Think Like an Owner: Recent Episodes
Alex Bridgeman
Exploring how the most ambitious CEOs grow great companies. Each week we dive into the strategies and tactics that build transformative businesses with the operators doing it firsthand. Learn more at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Ep.188 - Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Edward Coady (@EdwCoady). My guest on this episode is Edward Coady, CEO of Mainely Grass, a Chenmark-owned company he is taking over leadership for from former CEO and past podcast guest Palmer Higgins. Edward joined Chenmark through their GVP (Generalist Vice President) program, the same way past guests Sean Joy and Philip Hussey joined their Chenmark companies as CEO. The GVP program is Chenmark’s CEO accelerator program to get folks first experience in a portfolio company and then as CEO of a new acquisition or current company. Edward and I discussed designing high conversion website design, his new CEO role and early lessons, Chenmark’s GVP program, repetition, and much more.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Edward on Twitter Mainely Grass HotJar Sunday Lawn Care
Topics: (00:03:26) Edward’s experience transitioning from CFO to CEO (00:12:23) -The Sales Funnel and implementing content marketing (00:18:13) The reason for not adding mowing as a service (00:21:53) Optimizing for customers to take action (00:23:25) HotJar (00:26:32) Where Edward looks to improve the organization’s website (00:28:32) Systematic approaches to getting feedback (00:31:36) A/B testing as the CEO (00:33:19) Edward’s main areas of focus (00:44:49) Process improvements that need to wait for implementation (00:46:57)How Edward plans out his tasks (00:49:43) What are you most excited for? (00:51:09) What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on? (00:54:19) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Ep.186: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Brian Yormak (@brian-yormak). My guest is Brian Yormak, co-founder of Story Ventures alongside his brother Jake, a venture capital firm with a strong focus in data and data software. I connected with Brian as they are an investor in past guest Craig Fuller’s media and data company FreightWaves and are one of the few VCs with a strong focus in data. I’ve talked to data CEOs on the podcast before, but was curious to add the venture perspective to the conversation through this episode with Brian. Brian and I talk about how he classifies data companies today, API business models, what the most interesting data companies and founders are doing today, and so much more. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Story Ventures Brian on LinkedIn
Topics: (00:04:05) Brian’s passion for data (00:05:55) Data is the new oil (00:08:39) Categorizing data companies (00:13:42) The importance of proprietary data to investment decisions (00:16:49) Attractive API businesses (00:22:19) Data Legislation (00:30:05) Finding the right founders & companies to back (00:38:10) What non-venture CEOs can learn (00:41:06) People data (00:46:45) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (00:48:17) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Ep.185: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Michael Horowitz (@downtosmallbiz).
My guest today is Michael Horowitz who recently sold a roll-up of 20 Wingstop franchise locations (15 acquired, 7 built, 1 closed) and co-authored a paper with A.J. Wasserstein about the franchise path for entrepreneurs. In this conversation, we discuss his strategy and components of an effective franchise roll-up. We touch on the pros/cons of the franchise path, the role of debt, choosing a brand, challenges, and opportunities with multiple locations, and much more. If you’re considering franchises, this episode can serve as a great primer and base of knowledge for exploring the model. Please enjoy this episode with Michael Horowitz.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Michael on Twitter Ten Essential Questions to Consider When Selecting a Franchise Brand for a Search Fund Journey Timecodes: (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:18) Michael’s franchising career (00:10:00) Choosing a smaller brand like Wingstop (00:14:14) Transferring rights between franchisors (00:15:27) Michael’s growth trajectory (00:16:58) How restaurant groups continue to scale (00:19:12) Michael’s decision to sell (00:22:26) Choosing food franchises over other opportunities (00:26:14) How franchises can uniquely use debt (00:31:12) The culture shock of moving from finance to managing fast-food employees (00:35:34) Learnings from the restaurant industry (00:37:35) Career paths within franchising (00:39:47) Hiring and recruiting challenges (00:47:28) Multi-franchise investor strategy (00:52:10) Advice for folks considering franchising (00:54:16) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (00:56:07) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest today is Nick Huber, founder of now over a dozen companies beyond Bolt Storage, his self-storage business he’s perhaps most well-known for. Check out our first episode together, episode 68, for more about Bolt Storage. Nick has used his growing Twitter following as a top-of-funnel for all these companies, all of which serve each other in a pretty unique entrepreneurial ecosystem. Nick and I talk about how his role as a leader has grown in scope as his business empire has expanded, why delegation and recruiting talented people has become his primary responsibility, momentum in business, and what he’s learned studying great entrepreneurs. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Nick on Twitter - https://twitter.com/sweatystartup Business Brokerage - https://nickhuber.com/ Personal Brand - https://sweatystartup.com/ Self Storage - https://boltstorage.com/ Bold SEO - https://boldseo.com/ Insurance - https://titanrisk.com/ Recruiting - https://recruitjet.com/ Landing Page / Web Development - https://webrun.com/ Overseas Staffing - https://supportshepherd.com/ Debt and Equity - https://bluekeycapital.com/ Tax Credit - https://taxcredithunter.com/ Cost Segregation - https://recostseg.com/ Performance Marketing - https://adrhino.com/ Pest control - https://spidexx.com/
Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:04:37) Checking in with Nick (00:11:47) Thinking bigger (00:14:44) Nick’s approach to buying companies (00:16:12) How Nick’s role has changed (00:18:01) How to find talent (00:24:56) Evaluating decisions and managing stress (00:35:51) Is there a certain industry or business you’re going to laser-focus on? (00:38:14) People Nick admires (00:42:48) How to tell the story of a new company (00:45:36) Delegation (00:50:57) Are there any beliefs you’ve changed your mind on?
Ep.183: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mark Valdez (@_markvaldez). My guest Mark Valdez is the founder and CEO of Eads Bridge Holdings, a holding company with a tech-enabled thesis, and now the owner of a behavioral health business, Stokes Counseling. Mark and I talk about what a tech-focused thesis looks like in practice and what it means to be a software-defined holding company, dynamics in the new acquisition, where tech makes the greatest impact, and building a holding company team. This is also Mark’s second appearance on the podcast, so head to episode 55 for more background on Mark and Eads Bridge. Please enjoy my second episode with Mark Valdez. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Mark on Twitter Eads Bridge Holdings The Eads Bridge Substack Stokes Counseling
Timestamps (00:04:18) Thoughts on Hedge Funds (00:05:35) Pursuing a Holdco model (00:07:57) The story of Eads Bridge (00:14:44) Questions to find problems in processes (00:16:17) Mark’s first acquisition (00:19:20) Tools and products that are obvious add-ons to a new business that’s acquired (00:22:32) Company growth perspectives for mental health companies (00:25:09) Factors to monitor in a marketplace business (00:27:49) Marketplace businesses Mark takes inspiration from (00:29:54) Evaluating Founder fit (00:34:08) Characteristics of well-run talent networks (00:37:36) Key roles EBH fulfills for portfolio companies (00:39:24) Being a software-defined Holdco (00:41:55) Approaches to take with a long-term hold mentality (00:44:20) Thoughts on investing in software subscription businesses (00:45:44) Top of mind focuses for the rest of 2023
Ep.182: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Jim Vesterman (@jim-vesterman). This episode is the fourth in our Launch Series on the stages leading up to becoming a CEO via the search fund model. Today’s conversation with Jim Vesterman focuses on seller relationships during the deal process. Jim shares his own experience working with the seller of Raptor Technologies, a company he ran as CEO and is now a board member of, as well as other experiences he had with sellers during his search. This is a discussion packed with insights on building great relationships with sellers and is a perfect complement to our earlier Launch episodes on industry research, starting up a search, and managing a due diligence process. Please enjoy this Launch Series episode on seller relationships with Jim Vesterman.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Raptor Technologies Pacific Lake Partners Trilogy Search Partners
Timestamps (00:00:00) Intro (00:04:01) Jim’s career and experience Searching (00:07:26) Identifying the right characteristics for a seller in a Search Fund acquisition (00:11:45) Navigating a multi-founder acquisition and replacing a seller’s role within the business (00:14:55) Finding the seller with the right mindset (00:17:13) Building trust and rapport with sellers (00:20:25) Assessing the trustworthiness of a seller (00:24:26) Working through valuation expectations (00:29:01) Learning from advisors on both seller and search side (00:33:29) The importance of face-to-face interactions (00:35:22) Managing the seller relationship post-close (00:37:17) Best practices for transitioning key relationships with company stakeholders (00:39:20) Examples of when it’s right to keep the seller within the business
Ep.181: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ben Tagoe (@btagoe). My guest today is Ben Tagoe, CEO of Objective Management Group who through a partner network provides sales assessments to sales teams and individual salespeople. Founded over 30 years ago, they have assessed millions of salespeople and 10s of thousands of companies across hundreds of industries. They are a fascinating business that I’m excited to talk about today. Ben and I talk about the various ways they evaluate and coach sales teams, the power of active listening and tools to improve, trends he’s noticed at the best-performing sales teams, operating a company with a small headcount relative to its impact, and his past role as Chief of Staff at OnDeck and the various flavors of the Chief of Staff role he’s observed. Enjoy!
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Objective Management Group Ben on LinkedIn
Timestamps: (00:04:03) The history of OMG and their business model (00:06:10) The different product categories offered at OMG (00:08:46) What are the methods for evaluating a salesperson or sales team? (00:16:20) Improving active listening (00:19:58) To-do lists (00:21:19) The practice of changing belief systems (00:24:40) Common themes across OMG’s case studies (00:27:56) Skills that correlate with effective Sales Management (00:32:31) The pros and cons of OMG’s small team size (00:36:36) The importance and function of the Chief of Staff role (00:48:11) What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on? (00:50:04) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Ep.180: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by David Dodson (@Dave-Dodson).
My guest today is David Dodson. David is an investor, former CEO, professor at Stanford, and as of July 13th, 2023, an influential author having published his first book, The Manager’s Handbook. I read an advance copy ahead of the recording and was incredibly impressed with how strategic and tactical it was in showing you how to become a more productive leader. The book examines the five essential managerial skills David has observed across some of the most ambitious CEOs he knows, and it’s written in a format designed for busy leaders who don’t have time for fluff. Given this show’s focus on ambitious CEOs and David’s wide reach across the CEO world, I can’t think of a better guest or topic for this show. Enjoy our conversation, and I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Manager’s Handbook. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Pick up a copy of The Manager's Handbook by David Dodson David on LinkedIn
Timestamps: (00:05:21) David’s experience as a first-time author (00:10:39) The decision to design the book for busy people (00:12:29) The challenge for CEOs to read given their time constraints (00:15:14) The 5 skills that are common among great leaders (00:23:56) How readers can apply the book’s lessons to their company (00:28:20) How to improve meetings (00:33:24) Radical Candor (00:39:41) The impact effective communication has on the 5 skills (00:48:48) Thoughts on good hiring (00:51:52) Successfully onboarding a new hire (00:55:34) Knowing when to fire an employee (00:57:27) The fanatical custodian of time (01:02:16) Best email & Slack habits (01:10:52) What section David would add to the next revision
Ep.179: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Julian Scadden (@JulianScadden). My guest today is Julian Scadden, CEO of Nexstar, an industry education, coaching, content, and data business all-in-one for plumbing, HVAC, and electrical companies. I am super excited for this episode. This is a fascinating company and has been mentioned by no less than three other podcast guests to me, so I’m thrilled to sit down with Julian today. Julian and I talk about Nexstar’s business model and ownership structure, which is really unique, how they help member companies, what the best-performing companies in their membership do, developing and maintaining a sharing-based culture, and so much more. Enjoy! Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/ Links: Nexstar Network Julian on LinkedIn Timestamps: (00:03:40) The correlations between Clear, TSA Pre check & Nexstar (00:06:08) An overview of the Nexstar business model (00:15:21) What a typical year looks like for a member of Nexstar (00:24:43) Potential threats to the culture of sharing built at Nexstar (00:28:22) Scarcity vs. abundance mindset (00:32:39) Common themes across Founders thriving within Nexstar (00:37:53) Ways to test and use predictive analytics (00:40:37) How the market for businesses on Nexstar has evolved (00:43:59) Raising a competitor vs. fighting them (00:46:57) Customizing a service for larger-scale businesses (00:51:40) What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on? (00:53:28) What’s the best business you’ve come across?
Ep.178: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ryan Turk (@Ryan-Turk) and Keith Gross (@Keithmgross).
This is our third episode in our Launch Series, this conversation focused on managing the due diligence process after a signed LOI with past guest Ryan Turk, CEO of Radiation Detection Company, and Keith Gross, Partner at Pacific Lake. This discussion touches on managing third parties, the importance of open and regular communication, the goals of different types of due diligence, and focusing on the issues that matter. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Ryan on LinkedIn Keith on LinkedIn Pacific Lake Partners Radiation Detection Company Think Like an Owner Ep.110 w/ Ryan Turk
Timestamps: (00:02:45) The objective of doing diligence (00:06:15) Deciding where to focus diligence (00:14:05) Having flexibility in your areas of focus (00:15:42) Pipeline management while in diligence or doing a deal (00:22:27) Managing investor communications & Board construction (00:41:42) Managing external parties (00:44:00) Confirmatory diligence (00:46:51) Keeping legal advisors focused (00:50:24) Managing seller relationships
Ep.177: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Sieva Kozinsky (@skozinksky). My guest on this episode is Sieva Kozinsky, co-founder of Enduring Ventures, a holding company founded in 2019 with 17 acquisitions to date. Sieva and I met at a dinner following the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, his first time attending the meeting. A theme from our first conversations in Omaha that continues through this episode is long-term thinking being a huge advantage, and that compounding happens everywhere. Reputation, lessons, and learning - well beyond capital alone. We talk about Sieva’s background as a founder and how it impacts his role at Enduring Ventures, how he discovered he is a better buyer than a builder, great companies and founders he’s studied and taken lessons from, and much more. Enjoy! Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Sieva on LinkedIn Enduring Ventures Founders Podcast Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow The Gambler: How Penniless Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History by William Rempel
Timestamps: (00:03:53) Belief Documents (00:08:39) Long-termism trends (00:11:22) Takeaways from the Berkshire Event (00:20:02) Helping employees & executives think and behave like an owner (00:25:44) Being a Buyer vs. Builder (00:32:36) Culture Index (00:35:24) The importance of having experience as a founder/operator to succeed at Enduring (00:44:18) Pareto Prinicples (00:53:45) Habits, tactics, and learnings from biographies on great founders and companies (01:08:14) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (01:09:34) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Ep.177: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mark Stiving (@Stiving). My guest on this episode is Mark Stiving. Mark is a pricing expert and consults with companies on developing stronger pricing and product positioning strategies. Our discussion today on pricing is wide-ranging from the purposes of pricing, value-based pricing, segmentation, and who’s responsibility pricing is in an organization. What I loved about this episode is getting a distilled view on pricing based on hundreds of case studies over decades of work, giving tons of great lessons for the CEO listener. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links Mark Stiving on LinkedIn Impact Pricing LLC Books by Mark Stiving Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss Invest Like the Best: Henry Schuck - Building Zoominfo Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter
Timestamps (00:03:07) Mark’s early career in pricing (00:11:09) The fundamental purposes of pricing (00:16:06) How to evaluate your product pricing, the CEOs role, and incentivizing Sales (00:26:12) Tools for Salespeople (00:28:14) Teaching Behavior in Sales (00:30:25) Practices for communicating with customers (00:36:44) The scientific process for determining the price of something (00:40:57) When to segment customers (00:48:30) Positioning plans for pricing within websites and calls (00:51:59) Companies that have stellar segmentation and pricing pages (00:53:56) Luxury Pricing (00:56:12) How to raise prices (00:59:33) SaaS Contracts (01:03:49) AI in Pricing (01:06:18) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (01:07:39) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Ep.175: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Phillip Hussey (@phillipdhussey).
My guest on this episode is Phillip Hussey, CEO of Outerland, a landscape maintenance, new build, and snow removal business in Cape Cod, owned by Chenmark. Phillip took the CEO role through Chenmark's GVP program in January 2022. A concept he spends a lot of time thinking about that we discuss in detail is their focus on their internal customer, i.e., the Outerland team. They believe by serving and delighting their internal customers, they will do the same towards their external customers. I love the concept and think CEOs of any business can benefit from hearing their philosophy. We also talk about being the high-end service provider and what that looks like, recruiting for high-end and customer service-oriented companies that Phillip admires. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/
Links: Outerland Chenmark Phillip on LinkedIn
Timestamps (00:03:44) Outerland and executing a rebrand (00:08:11) Describing the ideal Outerland customer (00:09:58) How Outerland differentiates themselves (00:12:26) Building trust with customers (00:16:37) Recruiting talent (00:22:16) Internal customers (00:26:10) Off-season opportunities (00:28:58) Upsell strategies (00:32:05) Studying other companies that create “Wow” moments (00:43:28) Making sure Management gives a damn (00:46:20) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (00:48:05) What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Episode 166: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ed Redden (@Edward-Redden).
Ed and his partner Justin Vogt are former podcast guests from episode 59 where we talked about starting Evermore Industries, an industrial services holding company. Last year they acquired AVUITY, based in Cincinnati, which sells physical commercial office sensors that detect motion, temperature, humidity, and more, along with a data and analytics subscription.
Ed and I talk about making the first acquisition in a holding company strategy, working at the intersection of hardware and software, talent planning and sales development, and life running a company while being a new parent. Enjoy!
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at www.AlexBridgeman.com
Links:
Topics:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:03:23) - Acquiring AVUITY
(00:07:20) - Characteristics that make a great business to acquire
(00:11:38) - Competing with Venture-backed businesses
(00:13:34) - Advice from investors
(00:17:25) - Accelerating Revenue Growth
(00:22:44) - Measuring customer ROI
(00:25:09) - Data application between customers
(00:29:30) - Hiring plans
(00:36:33) - Growth pain points
(00:38:55) - Learning to sell
(00:40:26) - Life as a new parent & operator
This is the third and final episode in our three-part series on Chenmark, a highly successful small business holding company founded in 2015. Today they have acquired 11 operating companies, completed 30+ acquisitions when including add-ons, and have over 600 employees today.
This third episode takes a deep dive into their CEO recruiting function and what has to happen to keep Chenmark on its growth trajectory. We discuss their GVP program where they recruit young hungry leaders to eventually be placed in CEO roles, their GA program for associate-level recruiting, and earning the right to take risks and what that means for them today. I hope you enjoy this third part of the series with Trish Higgins and James Higgins.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Will Thorndike on Invest Like the Best
Topics:
(04:51) Earning the right to take risks
(11:10) Accelerating acquisitions and faster processes
(13:04) Expanding capacity beyond headcount growth
(17:25) Reinvestment in current companies vs. new platforms
(22:08) Not having a full-time person searching for deals
(26:13) Chenmark's GA Associate's Program
(36:31) Hiring CEOs and Operators
(01:04:16) How to make Chenmark be successful for another 20 years
(01:07:17) How to carry on a Newsletter long-term
Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast
This episode is the second in a three-part series we are running on Chenmark, a highly successful small business holding company founded in 2015. Today they have acquired 11 operating companies, completed 30+ acquisitions when including add-ons, and have over 600 employees today.
This second episode focuses on their operating ethos, culture, and incentive structures. We discuss meeting cadence and formats across the company, the use of debt, CEO incentive models, broad incentives beyond CEOs, and lessons learned from building and maintaining good cultures. I hope you enjoy this second part of the series with James Higgins and Palmer Higgins.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
The Weekly Thoughts Newsletter
Listen to Part 1 of this series here
Topics:
(4:26) - How do your core values extend to your portfolio companies?
(6:13) - What are some ways you learn about the culture and core values of a company you acquire?
(8:32) - Is there a wide range in terms of how quickly teams can adapt to these new core values?
(10:52) - How do you assess the willingness to change the culture in new ownership?
(13:57) - Are there a set of recurring meetings you have in the early days of ownership?
(20:02) - Is there an ideal set of principles and tools you’re looking to reach internally for portfolio companies?
(21:26) - Is there a way you’re storing past decisions in a database?
(27:43) - What’s the next piece of the communication cadence journey for you?
(29:00) - How many acquisitions are you making per year?
(32:34) - Are there any other flywheels you didn’t anticipate coming to fruition?
(35:14) - What’s been the evolution of CEO incentives?
(38:53) - Chenmark’s stock purchase program
(42:54) - What companies do you look to for inspiration on compensation plans?
(44:30) - Does the incentive plan change across roles?
(47:06) - Are there any negative consequences of a Free Cash Flow Compensation plan?
(51:51) - What’s the philosophy behind the FCF compensation plan?
(55:18) - Are there any other common principles around compensation or budgets that don’t fit with what you want to do?
Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast
This episode is the first in a three-part series we are running on Chenmark, one of the most well-known and studied holding companies in the entrepreneurship through acquisition world. And for good reason! Since its founding in 2015 they have acquired 11 operating companies, completed 30+ acquisitions when including add-ons, and has over 600 employees today.
This series is not meant to be a one-stop-shop for everything Chenmark. The Higgins’ have appeared on Invest Like the Best, there is a fantastic case study by A.J. Wasserstein about them, and they share their thoughts every week through their Weekly Thoughts newsletter, which is one of my favorites. Instead, this series is meant to dive into topic gaps, where I am most personally curious, and areas of change for Chenmark.
For this first episode, we cover the risk/reward of their path early on, founding ideals, and various pivots and challenges in starting Chenmark. The second episode focuses on their operating ethos, culture, and incentive structures. The third and final episode takes a deep dive on their CEO recruiting function and what has to happen to keep Chenmark on their growth trajectory. I hope you enjoy the series, please enjoy this first episode with Trish Higgins and Palmer Higgins.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Trish and James Higgins on Invest Like the Best
The Weekly Thoughts Newsletter
Topics:
(5:11) - How did you come up with the core values for Chenmark?
(12:58) - Has establishing these values made it easier to communicate change?
(14:06) - How did you each consider pursuing the path of SMB?
(20:57) - How has your thinking evolved since running Chenmark?
(22:09) - Have you found that having competition encourages you that you can build something really successful in this industry?
(24:45) - What skills translated over best from Finance to SMB?
(28:07) - How did your prioritization of tasks change when you made this jump?
(33:00) - What are some ways you make health a priority?
(42:01) - What were some process improvements you made in your first 3 acquisitions?
(46:39) - What have been some helpful tools for evaluating CEOs?
(49:22) - How does performance factor into evaluations?
(51:05) - In the Search world, what changes have you observed the most strongly over the past few years?
(54:42) - Are you enjoying yourself?
(57:26) - What do you like and dislike about your roles?
My guests on this episode are Jalen Ross and Orlando Remak, cofounders of CAM Collective, a holding company for association management companies like HOAs founded in April 2022. Today they have four member companies. I was lucky enough to meet Orlando during a trip to Ohio two years ago before he had started CAM Collective and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him and Jalen.
We talk about being intentionally decentralized while remaining focused on one industry and business model, focusing on growing revenue vs achieving cost savings, looking for ways to automate processes, hiring at a holding company level, and creating a partnership vs. being solo entrepreneurs.
I’m sure you’ll be able to tell very quickly, but Jalen and Orlando beyond being partners are also clearly great friends and are very fun to chat with. I hope you enjoy this episode with Jalen and Orlando.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Topics:
(4:22) - What is the CAM Collective?
(5:09) - What kind of content would you make around CAM?
(6:41) - What are some crazy HOA Management stories?
(11:47) - Why were HOAs interesting to you?
(15:48) - What level of churn do you see in your business?
(17:27) - What are some keys to maintaining HOA relationships?
(20:58) - How does pricing power work in HOA Management?
(22:16) - How have you approached the decentralized nature of the company?
