratch. Even though I was proud of what I accomplished and I was proud that I saved my dad financially and and and criminally, I felt like I had to do it again for myself. Sitting on a big pile of money is not all that fun. Making a pile of money is fun.

That's interesting. I did want to ask like you talk about like uh getting letting your employees participate in the upside. Like is there at some point it's like when you get over x amount it's like what's the difference between again I don't know because I'm not a millionaire at this point in my life but it's like is there something different than like 10 million to 15 million or like 20 million to 25 million or whatever that is. It's like letting people participate in it is pretty

there's not a big difference between 10 and $15 million uh uh as far as how you feel every day, especially if you're pretty conservative with your money cuz you messing it anyway, right? Um

and you're like in southeastern Indiana, you're kind of chilling, you know, like

it's cost of living is not super high,

right? This episode was brought to you by our friends at Greeks Pizza. Greeks has been a great partner of mine. If you remember, Zensville owner Mike Cole broke the world record for fastest marathon with a pizza. Guy was flying. I love Greeks. Next time you're in the mood for pizza, go to greepizzeria.com. They have locations all across the state. I frequent the location in South Broadripple. Great tap room there. But they have locations everywhere. They've been doing this since 1968. Over 55 years in business. Go to greeks pizzeria.com. Order pizza today.

You know, you go from 10 million to 50 million. You feel it. Like it's there's a difference there.

I always like I feel like do you listen to like anything from like Sam Parr like some of those other like entrepreneur? Like there's a lot of people that talk about like there's a number when you hit the number it's like then it's like the difference is yeah 50 100 like all that stuff but like there's a threshold and it's like well you're just like your lifestyle is going to grow like this is going to grow but like you're not waking up like how much how many rounds of golf can you play and like really be that if you're truly like a killer.

Yeah. I mean you you hit the nail on the head. You know I buy this big home in Florida. I buy an offshore boat. I go down there. You know we're fishing all the time. We hunt a lot. We golf a lot. It's like okay what's next? Like I can't do this every day. you know, I I I've got to apply myself and I've got I've got to feel like I have purpose. Again, in 2018, I literally started like back of the napkin sketching out pros and cons of different businesses. And I had a couple non-negotiables like it had to be Amazon proof. It had to have a readily available workforce. It had to be real estate based because I like the tax advantages there. Um, it had to have predictable cash flow because I was coming out of construction where it's not predictable cash flow. demographics have to be in my favor, you know, and I just kept coming back to senior living like if I was a

wild place to end,

right? But I was like if well f first I came to uh multif family. I actually explored starting a business with some old college buddies doing multif family development and um ultimately I couldn't get on the same page with those guys of like how it would be structured. So I went back to my idea of of senior living. I I mapped it out and I knew I didn't want to be in assisted living or independent living because there's no there's really no barriers to entry. Um it's it's relatively unlicensed although there are some Medicaid waiver stuff but like for the most part it's unlicensed and and so just really any developer could decide to get into senior living at any time.

Yeah. You could just like slap I mean you could broader right you just slap like 55 and older or whatever.

Yeah. Like we call them you know cruise ships. You you can build a cruise ship anywhere. That wasn't really attracted to that. I kept coming back to skilled nursing nursing homes because a the industry is broken completely broken and so I think there's an opportunity for disruption and b the barriers to entry are really high. I mean, Indiana Indiana has a certificate of need in place where, you know, you can't just go get bed licenses and so and even if you did get the bed licenses, you know, the survey and the fivestar quality measures and, you know, just the just the amount of reporting uh is massive, which is good, which is good because it's good. It's good for the, you know, like residents rights and health, right? But it's also good if you're in business because it it means that, you know, competition is going to be limited.

Well, yeah. And it's good for someone that like has that doesn't have their feet to the flame on this, right? Like you have a little bit of time to like build it, right?

100%. Yes. Uh you you know there's not going to be this mad rush, you know?

Yeah. Because if you go out and raise money and like you're like a first-time entrepreneur, it's like there probably not a good business like something that has a lot of red tape and a lot of like sit around and wait because you know licensing and all that stuff takes forever

and really hard to raise the money. Yeah, we can get to that. So I I came up with it and and and then I started thinking like who do I know that's in this business? Well, I I had a stepbrother. I have step step brother now. He works for us.

Um, but at the time, I have a stepbrother who is an executive director for one of the big nursing home operators in the state of Indiana. So, I just called him up and said, "Hey, why don't you bring why don't you bring the kids down to the pool? We'll have a beer and I just want to pick your brain a little bit." So, we just talked it through and um kind of set it in motion. Ultimately, the timing in his life wasn't right to like do some big entrepreneurial venture. I knew I had to have like a guy that understood the day-to-day operations.

