Is Home Services Still a Good Bet? A Veteran Operator’s Take on a Saturated Market

My Guest


Collin Hathaway is the Founder of Skylight Capital, a micro-cap private equity firm investing in companies with less than $5M EBITDA. Prior to founding Skylight, Collin led the deal origination team at Alpine Investors, where he managed a team focused on locating and evaluating new investment opportunities.

In addition to currently serving as the chairman of Flint Group and Guardian Roofing, Collin has previously served as chairman of: Abacus Plumbing & HVAC, Berkeys HVAC & Plumbing, Bonney Plumbing & HVAC, Parker & Sons, the Wrench Group, and Vulcan Precision Linings.

He received an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business as well as a BA in Economics from Stanford. Collin lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and two young children, and is a proud member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO).

Listen in Your Browser

Is Home Services Still a Good Bet? A Veteran Operator’s Take on a Saturated Market In The Trenches

Listen on Other Platforms:

Apple | Spotify | PocketCasts | RadioPublic

Episode Summary with Timestamps

  • 00:00 Colin’s Career Journey: From Flint to Entrepreneurship
  • 12:15 The Home Services Thesis: Evolution and Insights
  • 21:03 Navigating Challenges: Lessons from Early Deals
  • 32:46 The Changing Landscape of Home Services Investment
  • 37:33 The Importance of Patience in Business Growth
  • 40:24 Navigating Career Decisions and Risks
  • 41:35 Scaling Companies: Key Themes and Challenges
  • 46:35 The Operator vs. Investor Dilemma
  • 51:30 Understanding Macroeconomic Influences on Investments
  • 56:15 The Art of Raising Capital
  • 01:02:26 Life Lessons from a Heart Attack
  • 01:10:35 Reflections on Professional Failures and Growth

Download a Written Transcript of Our Conversations

Access a text-based version of our discussion to highlight, copy or take notes by clicking on either of the buttons below

Thanks to our Sponsors

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠, the leading insurance brokerage and insurance diligence provider for the search fund community. The company is led by ⁠⁠August Felker⁠⁠ (himself a 2-time successful searcher), and has been trusted by search investors, lenders, searchers and CEOs for over a decade now. Their due diligence offering (which is 100% free of charge) will assess the pros and cons of your target company’s insurance program, including any potential coverage gaps, the pro-forma insurance pricing, and the program structure changes needed for closing. At or shortly after closing, they then execute on all of those findings on your behalf. Oberle has serviced over 900 customers across a decade of operation, including countless searchers and CEOs within the ETA community.

This episode is brought to you by Boulay⁠⁠⁠⁠, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings reports, tax, and small business audit services. Over the past 20 years, Boulay has worked directly with hundreds of search funds from capital raise to exit, currently assisting over 150 funds in the search phase, another 125 in the operating phase. They work with Searchers across the entirety of the ETA journey: They perform financial due diligence and create QofE reports that your investors can rely on, they provide a full suite of tax services both for your search fund and for the acquired company, they perform the annual audits required by most debt and equity investors, and also perform outsourced accounting services, acting as a fractional bookkeeper and controller for those companies whose needs might not necessitate full-time in-house resources.


Discover more from

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

Discover more from

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading