Learned the floor. Now runs the building.

Evan always figured he would own a business. The route there ran through politics, six states, a couple of stints in DC and, in 2014, a direct mail company in Jacksonville, Florida, where he took a job knowing one person in town and, on Match.com, met Heather. Grad school introduced a phrase that clicked immediately: entrepreneurship through acquisition. Businesses that are already profitable, with a history. Put together the capital, buy one, run it.

He searched on his own for two years, working full time with a kid on the way, updating Heather every day. Two or three LOIs, each rejected for one reason or another. “I never could get over the hump,” he says. “One day I just said to myself, you’re definitely not doing something right, so maybe you should go talk to some people that have done this before.”

The Lab narrowed the search. Not the listings. Him. “The real value was almost therapeutic. Who am I, what do I want to do, what am I good at, and most importantly, what do I not want to do?” The criteria that came out of it: a company big enough that he could come in, make mistakes, and not ruin it.

“I wasn’t just out here throwing darts. I was starting to get more focused. This is who I am. This is what I’m good at. This is what I want.”Evan Stewart

The SIM for Direct One had crossed his desk months earlier. Commercial print. He passed. After the Lab, the broker sent it again, and this time it checked the boxes: an industry he knew, in Florida, an established operation. Lunch with the owners never touched business. Then he toured the building. “You get down here and you see it and you’re like, wow, this is a real operation, and people seem to take some pride in what they’re doing. That feeling I got when I stepped into the building was perfect.”

The financing was the full stack. They maxed out the SBA loan, and the bank proposed a junior note on top of it: over $6 million in debt. They put in personal money and took a HELOC on the house. When the bank came back and said the deal needed more working capital, they went to friends and family to close the gap. “I’m glad the bank came back to us on that. We really did need more working capital than we had put into the initial deal.”

They closed on March 31, 2023.

“We put everything we had. We took out a HELOC on our house in Jacksonville. We were all in.”Evan Stewart

The plan was to run it hybrid: stay in Jacksonville, drive down a couple of days a week. Evan laughs at that now. “This is an 80-person operation. It’s two facilities. You’re not going to do that. If this is going to be successful, we had to be down here.” The hard part was the decision. Once it was made, the house went on the market in July.

In August, Heather was laid off from the merchandising career she had built over 13 years. “It wasn’t, oh my gosh, what are we going to do,” Evan says. “For me it was, all right, that’s another sign. Just come work for the company. This makes more sense anyway.” Heather now runs account management for one of Direct One’s largest clients and helped launch Dash, its direct mail creative agency.

“It was actually the best thing that could have happened, because then it was 100% focus. We are all in on this business, and there was no ambiguity anymore.”Heather Stewart

Day one, Evan knew less about direct mail than anyone on the floor, and he knew it. “You question yourself. Maybe these guys know something I don’t. But that gut feeling doesn’t go away, and finally one day you act on it, and things improve.”

The owner’s seat can be lonely. Having Heather inside the company changed that. “Just having someone there that I can at least talk to about things, and they somewhat understand because they’re living it every day with you, is extremely helpful.” His advice to another couple considering it: evaluate the marriage first. Mutual respect, different strengths, trust in each other’s judgment. Then work out your roles, at home and in the company.

Direct One is in growth mode. A new press on the floor, upgraded equipment, talent hired from outside the industry, and new divisions in creative, nonprofit services, fulfillment and pledge processing. Five years out, Evan sees a national footprint and a team of a few hundred. “We feel like direct mail is having a renaissance, and we want to be on the cutting edge of that transformation.”

“It’s a lot more fun to go out and say, hey, we’re going to better ourselves every day, than it is to sit back and let things happen to us.”Evan Stewart