But he introduced me to what has become one of my best friends and partners. Uh Brian Lindseay, amazing backstory on him, a runner up in the NCAA mile at BYU in in 2005 or six, I think. But uh sub4minute mile guy. Um you know, just missed the Olympic team. Uh just a really awesome awesome individual. Just a super driven guy.

Um and I caught him when when Ryan made the introduction to Brian. I caught him at an inflection point in his career. He felt like nursing homes were also the model was broken and he was uh exploring signing an agreement where he would become the CEO and training of a of a hospital organization in Columbus, Ohio. So I kind of caught him right at at an inflection point for him and I said, uh, look, this is what I want to do. I don't know exactly how to do it. Um, so I need your input, but I'm willing to give you, you know, x% of the business if you come in and run it.

I'll I'll do the money. I'll do the corporate structure. Um, you know, I've been the president and CEO of a of a relatively large business. I I think I know how to build this thing. Some chops on the accounting side and finance side and I need you to to be the X's and O's and run it and recruit and do you think you could do it? And he said, "Yeah, absolutely.

I could do it." And he said, "In fact, I have some ideas on how to do it." And so he started um kicking around with me this idea of of of small homes um versus large institutional facilities. Like right now in the state of Indiana, if you have Medicaid bed licenses, you can have two, sometimes three people to a room. And sometimes those rooms don't even have a bathroom. There's a shared bathroom or shared shower down the hall.

It's not a great place to live.

Like it's morbid. It's like you're just hanging like you're just waiting, you know? Like

that's right. And I mean up until recently you weren't even penalized for using antiscychotics. And so you could even you could even put these people in a state where they're not going to cause a whole lot of problems for you. And I'm not saying that that happens, but I'm I'm not saying it doesn't. It just broken broken from staffing, broken from ownership. You know, these facilities are dominated by private equity and and and a lot of times they own um facilities, you know, all over the United States.

You know, return driven, not so much resident driven. And so, um you know, more or less it's like what's the minimum that we need to do and let's just do it to the minimum and then build a cost structure around that. What you get is, you know, you get you get an entire generation of people that have been been treated so great. But the greatest generation, they were willing to accept that. You know, they came from the Great Depression. They came from not a lot.

And it's like, wait, I get a bed and I'm going to get fed and somebody's kind of taking care of me. Like, I'm I'm that's fine with me. The boomer generation that's entering right now because we're just mo most of the greatest generation is kind of on its on its way out of nursing homes. So, we're just getting the very first boomers coming in. 2026 they'll be the very first boomer will be 80. Uh that that generation started in 46.

And so we're just getting the very first ones. Well, they they demand a much much higher standard of care and and and facility and all that. So we came up with this idea that we were going to put only 12 residents in a home. The home was going to be very homelike in fact that um there was going to be a kitchen in every house that the kitchen was going to be open. Uh there was going to be a you know a living room that was also open to all the resident rooms. Then each resident room is is a private room.

You're the only one in there. You have your own private bath, own private shower. Putting some dignity back into this thing.

Yeah.

And also creating a place where uh family members want to come visit.

Oh yeah. That's a piece of it. If you're in like the a more of a traditional style, it's like

grandkids don't want to get in the car and go there. And it's like it has this like a I mean like just being honest it has like a smell like the nursing home smell. You know what it is.

And and you don't we don't have that smell at all. Um you know the laundry facilities are in each one. Your laundry is not getting sent where 200 other people's laundry is being done and then you know grandpa's not getting his underwear back or his socks back. You know we have a dedicated laundry day for each one of the residents in each home. So you know really easy to track their stuff. And then and then our the other thing that we thought was we we'll completely break the mold on staffing ratio. So, you know, we have two CNAs and a nurse and a cook in every one of our homes. And so there's four people for 12.

And so, you know, you can stay on top of resident care. Am I am I saying we're perfect at it? We're not. I mean, it's a tough business. I think we do a better job than most. I think I think last year we were in the top 4% of staffing ratios in the state of Indiana. Our Whitestown campus uh this past year had a zero deficiency survey. So, not one tag. Uh, what does that mean? The state couldn't find a single thing that we were doing uh wrong.

Wow. So, you build your first facility.

Build the first facil. So, we so we write this thing up uh this business plan up. I put together the proformas and we take it we take it on the road to banks to try to figure it out. Now, granted, I'm doing this at night and on the weekends because I'm still president of 3S, you know. So, I'm just trying to figure out like what my next thing is going to look like. Brian and I signed the operating agreement and then I start going to bank after bank after bank. 13 banks is how many banks I had to go to before First Internet Bank um had the had enough faith in us to do this deal.

