Christien Louviere

AI-powered PE. Healthcare. Trade schools. One Mac Mini. Dad x2. What's your AI score?

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

I talked to a company last week that has 30 years of institutional knowledge living on post-it notes and in people's heads.

They're spending months manually interviewing employees to capture it all. Recording conversations, transcribing, organizing.

One person leaves and a piece of the business walks out the door with them.

This is the problem nobody's solving with AI yet.

Not chatbots. Not automation. Not replacing anyone.

Just making sure that when your best operator retires, their 30 years of knowledge doesn't retire with them.

Every company has this problem. Almost none of them are doing anything about it.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@JaredDHardin Lots of chicken and egg in the market right now.

[Kaia Rhodes @kaiarhodes]

Georgia cotton is the backbone of the state’s agricultural landscape and a cornerstone of America’s global textile dominance.

Representing more than $3 billion in economic impact and supporting over 50,000 jobs, the industry continues to fuel both rural communities and international trade.

Anatar is developing the “Grown Here. Sewn Here.” initiative alongside key partners (to be announced). By working directly with American farmers, Anatar is returning more of the economic value of U.S. cotton to the producers and communities that grow it.

The vision and heritage of Georgia cotton

The pioneer state:
Georgia was the first colony in what would become the United States to produce cotton commercially. It was first planted in 1734 in the Trustees’ Garden in Savannah.

The invention:
Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention of the cotton gin in Chatham County, Georgia, transformed cotton into a highly profitable commodity, fueling the Industrial Revolution while also deepening the region’s reliance on enslaved labor.

Modern production:
Today, Georgia consistently ranks among the top three cotton-producing states in the nation, planting more than 1.2 million acres annually.

Global footprint:
While Georgia’s textile heritage runs deep locally, about 85% of the state’s raw cotton is exported to international markets such as East Asia.

Georgia was the first to plant and produce cotton commercially in America in 1734. Three hundred years later, Anatar is working to return that value to American hands, from seed to sale.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@andywalkerhq Congrats!

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

The reason I am in Atlanta is I got promoted to this market by a top 10 media company. This media company was just a mess of random acquisitions. Now PE came in and was cutting everything to bare bones.

Within a week of me getting there, guys who were 40+ were being strong-armed to take a package or stay and lose all of their accounts.

I saw a lot of people's lives upended, and I remember thinking at that time that I never wanted to work for anyone again, because I didn't want that to happen to me in twenty years.

Anyway good on you for facing the music. I have had so many CEOs ask me, "Are you going to do it or should I?"

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@JackieHirsch_ Buy the badge so you get the list, and then take all your meetings off-site preferably where liquids are involved. I don't know if he went to to HBS.

BTW what was the insight he gave you?

[Everything Georgia @GAFollowers]

Adam Wexler, founder of PrizePicks and a University of Georgia alumnus, made a $10 million donation to UGA Athletics.

The gift is the largest philanthropic contribution in University of Georgia Athletic Association history for Georgia men’s basketball.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

Independent sponsor work in Nashville is boot shopping.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

Great drink name.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

McDermott HealthEx, Nashville. Two days of conversations on what’s actually working in lower middle market healthcare

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

NEW: 50 empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhoods and circle their cul-de-sacs for hours early in the mornings.

Residents say they are getting waymo traffic than usual and have tried combating the cars with a neon green sign, which only made the problem worse.

The Waymos didn't know what to do and clogged the entire street.

"We have small animals and pets, got kids getting on the bus in the morning, and it just doesn’t feel safe to have that traffic," one resident said.

The residents say Waymo has not given them a response yet.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@SMB_Attorney You're the new age Lt. Col. Frank Slade.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

Definitely made me think when I heard his theory.

But I wonder if money moves away from the industrial/freight/airport side and toward the side anchored by the first generation of wealth regardless of direction.

I wonder if metro Macon going north would be the south side being built out.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

Go Braves and Cubs +1.5.

[Matthias Smith, CEO - Pioneer Capital Advisory LLC @SBA_Matthias]

The Honest Truth About Buying a Business with SBA Financing in 2026

I want to share what I’m actually seeing on the ground right now because I think a lot of people need to hear this.

We broker SBA loans for acquisition entrepreneurs at Pioneer Capital Advisory. We’re in the trenches on these deals every single day. And candidly, the market has shifted in ways that would have been hard to imagine even 18 months ago.

Let me give you a real example.

One of our buyers recently submitted an LOI on an electrical services company at $4.6 million. That was already $300,000 above the asking price. His offer came back as the lowest out of 11 total offers. The top six bidders were in the $5.3 to $5.7 million range. His exact words to me were “it’s wild out there.” He’s right.

That’s not an outlier. That’s the new normal.