(25:36) - What value propositions did you see were missing in this market?
(31:19) - How do you maintain such a high level of care?
(33:04) - What are some revenue lines and growth opportunities you seen with HOA Management companies?
(37:13) - What are some no-code or automation tools you’ve found to be effective?
(40:55) - What’s the philosophy around having smaller teams?
(50:31) - What are the pros and cons of doing this as a partnership?
(53:55) - Were there any exercises you did on trying to find a career you would enjoy and feel fulfilled in?
(1:02:51) - What are some strongly held beliefs that you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:06:36) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(1:10:52) - More on CAM Collective
Daniel Reese is my final guest on the CEO series with early career CEOs. Daniel acquired IntellaTriage in November 2019 after a military career and searching with a distinct thesis. IntellaTriage handles after-hours calls for providers, senior living businesses, and others with a remote nursing team.
Daniel and I talk about growing a business that felt very much like a startup early on, advice for new CEOs, scaling teams, and finding a balance in his life as CEO. We also talk about working on submarines, which could be an entire podcast in its own right.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast
Links:
Carl Streck on Think Like an Owner
Topics:
(4:09) - Daniel’s Military career
(6:57) - What was the thesis behind your Search?
(8:49) - What was the state of the business when you took over and what did your first 6 months look like?
(10:47) - How was management structured upon acquisition and how did you adjust it?
(12:01) - How did you prioritize hiring for management positions?
(13:19) - What do you feel went well in the first 2 years of ownership and what went poorly?
(15:08) - What did you need to do to enable revenue growth?
(16:34) - What decisions were made in the first 2 years to set up this growth you’re having now?
(18:07) - Has client communication improved your customer churn?
(21:18) - Do you have any feedback mechanisms with customer communication?
(23:28) - How has your ability to focus on long-term projects changed?
(25:22) - How do you go about setting goals?
(26:45) - Has the business changed dramatically since your acquisition?
(28:04) - What needs to happen to scale the company?
(29:22) - How has your life changed since becoming CEO?
(31:31) - How do you approach the way you phrase things to your team as the CEO?
(36:35) - What advice do you offer early-career CEOs?
(38:36) - What do you consider when putting together a board?
(40:11) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(41:38) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
This episode is the second in our CEO series with early career search CEOs in their companies. Today I’m joined by Adam Ilowite and Michael Upex, CEO and COO of Axero Solutions, respectively. Axero is a digital workspace platform for internal communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that was acquired by Adam and Michael in July 2021.
We discuss the timing of making changes in the business, creating a budget from scratch, talent planning, and managing an incredibly steep learning curve, among various other operations topics.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast
Links:
Frank Slootman on Invest Like the Best
Topics:
(4:47) - What was your experience Searching and how were the first few months after the acquisition?
(7:14) - Were there any skills from your careers in Consulting or Investment Banking that played a role in your Search?
(8:55) - What advice did you get from investors or peers on how to handle your first year within the business?
(11:04) - Was there any challenge or learning curve that stands out from that first year?
(16:52) - How did you go about learning ideal process implementation?
(22:52) - What lessons on change management have you learned?
(23:51) - How has your mindset changed as you navigate your second year of ownership?
(26:51) - What are your top 3 priorities?
(28:07) - What’s your philosophy for putting together budgets and hiring plans?
(29:44) - How do you decide on edge-case expenses when you’re structuring a budget?
(31:49) - How did you think about what positions were needed when creating your hiring plan?
(34:38) - What are some common errors or omissions you’ve seen in budgets that you try to avoid?
(36:05) - What are your thoughts on filtering advice and who you should be listening to?
(38:18) - How does industry factor into the types of people you reach out to for advice?
(40:10) - Have you found value in going to industry conferences or trade publications?
(42:28) - What excites you the most about running this business in 2023?
(45:05) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(48:33) - Are there any entrepreneurs or CEOs that you study and admire?
(49:49) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest, Ryan Galea, is the first guest in a CEO series I’m doing with search CEOs who acquired their companies within the last 3 years and have early lessons and emotions in their very recent, or current, memory. The series aims to learn strategies and hear stories from early career CEOs about how to manage the first couple of years running a new company.
Ryan acquired VoiceFriend in August of '21, a communications platform for nursing homes and senior living facilities. Then less than a year later acquired a second business Caremerge which offers engagement software for senior living. Ryan and I discuss managing people and tasks, internal communication, change management with an acquisition vs a merger, and what’s gone differently than expected.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Topics:
(4:25) - Ryan’s career
(10:48) - How do you Prioritize tasks and which ones to delegate?
(11:59) - What’s your process for training someone to do a task you’ve previously done yourself?
(13:56) - How do you think about the way you phrase things given your role as CEO?
(16:01) - What made you decide to get a law degree?
(17:20) - Has your time horizon shifted as you’ve been able to delegate more of the business?
(18:37) - How has this shift affected your priorities?