That's wild because you already had a track record of like building a successful business,

but I didn't have a track record in doing skilled nursing. And

was that the feedback you were getting?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. So, I can I can tell you that I was in these big mahogany boardrooms with these bankers and they're like, you know, if this was easy or if this could be done, don't you think that, you know, these large competitors that we bank with would have already done it? Like, what what do you why do you think you're smarter than they are? I don't think we're smarter than they are, but I think that we're owned locally and we're going to put, you know, um a different emphasis on on service than these large private equity backed companies. We finally got First Internet Bank to agree to do the deal. Uh Chuck, Tom, and and Dave Becker. Uh

when you say do the deal, like what does that look like?

So it was it was a $16.5 million project um

for one facility

for one facility. So that included the land acquisition and we did a market study and paid for a market study to be done with a company that specializes in where to place senior living and they came back and said Whitestown's a home run. Whitestown's like A+ on our grading scale. Like hits every one of the metrics that you're looking for. You'd be a fool. not to put it in Whitestown. And so we started looking for land in Whitestown.

What year is this?

2019.

Yeah. All right. That now it's like freaking booming.

Oh, yeah. No, no, you can't find anything.

No, we we we would not have purchased um the land for what we paid for it then. It's It was actually the fall of 2018 that we that we identified that land. We were we didn't close on it until um June of 2019,

but we we identified the land, finally get a bank that agrees to do the deal. I have to put in $4 million of my own money. It's very like it's like a mortgage. You know, your equity down payment on a business like this, especially a real estate based business, is about 25% down. The bank does about 75%. So, I write a $4 million check uh to a business I've never done before.

Talk about just like a guy likes to put it all out on the table.

Oh, man. Yeah. It Well, that goes back to what I was saying earlier about like making sure that you place a big enough bet that you're fully invested. And at the time Well, yeah. And at the time the $4 million bet like wasn't like wasn't awful for me but it was like enough that like I I need to pay attention

like you don't just like want to lose $4 million% sell your real estate for pennies or whatever.

Yeah. It would have that would have hurt badly. We come out of the ground. We used uh we use my num here local construction company locally. They're on budget on time. It is March of 2020 and we still haven't gotten our water meter set yet to get our certificate of occupancy and time's running out on our licensing.

So we have to have this thing open by by June of 2020. March hits and COVID hits. An industry that CO hit the worst was nursing homes because the death rate was staggering, you know, compared to other areas, you know. So hospitals, nursing homes, all of healthcare took CO very serious. But the state put these crazy restrictions on on uh nursing home operators. It was like the first Friday in April and the city of Whitestown told me that they were shutting down indefinitely that coming Monday.

And I still didn't have the water meters. So, I couldn't get the certificate of occupancy and I remember begging the city to just please send a crew out to set the water meters and like 5:00 on that Friday, they set the water meters and we were able to get our certificate of occupancy.

And you talk about begging and I can just like imagine like it's like hey listen to me like explain the situation and it's not like you you like refuse to take no for an answer no for an answer

and it's like listen to me like this is the thing I'm trying to do this like I need your help like you can be part of this. It was back into like the fighter fight or flight mode that I felt like in the early 2000s with trying to turn around 3S. I just wasn't going to take no for an answer yet. Like I I have like a similar when I got this whole thing started. I was like leaving my company. I acquired the podcast and I literally went to Mike from Sweetwater and I was like, "Mike, I want to build this media company.

It's focused on the state of Indiana. We had had some videos, yada yada yada, but I was like, but I'm leaving and I'm going to need a new studio." And he's like, "Well," and well, first he was like, "Oh, I'm so happy for you." like what do you need like blah blah and I was like well I don't have a studio a studio costs a really good one like 15 grand like I'm a startup that's just I don't have 15 grand and I was like so my next move relies solely on what you say to this question of like I need my first sponsor and I need to be Sweetwater and I need help setting up this studio and like he was like yeah I'm in we're totally and it was just like

this moment of like you start by catching like the first break and now here we are and like people come in and it's like it the idea is working, but at the bottom of every show, like this is now over a year later, like their first investment, like they're like the title sponsor of all these shows, and it's awesome because they gave me a chance early on.

That's incredible. Yeah.

But like not being able like it's not like you're demanding it, but like they can understand the urgency in your voice. Absolutely. And the like and they almost feel like, oh, like I can help this journey.