Here’s what I’m seeing from a deal structure standpoint across our active pipeline:

Multiples have pushed higher than most buyers expect going in. We had a home health deal come across at 5.0x SDE and the lender actually called that valuation “defensible.” A year ago most lenders would have pushed back hard on anything above 4x in that space. The DealStats median EBITDA multiple for comparable industries is sitting at 4.62x right now. Quality businesses with clean books and recurring revenue are trading well above that.

The competitive LOI process has become the standard, not the exception. Brokers are collecting offers and presenting all of them to the seller simultaneously. We’ve had buyers lose deals to strategic and industry acquirers who already have relationships with the seller. If you’re a first time buyer going up against someone who already owns three locations in the same vertical, you need to understand what you’re walking into.

Earnest money is a whole different conversation now. We’re seeing sell side brokers require 1% to 2% deposits just to enter exclusive due diligence. One deal required the deposit within five business days of LOI execution. Another required a 2% escrow deposit before the seller would even grant exclusivity. Some brokers are running a “first to go hard wins” process where the buyer who converts their refundable deposit to nonrefundable first gets the deal. That’s a meaningful amount of capital at risk before you’ve even completed diligence.

The capital stacks on these transactions are getting more creative out of necessity. I’m seeing deals structured with 80% SBA financing, 10% seller equity rollover, 5% buyer cash equity, and 5% forgivable seller notes tied to performance metrics like customer retention. Buyers who show up with a clean, thoughtful structure and a lender who already understands the business are winning. Buyers who go direct to nine different banks and burn through relationships are not.

From a volume standpoint, our team ran 51 meetings last week alone. We have 4 deals under LOI and 34 in the pre LOI pipeline right now. The deal flow is there. The demand is there. But the margin for error on execution is razor thin.

So what does all of this mean if you’re trying to buy a business with SBA financing in 2026?

It means you need to move fast, structure smart, and have your lending relationship locked in before you submit that LOI. It means you should expect competition on anything worth buying. It means earnest money is real and it’s going to be part of the conversation earlier than you think. And it means that the days of getting a quality business at 3x with minimal money down are, for the most part, behind us.

I’m not saying this to discourage anyone. Acquisitions are still one of the best paths to business ownership and wealth creation. But I think the community deserves an honest picture of what the landscape actually looks like right now.

If you’re in the market, go in with your eyes open.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@SMB_Attorney Impressive! What’s a Nut Brokerage?

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

"The 'leak' theory I sold you
with 95% confidence yesterday was wrong."
-an advanced AI model

[Jackie Ossin Hirsch @JackieHirsch_]

When @paulswaney3 asked me to speak on his podcast I was excited to share with a private equity audience how Independent Sponsors can beat out PE. It’s a little bit fun to watch them win. Of course I still sell deals to PE, IS, corporate refugees, searchers, strategics…I want the best person for the deal.

[SMB Attorney @SMB_Attorney]

It was the worst business buying story I’ve ever heard.

A buyer moved his family from Georgia to Utah mid-deal.

The negotiation was messy, but he was excited to close.

Working capital started at $800k.

Then dropped to $500k.

Then got negotiated down to $300k at the last minute.

He thought he was getting $300k to run the business.

Within 30 days, he realized he had a problem.

Most of that “working capital” was stale accounts receivable.

Money that was never going to be collected.

The purchase agreement didn’t protect him.

Nothing carved out AR over 90 days.

Within three months, he was running out of cash.

He drained his $200k 401(k) to keep the business alive.

Told his wife it would be a quick blip.

He’d pay it back soon.

Then sales stalled.

He needed more cash just to operate.

Banks said no.

He couldn’t bring himself to ask friends or family.

So he started using cash that was supposed to go back to the seller.

The seller sued him.

Everything unraveled fast.

By month nine, he was in default.

By month twelve, he was in bankruptcy and receivership.

Employees walked off the job.

The business collapsed.

He came to me among others around month eight searching for a solution.

At that point, it was already over.

A post-closing analysis showed the truth.

The business actually needed about $1.5M in working capital to run properly.

He got a fraction of that.

That’s the game.

If you don’t understand working capital, you’re not buying a business.

You’re buying a problem.

In today’s episode of Main Street Deals, Kevin and Sam unpack the most important lesson in business buying.

What working capital actually is.

How to negotiate for it.

And how to manage it post-closing.

Enjoy.

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

@ty_hotcommodity Hal’s
Nowaks

[Christien Louviere @CLouvi]

FYI @TS_Secrets

[Sheel Mohnot @pitdesi]

One of the biggest bottlenecks for AI data centers is skilled labor to build them.

Meta can’t hire fiber technicians fast enough, so now they’re training them for free.