(20:09) - Was there a critical point that allowed you to become more strategic as a CEO?
(22:09) - What are some of your biggest learnings in the process of integrating acquisitions?
(24:08) - What were some of the differences between the initial acquisition vs. the merger?
(28:46) - What strategies do you use to clear uncertainty?
(29:43) - What has been your best win and toughest loss during your first 2 years?
(31:33) - What kind of advice would you offer a first-year CEO?
(33:28) - In what ways has your life as CEO turned out differently than you thought it would?
(34:12) - What’s a strongly held belief that you’ve changed your mind on?
(35:23) - What are some ways you try to identify really motivated people?
(36:23) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
This is the last of a six-episode series with Trilogy Search Partners focused on Search, Search-backed acquisitions, and small business operations. Today we have a great conversation with Stijn Hendrikse, an operating partner at Trilogy.
As an author of T2D3.pro, serial entrepreneur, and marketing leader, Stijn has contributed to the success of 10+ startups as a C-level executive, including the Chief Revenue Officer of Acumatica and CEO of MightyCall, a SaaS contact center solution.
Stijn founded Kalungi - the global leading Growth-as-a-Service provider focused solely on B2B SaaS companies, and Amy.us, an AI-powered conversation platform that allows small business owners to service their customers better.
Before focusing on startups, Stijn led global SMB Marketing and B2B Product Marketing for Microsoft’s Office platform.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Topics:
(1:53) - Breaking down the SAAS business model
(4:22) - What are some of the SAAS companies and marketing teams you’ve been a part of over your career?
(7:20) - What led you to ultimately work with Search Funds?
(11:22) - What kinds of companies do you encourage Searchers to look for?
(13:50) - How do you value the effectiveness of a marketing function in a company?
(20:03) - Where can early CEOs improve on pricing?
(25:58) - Do you recommend any proactive communication cadence with customers?
(30:45) - How do you start developing a high-performing marketing function?
(33:38) - When does bringing on a fractional CMO make sense?
(35:24) - What’s the best mix long-term for in-house marketing vs. outsourcing?
(37:36) - How do you find the right person to grow within your marketing function
(42:17) - What strategies do successful CEOs use to help get teams behind their vision?
(43:49) - What’s really important to know about the Ideal Customer Profile?
(48:25) - How do you develop an effective outbound campaign?
(57:36) - How incoming CEOs can add value
Today’s episode is a rerun with past guest Ross Brendel, a co-founder and the managing partner of Westerly Group alongside cofounder Rich Littlehale. Westerly Group invests in acquisition entrepreneurs with committed, permanent capital to pursue a specific industry thesis over an indefinite time horizon. They are investors in several of our podcast guests such as Justin Vogt and Ed Redden, Eric Factor, and Austin King, among others.
I wanted to bring this episode back to your attention as permanent capital and longer time horizons are becoming more talked about today and I think it’s important to discuss the nuances of this approach, as Ross does in this episode.
In this conversation, Ross shares Westerly’s permanent capital thesis and model, whether buying a business has become harder or easier, how to think about a purchase price with a longer-term view, and the nuanced advantages of committed capital in pursuing acquisitions.
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Links:
Topics:
(3:32) - Ross’ background & career
(6:39) - Why do you think interest in longer-term hold vehicles has increased in the past few years?
(9:33) - Should entrepreneurs be less price-sensitive when looking to buy a business?
(11:36) - How do you find entrepreneurs with the right mindset when buying a business?
(13:42) - Do you think buying a business has gotten harder over the past 5-10 years?
(18:46) - What are some of the unique ways you’ve seen Searchers find companies to buy?
(20:25) - Can you tell us about some of the teams you’ve backed?
(23:19) - Can you talk through some of the advantages of committed capital structures?
(28:06) - Was it intentional to take a generalist approach to your work?
(31:53)- What happens if an entrepreneur you back loses desire for the industry they initially start Searching in?
(33:51) - Does your Zero Horizon Investor idea give you more flexibility in terms of the business models you go after?
(37:18) - Are there any other models in Search that are interesting to you?
(39:36) - How do you think you’ll continue to find entrepreneurs and teams? Do you have a formulaic approach?
(42:10) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(44:12) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(45:33) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Sandy Paige. Sandy has been an operator several times over his career, including being a general manager at a Maine paper mill, a director of The Jackson Laboratory, and others which gave him a wide range of experience to use in growing the company he acquired as a searcher, Explora BioLabs.
He’s also an outlier in being one of, if not the, oldest searchers. But his results speak for themselves: Sandy grew Explora BioLabs over the course of 4 years starting in May 2018 to sell for $295 million in April 2022.
Sandy and I talk about the importance of communication as a CEO and his philosophy behind it, how he sought and hired managers who could grow with the company, early career CEO mistakes to avoid, communicating with your board, and his priorities and focus in the CEO role.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Check out this podcast for a deeper dive into Sandy's background
Topics:
(2:58) - Can you give us your background and career to this point?