Well, and and they can sympathize because they've been there.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. They know. They know

you get the certification.

We get we get a certificate of occupancy. May hits the markets had plummeted. I get a margin call against my line of credit which I had used to put the down payment an equity down payment on the um facility.

Okay. Cuz you took out equity like

I took out like a like a line of credit loan against my brokerage account. Yeah.

To to to

to play the because that's this is like the secret, right? It's like like people say Elon Musk buys Twitter. It's like he doesn't just like write them a no check. you like take out equity against your position and put it out

100%.

They gave you a margin.

They gave me a margin call cuz cuz cuz like markets had plummeted like 30% like overnight, you know, cuz cuz the real cuz you know this the reality of COVID was starting to set in and I don't know if it was the end of April or beginning of May, but it was right in there. My dad passes away on May 5th and my wife and I filed for divorce. like it like May of 2020 was the was the worst 30 days of my life and was back to those panic attacks and stuff that I hadn't felt in a really long time. So like all of a sudden like entrepreneurship was feeling very real at that moment. Also back in 2018 I had started a small restaurant in in my hometown. So we built a restaurant from the ground up. A good buddy of mine was running it but we're only two years into that shift restaurant and bar in bride Indiana. And I got one in Batesville too.

I've been to the Batesville one. Oh, I uh we we'll give that that's going to be at the end. That's that's a

round. I I'm majority owner of that restaurant and now now our restaurants are shut down. So I got I got Nick calling me going, "Hey man, I need 10 grand for payroll, you know, and I'm like like I'm got a million dollar margin called yesterday, you know, like I don't have time for this." So it's once again it's like everything's back into like this, you know, crazy place where I just didn't expect to be. Plus, we're open in a nursing home into the teeth of COVID. Um,

dude, you're like crazy talking about being a glutton for punishment.

Yes. But but uh we got through it and by the fall we were filling up so quickly that I thought we really have we really have something here

because you only have 12 spots in this facility.

72. So we built six.

Okay, got 12 per home. We built six homes plus a plus an office building on 17 acres in D.

So 72 72 spots.

Yeah, 72 beds. Yeah.

Okay. We were 85% full by the end of the year. So, we only been open six months, we were 85% full. And by and by um the spring, so by like let's call it uh late February, we were 100% full. And then I knew like this this is this this is going to work.

And you're going back to the bank and be like, "Hey, like look at this. Like we're making it happen.

We're making it happen." The bank was really pleased. Met all of our loan covenants, did what we said we were going to do. Um we successfully refinanced out of that business, out of that loan in April of 22 into a HUD bridge loan. HUD has special uh financing for for nursing homes that accept Medicaid. We entered that bridge loan that gave me my cap capital back and so I was able to redeploy that capital. So campus that was that was that had attempted to do what we were doing uh in Carmel at 126 in Rangeline and through mutual mutual contacts um I was able to uh be put in contact with with the owner of that facility and uh we bought that facility.

Why why hadn't it worked for them? They were commercial real estate developers, really good business guys. uh their their main business is very successful, but um I think some of it had to do with um needing to meet a tiff requirement when the on a bond that you get for commercial real estate development and like the city of Carmel had allowed them this spe special uh tax arrangement, but they had to meet certain criteria and I I think although I've never confirmed this with them, I think this was just something that could drive some revenue and tax base to help them get to that requirement. So, this wasn't like their main thing.

Not at all. It was the one-off thing that they Yeah. Yeah. So, and they were eager to to offload it to the right buyer. Um, but the guys are successful enough they didn't need to like fire it, you know. So, we we bought it at a very fair price

in uh the fall of 2022 and then we just went to work on immediately fixing it.

Did it have occupants?

It did. It it it wasn't very high compared to our other facility. uh but it had occupants uh or had residents, you know, some staffing in place, but the main thing it had over its head was it had an tag that's in an immediate jeopardy. So that's where the state comes in and they feel like residents are at harm. And the problem is is that tag follows the next owner. And so we still haven't been able to get like we got rid of the tag, we remediated the tag, but it stays for three years.

So, we're just coming up on our on on our opportunity for that to drop off um as as a component to like our rating system, but as far as our quality measures over the last 24 months, we're fivestar and everything. We were able to successfully refinance that project into a HUD bridge loan, which allowed us to get the capital to go make another acquisition in Goan under virtually the exact same circumstances. Uh a commercial real estate developer had thought this is like how I could do skilled nursing. Didn't really know what they were doing. made it through, ended up selling it to a company out of uh Detroit. It was a one-off for them, too.

