How a Franchise Founder Bought a Cash-Flowing Construction Business
Rachel Horner
May 22, 2026 ⋅ 6 min read
About the Buyer and Their Business
Name: Jimmy Feeman
Background: Founder, No Baked Cookie Dough
Acquired: Silver Creek Exteriors
Industry: Residential and commercial siding
Location: Helena, Montana
By the end of 2019, Jimmy Feeman had built NoBaked Cookie Dough into a 10-store franchise. Today, he runs a portfolio of semi-passive businesses out of Bozeman, Montana.
He wanted to keep building the portfolio, but on steadier ground. After a decade of volatile margins and working-capital crunches, Jimmy began to search for a cash-flow positive business he could run as semi-passively as NoBaked.
He had the experience to run almost any business; what he needed was a better source for finding the right deal, and the right people in his corner to close it.
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Finding the Right Business through a Curated Marketplace
After a decade in CPG, Jimmy's criteria were tight: less capital-intensive, little to no inventory, and real verified financials.
"If I own this small business, there has to be other small businesses out there that are also semi-passive. I just had to find one."
What he found, mostly, was the opposite.
"You're asking me to buy something that's already a mess. It doesn't make any money. The person bringing it to me doesn't seem to understand basic due diligence, which means they're not doing a very good job. Those are the deals I've seen that are the least attractive."
The pattern was unfortunately consistent: someone in someone's network had decided they were now an investment banker, and the listings showed it. Bad data, unverified financials, prices set by vibes. Jimmy didn't want to spend his weekends doom-scrolling through them.
What Makes Baton Different
The first thing Jimmy noticed about Baton was that every listing was verified.
"[Baton’s] curated marketplace is just better. You have an advisor helping the seller price the business correctly and figure out what actually needs to be in the listing. If you get on Baton and look at listings, the due diligence information is real. The tax returns are real. You're just getting a better deal flow and things that are more interesting."
Then Silver Creek Exteriors showed up: a siding contractor in Helena, about three hours from where Jimmy had just moved.
"It was serendipity. I'd moved from Nashville to Bozeman about two months before I discovered Silver Creek was for sale. And my net was cast across the whole country. I was willing to travel. It just happened to land in my backyard."
SBA Financing, Government Shutdowns, and Expert Guidance to Close
A first SBA acquisition is rarely simple, and Jimmy's wasn't. He didn't find the right bank to underwrite the deal until mid-December. Then a government shutdown stalled everything. Then a second shutdown stalled it again.
"The underwriting was a process. They wanted to know everything about me, everything about my business partner. But the positive that came out of it was the extra due diligence on things I hadn't thought about. I'm not the most detail-oriented person. I like to move fast and break stuff. This process forced me to slow down."
What kept the deal alive, according to Jimmy, was his advisor, Reid.
"Reid was a good dose of reality. I'd push timelines and say we're going to close on this day, and Reid would be like, probably not. Keep an open mind. We're going to try. He managed expectations on my end and on Brock's. That was huge."
The bigger risk, Jimmy says, was the seller walking away, and Reid was the reason he didn't.
"There's a version of this where, without an intermediary holding it together, Brock walks away. He didn't, because he's not dumb. He'd just have to re-list and do it all over again. But if he'd been a different kind of seller, someone less patient, it would've fallen apart."
"Having experienced people in the room is incredibly important. I'm used to learning through mistakes. In a process like this, there's no room for that. The mistakes follow you for ten years, or they blow the deal up entirely."
How Jimmy Got the Deal Structure He Actually Wanted
The structure Jimmy walked into closing day was the structure he'd sketched out at the start: seller financing, seller-held equity, an SBA loan, plus working capital on top, with debt service landing at just 25–30% of total profit.
"Once the loan was underwritten and I could step back, I realized the strange part was that everything ended up exactly as I drew it up. It wasn't easy. But the deal I set out to get is the deal I got."
Silver Creek isn't running on a thin balance sheet, either. The business holds $200K–$350K in AR depending on the season, runs a 30-day cash cycle, and was already cash-flowing on day one.
"We're doing a $100,000 project right now on a mansion in the middle of Montana. We'll get the check tomorrow. It's a very cash-positive business."
What’s Next for Jimmy and Silver Creek Exteriors?
Silver Creek Exteriors was running on a whiteboard, QuickBooks, and tape. Jimmy, 32 and tech-forward, is rolling out Monday.com, HubSpot, and n8n workflows. But he's doing it slowly.
"We're going to do a six-month transition of small changes. By the time we're done, it'll be a big change, but people won't have noticed. That's the goal. Materially, nothing changes for my employees. Their pay might go up. Their paycheck still lands in their bank account. They keep doing the job they love. They might just clock in on an app instead of texting me."
Jimmy's Advice for First-Time Buyers
Patience is the highest-leverage move you can make.
"The more patient you are, the longer this process takes, the better business you find. And you structure the deal exactly the way you think it should be as an operator. You'll be so much happier when it closes."
The "zero down" pitch is misleading.
"I bought a business for a little over a dollar. I still had to have $65,000 in cash. The bank wants to see statements. You can't borrow it from somewhere, but it has to be yours. They're not handing working capital to someone with no experience. That's a terrible idea."
Stay on top of SBA rule changes.
"We asked for 5% of the deal size to be a separate seller-financed note, deferred for 10 years until the SBA note is paid off. That let it count as equity and made our down payment lower. That rule will change again. Staying current on SBA rules is genuinely hard."
Don't sell a business without a marketplace or advisor.
"If I were to sell NoBaked or any business I own, there is no way in hell I'd do it without a marketplace advisor or any kind of investment advisor at all. Otherwise you're either out of your mind asking for tons of money for no reason, or low-balling yourself."
Owning a small business is less risky than people think.
"We sold cookie dough to four million people. I can't get fired by four million people. Some of them can get mad, sales can dip, but you don't lose all your customers at once. You don't have single-client risk with a business. You do with a day job."