Frank DiMarco and Leland Smith, CEO and Founder of Champions Group respectively, walk through how they built a 19-brand, multi-state home services platform that attracted a $2.5 billion acquisition by Blackstone. The conversation focuses on what actually drives valuation in a private equity deal, including recurring revenue, operational consistency, and a leadership team that can scale without the founder making every decision.
A central theme is the membership model Champions Group built, which reached 150,000 active memberships. DiMarco and Smith explain how predictable recurring revenue from memberships directly influenced the Blackstone valuation, and how those members also create natural cross-selling opportunities across trades like HVAC, plumbing, and electrical within the same platform.
The two also address what private equity firms look for beyond the numbers, arguing that people and culture are weighted more heavily than most owners expect. They describe a shift in their own thinking where employee experience took priority alongside customer experience, and how that internal focus became a competitive differentiator at scale.
On execution, Smith summarizes the Champions Group approach as ‘simple, not easy,’ emphasizing that consistency in blocking-and-tackling operations, not flashy growth tactics, is what compounds into a sellable, scalable business. The episode offers a ground-level view of what building for an institutional exit actually requires from an owner-operator perspective.