They didn't really know how to handle it, and we were able to successfully buy that. So, we're up to three campuses now. We started a couple ancillary businesses. We started a management company. So, we got about 450 employees. We'll we'll do right around 50 million in revenue this this year.

Um in 2020 uh six because

Yeah.

from from three campuses.

That's And then we

Well, we got got a couple ancillary businesses, too. Yeah. So, so um you know within um healthcare there's there's a lot of service servicing companies therapy businesses thing like so anything that we were outsourcing we thought why don't we try to take in-house and

and then you could end up doing that for other skill facilities too and outpatient

and and what did it mean I mean when you won the the uh the IBJ excellence in healthcare award.

Yeah.

Like what what did that do for your business? What did that do for your team? You've been building something special for a few years now,

right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we we've been we've been working our tail off for 5 years to do something completely different. The award from the Indianapolis Business Journal was was just kind of um maybe other people finally recognizing what we're what we're doing and why we're special and and how we're disrupting an industry.

Where is your like main office at?

In Caramel.

In Carmel.

Yeah. Okay. We we thought, you know, we had the right recipe, but the more we got into it and the more we hear from families and the more we hear from caregivers, the more I'm just solidified in in in my belief that no one should be institutionalized. No one should be put on antiscychotics if if it's not absolutely necessary. No one should have to have three people to a room in their last few years. And so, uh, the name restore comes from restore and legacy. And putting those two things together, we want to restore faith in in this business and in this industry again. And we want to give people, you know, their their their legacy back. You know, give them some dignity in the last few years of their lives. Um, treat them like humans and um, and treat them like the the matriarchs and the patriarchs that they are, you know, that a place that you want to come visit them.

Yeah. like that was always I I mean I spent a ton of time with my grandma at her uh it wasn't like skilled nursing. It was a elderly community. It's I say it was like they had like dorm rooms for like you either got like one bedroom or like like two room type things and they had a little mini kitchen and but it was a private I spent so much time there but they had like a community living room and we would watch Jeopardy and I would eat lunch with her table of gals and like some of my fondest memories and like my biggest life lessons and what got me started on like being curious and asking and like hosting a mini podcast with no mics was spending time with this older generation that has great stories that like sometimes when you go into a nursing home and there's like three people in that room and you can't really have a conversation like it just isn't

there's you want to like clock in and clock out.

Yeah. There's nowhere to sit. The you know it smells I haven't seen dad or I haven't seen grandpa in a long time so I'm going to go. I have to go and and you want to go for them too.

Yeah.

Because you know they're lonely but it's just not a place you want to be. A thousand% different with us. Very inviting. um foods being cooked right in front of you. So all the smells from the kitchen. Uh because we have very low density, there's none of the smells associated with a typical nursing home. It's easy to maintain, you know, cleaning standards. Every resident has their own bathroom and and within their room, every resident has their own sitting area, you know, so uh your family can come in and you can have a private meeting with with your loved one or you can bring them out to the living room and still have a pretty private meeting because there's just not that many, you know, residents per home. So,

and it's like and then sometimes you could sit out there and it's like, oh yeah, like Edith is over there. Like, Edith's from Columbus, Indiana, but now she lives up here and her grandson comes in and visit. Like, I just think that that making it like I just took the initiative. I think that I was like regardless of anything,

I was going to go spend time with my grandma because it was important to me.

And I think that having a facility that like makes it as enjoyable as possible versus like it is a task that you have to do. Like I think that is like so crucial because if not it's like they're just passing time, they're bored, they're playing Bing. Like you can only play Uker so many times, right?

Correct.

And like you want to build a place that uh you can make more memories. Yeah. versus like just reminisce on like you go in for an hour twice a year and you reminisce on the old days versus like no like I have some great memories with my grandma like going and visiting her and like I can only imagine if you had this like facility that even that was more conducive to that like more people could experience that.

I agree. I agree. And and an outdoor living space is very important too, you know, getting fresh air. So, um, the back of every one of our homes has a really nice patio and then we have planter boxes there. And so, we host gardening events. And, you know, I think I think institutional facilities could tell you that they do those same things, but I think they're checking boxes. This is just the way we this is just the way of life for our residents. This is the way of life for our caregivers. You know, when you have better staffing ratios, you know, one CNA taking care of 20 people, that's that's a lot of people to toilet. That's a lot of people to change. There is no time for games and and activities and puzzles and gardening and but when when we have 1 to six staffing ratios, our caregivers can really spend time and get to know our residents and and do fun activities with them.

Yeah, man. That's that's special. I think that's that's super important.

