Ep. 57 — Troy Schuette: Garbage Was the Vehicle, Not the Passion

4 min read

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Episode Summary

You started with a Sanford and Son truck hauling drywall scraps, and 23 years later you’ve got 26 drivers on the road, $250,000 trucks rolling through your community every day, and a CPA telling you to slow down because you’re outrunning your own cash flow. That’s the worst thing anybody can say to a guy who loves sales cycles. Your wife notices the fire is gone before you do. Troy Schuette sat in that exact chair and decided to sell Elite Waste Disposal at 45. We got into how he figured out the passion was the growth, not the garbage. Why the ATM-with-a-GM option still left him holding all the liability and the late-night phone calls. How he picked his buyer on ease of working together over top price. The two-week window between telling 40 employees and closing day. And why he gave himself a full summer to unplug before asking the next question. Real numbers, honest answers, and an exit told from the other side of it. The framework I use today didn’t exist yet when we recorded this. The instinct behind it is all over the conversation.

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## Top 10 Takeaways
  1. The growth was your passion. The product was the vehicle. Know the difference before you decide to exit.
  2. When your CPA tells you to slow growth because cash can’t keep up, ask what you actually want.
  3. Your three real options: ATM with a GM, dive back in for five more years, or sell.
  4. The ATM-with-a-GM option still leaves you holding the liability, the lawsuits, and the late-night phone calls.
  5. Industry valuation rules change. What worked five years ago isn’t the deal today. Verify before you anchor.
  6. Talk to competitors as buyers. Corporate sits in another state and won’t hear your local rumors before the LOI.
  7. Pick the buyer on ease of working together and how they’ll treat your team, not just on top price.
  8. Back into net proceeds, not the gross price. Lifestyle perks, taxes, and payoffs all come out first.
  9. Tell your team before close. Bring the buyer’s local GM into the room. Watch shoulders drop.
  10. Take real time off after the sale. Ask who you want to spend your days with before what you’ll do next.

Sound Bites

“Garbage and recycling and scrap drywall were not my passion. They were the vehicle for my passion.” (@00:03:50) — Troy Schuette

“You’re dating in the beginning, but you get darn close to marriage by the time you’re done.” (@00:21:15) — Troy Schuette

“I’ve done a lot of deals. Six months from now you’re either going to say it was the best decision in the world, or you’re going to regret it.” (@00:33:08) — Troy Schuette

“I got into business for the money and the freedom. It’s funny how now on the back end, the money is the last thing.” (@00:48:15) — Troy Schuette

About This Episode

Troy Schuette owned Elite Waste Disposal for 23 years, building it from one drywall-scrap truck into a residential, commercial, and rolloff operation with 26 drivers and 25 trucks on the road. He sold to a $10B+ strategic acquirer at age 45 and spent the entire summer afterward fully unplugged before deciding what came next. His father, a longtime CPA, was his finance mentor and the reason Troy knew his P&L and balance sheet cold going into the sale process. This is one of the early Life After Business conversations: a real exit told in real numbers, recorded before the iBD methodology was formed.

Resources Mentioned

  • Troy Schuette — Email: tschuette611@gmail.com
  • Traction by Gino Wickman (EOS) — Troy mentions he’s curious to read it now that he has the bandwidth

Connections

Phase + Module (themes that map to current iBD canon):

  • Module 1 — Ownership Goals — Troy’s “is this how I want to wrap up the game” question is the Module 1 conversation, asked before the framework existed
  • Module 2 — Expand Knowledge — Troy’s financial literacy, drilled in by his father, was the foundation of every exit decision he made

Concepts referenced (themes, not named in episode):

  • The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Troy realized that hiring a GM and treating the business as an ATM still left him carrying all the liability and emotional weight
  • Normalized EBITDA — How the deal was actually valued once Troy got past the old revenue-multiple rumor from the 2000s consolidation era
  • Value Gap — The space between the “18 to 24 months of revenue” he expected and the EBITDA-based offer he actually got

Graph View