Buying one great business and running it for the long term.

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Focus

Essential business services

Size

$500K to $2M annual cash flow

Geography

California, Texas, Tennessee, Florida

Here’s what we’re doing.

Find one great business

Whose owner is ready to take a step back.

Buy it right

A fair price, simple terms, and a plan for the handoff.

Learn every seat

Ride with the crews, run the dispatch desk, learn how the work gets sold.

Protect what works

Same name, same team, same standards. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Keep building

Reinvest earnings in the people, tools, and systems that serve customers.

What we’re looking for.

The trade

We like work that is required, that never runs out, and that customers won’t trust to just anyone.

01Necessary

Nobody decides whether the work gets done. They only decide who does it.

02Steady

Service contracts, city inspectors, or the law of averages will serve up more jobs next month.

03Protected

Some combination of contracts, site access, licenses, specialized equipment, disposal permits, and know‑how keeps the cut‑rate crowd out.

For example

Fire and life-safety inspection — Fire & life-safety inspection

The company

A sketch, not a checklist.

Financials

Annual revenue of $2M to $10M

Annual cash flow of $500K to $2M

Consistent profitability, well-kept books

Customers

A loyal customer base

Revenue spread across many accounts

Operations

A team that runs the jobs without the owner

Basic back-office systems in place

Geography

California, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida

Bending the rules

Similar trades. We prefer commercial customers, but we don’t require them. Residential and mixed trades — restoration, septic, sewer, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, pest control — get the same hard look.

Smaller deals. The risk here is that the owner is the company. A general manager on payroll solves it. An employee who can step up, or an owner who stays, might.

Who’s behind this?

Jack Howerton

Managing Member

Jack founded Briones Holdings to acquire and grow a single business over the long term. Previously, he spent a decade developing real estate with JPI, overseeing portfolio companies at TeleSoft Partners, and advising on deals at Oppenheimer & Co. He earned a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Kevin Chen

Advisor

Kevin is a Senior Data Scientist at Meta. Previously, he was at DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Cottage, and began his career alongside Jack in investment banking at Oppenheimer & Co. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Dartmouth College.

Ryan Farell

Advisor

Ryan is a Lead Research Scientist in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he co-leads a U.S. Army-funded AI program, and formerly Head of Data Science at Eight Acres Capital Management. He earned a PhD at UT Austin and his bachelor’s and master’s at the University of Pennsylvania.

From first call to closing in four to six months.

1 to 3 weeks

Introduction

A few conversations to learn about the business, the industry, and you. Kept confidential.

3 to 6 weeks

Initial review

Under NDA, we crunch the numbers and ask one question: are we a good fit for this business? If not, we step aside.

3 to 5 weeks

Letter of intent

We put a price range, structure, and timing in writing. Exclusivity begins, and both sides commit to getting this done.

10 to 14 weeks

Diligence

We check the important things — books, customer contracts, licenses — while the lawyers draft agreements.

One day

Closing

Funds move and the transition begins.

Financing

Preview

With your permission, we preview the financials with our lenders and obtain preliminary terms.

Underwriting

Further study leading to a commitment letter.

Funding

Funds at closing.

A few details are enough to start.