And so why why aren't more people doing it? Historical census on a institutional facility has been around 80%. And so they'll virtually take anyone. It's very rare that an institutional facility would deny an admittance. We have a we have about a 20% acceptance rate. So, it's opposite with us.

We're almost always full and then we're kind of selective on who we take because, you know, you want your grandmother or you want your mom to be surrounded by other really great people, you know, and so you just have to be careful about who you bring into your facilities. You also have to be careful to make sure that that the level of care that it that they need is with is within our ability to do it well. And so, for that reason, like we don't take traumatic brain injury. We don't take, you know, we don't there's there's some some things that we're just not going to take vents and tra and things like that. And so we can be very selective and I think that keeps the culture of the house at a perfect temperature.

Yeah. Which is important too because the worst thing is like yeah grandma like lives in a place and she hates her neighbor. Like

Well, right. She can't sleep. Somebody's crying all night or screaming.

Like I loved I loved hearing the stories my grandma be like the biggest problems that they had was like you know that Edith sheets at Uker. Like I saw her like move the scorecard or whatever. Like that's like funny drama within there. That's the kind of drama that you want. You don't want the like Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think we got the right recipe. Um I think we're set up for success and now I think we're just going to do a very controlled growth. Um

yeah. What's the plan coming up 2026 and beyond?

We signed a non-disclosure agreement on another facility. Um and so we're in negotiations with them on what that might look like. Um we have secured the land two two additional acres in Carmel on the east side of our uh current campus adjacent to our campus where we're um going to pitch the city of Carmel on an expansion. It is going to require a zoning change. I think Caramel will be understanding with it. So we're going to do an expansion there probably to the tune of 10 10 or 12 million and then um and then we're looking for a green field project.

So, in fact, today I'm meeting with a gentleman up near um Noblesville to look at a piece of land. Uh we could probably also do something on the south side of Indie, but the idea over the next uh 5 to 10 years would, you know, build this out to about 10 campuses serving most of the metropolitan areas. You know, we need one in Evansville, we need one in Crown Point, we need one in uh South Bend, most likely or well, we have Goan, but we need one in Fort Wayne.

Yeah.

Um maybe Lafayette. So, I think there's some more opportunity through through throughout the state. When you think back to when you signed back up for the rat race, right? When you like jumped back in it and it was to prove to yourself that you weren't a onetrick pony. Yep.

How does that feel now 8 years later? Do you feel like you're on the right track? Do you feel like what what's the last seven years been like? It's been a ton of work, but it's also been an opportunity for me to find my purpose again um as as someone that creates businesses, creates leaders, gives caregivers an opportunity um to improve their lives. And so um it gives me it's it's something I can wake up every day and look forward to. I love working with our team.

We've built a really great management team. You know, our um our core people and our key people are um excellent to work with. They're professionals. um gives me a ton of energy to to work with them and then you know there's some vindication too that um I was able to do it again and you know the the more uh people I meet the the more I realize how rare it is to successfully create um two completely separate companies in two completely separate industries and and to try to become subject matter expert on both. Um and so that's also been just a really great challenge under the heading of like never stop learning and and you know always keep developing yourself. being in your 40s is not too late to to reinvent yourself and to um and to build a company if that's what you want to do.

Um and if you do it right, um it can happen pretty quickly, too.

Uh we're going to round out the the episode. I could literally do a full like three-hour Joe Rogan episode here. We're going to use quick hitters talk about what you're doing in southeastern Indiana. Obviously, you know, like getting involved owning two restaurants down there. Are there other like projects or fun things or like what does what does the state need to know about that corridor of the state? Dearborn County is is amazing. My uh partner and I, Nick Roberts, um we started two restaurants down, a shift restaurant and bar uh both in Bright, Indiana and Beatsville. Um

on the golf course there on the golf course.

I've sat at the back patio table. I knew a thing or two. I actually met my girlfriend's parents for the first time at Shift.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh it was uh it was memorable experience.

Yeah. Incredible. I didn't know it. We needed find dining options. we needed, you know, something other than fast food and, you know, just a place you'd want to go and hang out and have a, you know, there was there was nowhere to get like like an IPA or like a craft brew uh in Brite or even really at the time in Lawrenburg. And so, you know, we just wanted to create, you know, kind of a higher level experience and um and I think we did that our facility in Brightite we built uh from the ground up.

It's beautiful, you know, doing some commercial real estate development too, working with the city of Lawrenburg right now uh to develop a building right next to their new amphitheater downtown. Uh so that's fun. What a great place. I mean, it's 30 minutes from downtown Cincinnati, but you're still in Indiana. It's rolling hills, a beautiful lake there, Hidden Valley Lake, um that I happen to live on, but you can boat, you know, it's got an 18hole golf course. It's got a beach, it's got a restaurant on the water.

