#369 - Catching Up With Kaleb Bryan

·42 min·4 clips

Caleb Bryan lost $240,000 on a viral app before building a massive buy-here, pay-here dealership.

The episode begins with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson introducing Caleb Bryan, a busy buy-here, pay-here dealer based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Caleb recounts his entrepreneurial background, including losing $240,000 on a mobile app before entering the car business. He explains his philosophy of embracing discomfort and pushing for growth while maintaining balance in life. The discussion shifts to Caleb's recent diversification into a body shop franchise, Car Star, which he entered after selling a property to a multi-location operator. He details the franchise model's advantages: high gross margins of 65% and net margins of 35-40%, with no inventory and direct insurance claim referrals. Caleb describes how this integrates with his buy-here, pay-here operation by allowing him to repair repossessed cars cheaply. The hosts then explore deleveraging strategies, with Caleb advising dealers to stop buying new units and instead invest in reconditioning repos to free up capital. He shares his own experience of reducing debt from $11 million on a $21 million portfolio by more than half. The conversation covers using reinsurance cashflow, such as from CPI, to pay down bank debt, effectively replacing senior debt with sub-debt owed to his own reinsurance company. Caleb discusses the subsequent phase of having the business repay that debt. He also talks about his commercial lending venture, Asset Lending Partners, which provides short-term loans with high returns and minimal time investment compared to expanding his dealership. Throughout, Caleb emphasizes the importance of time management, partnering with reliable operators, and not neglecting the core buy-here, pay-here business until fully deleveraged. The episode concludes with reflections on the arduous but rewarding journey of dealership ownership.

As heard by us

A clear dealer conversation on leverage, debt reduction, and staying focused on the core business.

Caleb Bryan's check-in keeps the focus on a hard, practical problem: running a buy-here, pay-here operation while trying to bring debt down. He looks back at losing about $240,000 on a mobile app, then connects that lesson to the discipline required in a busy dealership.

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Why you'd press play

Press play when you want a dealer's hard-won view of debt, leverage, and staying focused on buy-here, pay-here.

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