In this episode of JackQuisitions, Jack sits down with Ian Smith, partner at South River Capital, to break down what it actually looks like to scale through acquisitions in home services—when the “platform” you thought you bought turns out to be pen, paper, and magnets on a board.

Ian shares how his partners bought Terraform Landscaping in 2021 (~$2M revenue), then turned around and acquired an equal-sized landscaping company (Robins Landscaping)—only to learn the hard way that the owner was doing far more than anyone realized. You’ll hear what they expected going into the deal, what surprised them immediately, and how they discovered they didn’t buy the platform… they had to build it.

They walk through how they approached branding and integration (why Robins became Terraform), how modernizing tools and systems can be way harder than it looks, and why “smashing companies together” breaks culture, comp, contracts, and operations faster than most buyers expect.

Then the story escalates: two acquisitions in six months, going from roughly $2.5M to ~$7M in about a year—plus a third deal, Miller Irrigation, that introduced a totally different business model (high-volume, low-ticket service work). Ian explains why irrigation acquisitions may be the real growth lever going into 2026, how they kept Miller as a separate outward-facing brand, and the painful lessons they learned around AR, invoicing lag, overhead, and operational complexity.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone buying in home services—especially if you’re considering partnerships, roll-ups, or “platform” strategies that look clean on paper but get messy fast.

🔍 What You’ll Learn

• Why the owner always does more than you think (and how that changes integration plans)
• What “building the platform” really means when systems aren’t actually scalable
• How they handled branding + consolidation (why Robins became Terraform)
• Why the second deal wasn’t a tuck-in—it was an equal-sized acquisition

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🔗 Connect

Jack Carr — https://www.x.com/thehvacjack

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