Uh

when you moved your family down there, when you moved your family down there, like, were you apprehensive at first? Like, you're like, I'm an indie guy. I want to live back here. Like,

how did you find your community and your place down there? Or were you just like, I'm working?

It was very intentional. So, you know, growing up in the city and living in the city, I wanted to raise my kids in like a bedroom community, like a more of a rural community. I I wanted I wanted to raise my kids in a place where there's 10,000 people at a football game on a Friday night, you know, uh just where you could leave your doors unlocked, you know, just real hometown values. And

which is interesting because that's not where you came from.

Not at all where I came from. I I grew up at 38 and High School Road. I think I think some of me just kind of wanted that for myself too, you know, just to feel like I was out a little bit.

Sticks, baby.

Yeah. So, we picked Bride Indiana because it was relatively close to to 3S uh who was in it was in Harrison, Ohio. So, I was 15 minutes from work, but uh more importantly, I love the school system. I love East Central High School and and I really liked what Lawrenburg was doing uh with the revitalization of their downtown area. So, it just, you know, Dearborn County felt very right to me. I mean, East Central is like a little a powerhouse. I love the border war is the East Central and Harrison. Yeah. My buddy was the quarterback at Harrison. Shout out Jake Weber. He listens to the pod and like talks about how big that game was.

That that game is still huge. A lot of games are big. They every year up until recently, up until this year actually, we played Mohler High School too. And so great sports program there. I you know, my my goals for the kids were accomplished both academically and athletically. Um, my oldest son won a team state championship in wrestling, 3A state championship in wrestling. My youngest son won two state championships at 4A in football. And so the kids have had just a ton of success athletically, but more importantly, great opportunities um, academically and just, you know, friend group, just really down to earth people there.

Yeah, it's fun to go from like when I think like I I went hunting for the first time, like real hunting this past spring. Got my first turkey. Let's go. Congratulations. But like I love being down there and like just getting to spend time. It reminds me like home, small town, northern Indiana. But like our family wasn't like

we didn't go hunting and we didn't do this kind of stuff. So like I'm like getting into that culture now. Like like I'm like looking at trail cam footage and stuff and I'm like I'm all in. Like South Eastern Indiana is fun.

Hunting is a big part of my life. I killed my first Boon and Crockett deer this year. Wait, what? First

uh Boon and Crockett deer. Like a you know big

Yeah. Wait, where at?

Down there in Southeast.

Boon and Crockett. Boon and Crockett is a grading um is it's an organization, but it's the like the deacto grading scale for how how a deer is scored. So um

yeah, so they have thresholds and if you're above those thresholds, so it's kind of rare. I've been hunting my whole life and I've

That was the first time.

Wow. Okay, congrats, man. That's sick. Boon and Crockett. I got See, this is the term I'm going to use next time when I'm with my girlfriend. I'm like, "Yeah, Boon and Crockett. Come on." He's like, "How do you know about that?

You'll sound like you know what you're talking about."

Exactly, man. Well, hey, thanks for coming on and sharing a little bit about South Eastern Indiana, about your journey through 3S, what you're doing with the Restore Cy. Uh, I'm I'm really excited and it's going to be fun to follow the growth that's coming, especially when this NDA gets released and maybe there's a new facility coming up. We're going to be like, "Hey, you heard about what was going on here first. Um, I do have some fun questions as we wrap up things." When you think about like like what's the most unique piece of one of your uh facilities? The city of Whitestown does their annual Fourth of July fireworks show literally in our backyard. And so, uh, families come and they put the blankets out in the yard and we pull all the residents out into the patios and back patios and and everybody gets to watch the fireworks show together and um, and that's a big thing for us.

That's pretty special. Uh, I love that. Okay. I mean, you've been in Indianapolis, you've been down in that southeastern corridor. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?

I think there's a lot more opportunity here from a business standpoint than than what people realize. I think we have a lot of natural resources. We have a lot of great people. The talent that's coming out of our universities is really really strong. Uh so whether it's Purdue, Rose Holman, IU, there is a pool here of really really great young people that you can build a business around. And I think I think when you had like Ryan Hasbro with 811 Group on a while back and he talked about the same thing, you know, just kind of started his business doing that. Um, and so we're just seeing really really great people coming out of of our colleges. Um, one of one of our executive directors we hired right out of Indiana State and she's been phenomenal. Uh, Andy Debo. And so I just think there's there's really talented kids that are here and um and I think you can build businesses here.

