‘It’s really not for the faint of heart’: This 29-year-old CEO became a business owner, doubled revenue in 3 years, and learned what car not to drive

Not all of the lessons in the Walker Deibel playbook fit between its covers. One of the first bolt-on acquisitions Lucas Philips tried to close was a tiny shop in rural Oregon — a guy who had spent decades fabricating custom interiors for Porsches. Philips flew to Portland, grabbed a brand-new convertible Mustang on a free upgrade from his shiny new Hertz President’s Circle card, and spent three-and-a-half hours driving south through “the most beautiful” Oregon landscape toward the seller’s property. The owner had originally quoted $40,000 for the operation. Two days later, after watching Philips pull up in a gleaming convertible and spend time on site, he decided the price should be more like $320,000.

“I regret that so much to this day,” Philips said. “I should have just taken the Camry.”

Lucas Philips grew up watching his father do something increasingly rare among his generation: own a small business outright and still make it home in time for school drop-offs and hockey practice. At 26, he decided to do the same — acquiring a niche manufacturer of custom automotive interiors in Newark, N.J. Now 29, Philips told Fortune that he’s glad he did it, but “it’s really not for the faint of heart.”

Since acquiring Newark Auto, Philips has pushed annual revenue from “a little over a million” at purchase to more than $3 million this year, in roughly five years of operating time. He’s done it with bolt-on acquisitions, long commutes, and a roster of hourly workers who have never seen the perks of startup life — Philips jokes about the proverbial ping-pong table in the office — but he’s also learned that in the world of small business, the smallest details can derail a deal.

Like: don’t rent a convertible when you’re making a business trip to try to acquire a new subsidiary.

From dorm-room startup to “buy then build”

Philips traces his entrepreneurial drive to something older than Northwestern. His family immigrated to New York in the Ellis Island era a little over 100 years ago and, frankly, nobody wanted to hire them. He’s from several generations of Jewish small business owners, so it was only natural for him to think this way, he said.

The list of businesses is somewhat endless. One grandfather sold paper goods — boxes, plastic wrap — to the Jewish bakeries of New York. His father sold sunglasses imported from China before anyone was importing anything from China, then hair accessories, then bought a high-end custom furniture business that now has a showroom in the B&B building on Madison Avenue and a factory in Christiansburg, Virginia.

As an undergraduate at........

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