Heck yeah. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

I love Dearborn County. You know, I think Dearborn County, I I used to call it the poor man's Brown County cuz, you know, it's not so expensive down there, but it's these rolling hills and valleys and creeks and rivers and and parks and especially down, you know, as you get down near the river. So, like Hidden Valley Lake, you know, uh master plan community, there's not very many communities where you have a boatable lake that's private, an 18hole golf course, uh a 70 acre park, a a beach, uh pool facility. I mean, just it's just an incredible place to raise your family and grow up. and you're only 30 minutes from downtown Cincinnati. And the school systems are amazing because um a a portion of the gambling money from the casino that's right there in Lawrenburg has to go back to the schools.

And so these schools have world class, you know, performing arts centers and natitoriums and and football stadiums

in Dearborn County.

In Dearborn County, right,

I did always wonder how East Central was so nice.

It's it's a lot of it's that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just an amazing place to to raise your kids. the value system down there is still like bluecollar. I'm gonna go to work and and I and by the way I think that's why they're so successfully athlet successful athletically like in football because these kids just they just have work ethic, you know, they know how to go to work. So, um I love Dearorn County. Um I'm I'm eventually going to have to move back to Indianapolis just because of the growth up here with the company.

But your your youngest is about to be a senior.

He's about to be a senior and so that's going to free us up a little bit.

There you go.

Yeah.

Uh man, I love it. Final thing. Uh, this is where we find recommendations for new guests or people that we need to know about who's a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar. Someone who's doing big things.

I got a guy for you that I really really like. Um, and and I'm sure you you've heard his name and you may even already talked to him, but it's Graham Rahal. Um, Graham Rahal is, you know, obviously an indie race car driver and so we're in the month of May, so it's a good good time to bring him up. But I've gotten to know Graham as an entrepreneur. Graham uh just opened this worldass facility in in Zensville called GRP, Graham Graham Ray Hall Performance. Um they do um you know car uh tuning, car modifications uh

like res like commercial or like res like individual cars.

Yeah. Like like exotic cars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis.

Yeah. Like like you're you have a Corvette, whatever. You want to take it up there like you're just a normal person.

Correct. You can do that. Yeah. 100%. Plus, you know, some race support too and you know, but he's got a Ducati dealership up there, you know, so it's a place to go to buy your um your motorcycle. But he's he's got, you know, a steakhouse coming in. He's got a coffee shop that's already open. And he's got a private club up above where um you know you pay membership fee. It's like a social club plus you get a place to store your cars. His his car storage facility with these uh elevators that he has uh for the car storage and the multira um stacksville. Yeah.

And so so Graham has built this amazing business for himself outside of racing.

And you know what else is cool about Graham? I can text him this morning for instance and just ask him opinion on something or a car and he's going to get back to me right away. I mean he's just such a personable guy. But uh love Graham Ryan Hasbro and uh had told you about Scott Fitzgerald. I know Scott really well too with Fitz Mark and but but Scott's more than Fitz Mark. got is this serial entrepreneur that's just built some incredible businesses, including how he got out ahead of the uh the craft brewing boom that happened and and how he built that into an amazing company by um leasing kegs to to micro breweries.

But anyway, he's got a great backstory. Um just an awesome awesome hooer. Um who's a he's a really great dude and and um so he's he's a good dude to have. Jason Sandi with Exos, Kyle Hughes with Veraritoss Realy. I mean, there's there's a lot of really great things happening here with people.

I love it, man. Well, hey, Matt, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing your story. Uh, this is one of my my favorites. Like, I think at first we're going to have to work on the title packaging and stuff because when you think, oh, skilled nursing facility, it's like but like the journey is incredible. The commitment that you have to the our our golden age. I think that's incredible. And and just like your relentless work ethic was inspiring to me. Like I know some days you kind of just need like a little shot, you know, like as an entrepreneur, it's like it's not all fun. It's not all up and to the right, but like hearing someone else's story is just like super inspiring to me. So, thank you for coming on and sharing that, man.

Oh, man. Thanks for having me. This is an incredible opportunity. We really appreciate it.

I love it, man. Well, we'll see you. I mean, definitely out in Newcastle. Do you What's your guys' big holiday tournament?

Uh, Spartanberg Class. Spartan Classic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We This last year was our last year. We are officially going to the Al Smith.

We're going up to scrap with the boys in Mishiwaka. Uh, appreciate you and uh and we'll see you definitely out in Newcastle.

Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Nick.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at sweetwater.com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Hoosier State great.