(6:36) - How did the paper mill experience influence your management style?
(10:45) - What were some of the characteristics of bosses you worked for that you tried to emulate?
(12:43) - Are there skills that helped you refine your best qualities as a manager?
(15:30) - What do you look for when hiring?
(18:54) - What do you think early career CEOs often miss in management hires?
(21:56) - Are there questions or techniques you use to inform you the hire is a hard worker?
(24:14) - What started to happen after those hires?
(27:41) - As your company grew, how did your team structures have to change?
(33:45) - How do you position a company so that it increases enterprise value?
(35:39) - What made it so different for you?
(37:52) - Did you find it challenging to run the business while going through diligence?
(40:08) - What was your set of responsibilities and priorities as a CEO?
(42:03) - What kind of communication cadence did you have with your board?
(45:08) - How do you ask good questions to your board?
(46:34) - Is there any advice you often give to early career CEOs?
(48:21) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(49:48) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Michael Coscetta. Michael has held several high-level sales roles at companies like Square, Compass, his own company, and his current role as CRO of Paxos, and through it all has become an expert in designing and managing sales teams.
This was a fantastic conversation about all things sales and building sales teams and is one I will be re-listening to several times over the coming years. While a large portion of Michael’s time has been spent in very large sales organizations, the principles he talks about are still widely applicable in companies of any size, and all regular listeners to this podcast are in for a treat.
Michael and I talk about writing high-value sales contracts, the growing importance of high-performing sales operations, how sales have become data-driven and more quantitative, how to recruit for sales, and the leadership of sales.
One final note before the episode, I want to meet more sales professionals, especially in data and data software. If you, or someone you know, have expertise in data enterprise sales I would love the chance to connect. You can find me on my website alexbridgeman.com, LinkedIn, and Twitter, or send me an email directly at alex.e.bridgeman@gmail.com. Thank you, I look forward to chatting soon!
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Links:
Superhuman's Fundraising Playbook with CEO Rahul Vohra on the Acquired Podcast
On Revenue Quality with Bradley Roofner and Logan Brown - Ep.145 of TLAO
Topics:
(4:32) - Michael’s background and career
(7:03) - Are there any common principles you’ve picked up over the course of these vastly different experiences?
(9:28) - What have learned about building valuable sales contracts?
(12:42) - What processes or strategies have you developed to find the right pricing matrix arrangement?
(15:49) - Are there any questions you ask customers to find optimum pricing?
(18:55) - Have you seen an evolution in how sales teams are viewed in companies?
(22:04) - Is there any data set that has the most impact on a sales team?
(24:37) - What are the differences between sales orgs of less than 50 people and larger ones?
(27:33) - How do you go about setting sales goals?
(30:38) - Do you have a sense for trigger points for when you separate different parts of the sales process into their own individual teams
(32:42) - How do you view renewals or upsells for existing customers vs. new ones?
(33:57) - What personalities or characteristics work best for filling out different sales roles?
(40:31) - Are there any helpful questions or interview styles to determine whether a candidate is a good fit?
(42:57) - What are some best practices for making sure sales and products are communicating effectively?
(45:57) - Are there any communications methods that work well with customers?
(48:51) - How does the product team decide what customer feedback is valid and what is noise?
(53:09) - In this environment, how do you continue to build and improve your sales team?
(55:54) - Can you expand on the concept of the sales org being the brains of a revenue organization?
(58:00) - How can a CEO get more involved with their sales team in a non-disruptive way?
(1:00:16) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(1:01:11) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(1:04:06) - What other companies do you study and admire for their sales org?
My guest on this episode is Nick Buchanan. Nick and his father founded a data software business called BUCSanalytics in 2007. BUCS builds deep analytical dashboards for CEOs that pull from internal data sources like ERPs, inventory systems, and more. Long-time customer Trevor Flannigan, COO of the Flint Group, introduced us after hearing about my deep curiosity of data companies.
Nick and I talk about building the company with his father, building momentum in product development and sticking close to customers, hiring a talented team, and how to find groups and peers to help guide your entrepreneurial journey. Please enjoy this fantastic conversation with Nick Buchanan.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Sean Joy – CEO Journey within Chenmark – Ep.152
Topics:
(2:15) - What is Buck’s Analytics and the founding story?
(7:35) - Are there any industries you’ve specialized in?
(9:38) - Can you walk through product development?
(13:11) - How do you decide on outcomes of experiments where results come out similar?
(16:25) - Are there 2-3 ways you measure engagement and value?
(17:41) - What’s been the process of evolution on the sales side?
(20:53) - What are the channels you’re hoping to develop further?
(22:13) - What are the benefits of having a group of peers over time?
(25:34) - Is there one change or development in your peer group that’s helped the most?
(27:35) - Where was your mindset when starting Bucks and how has it changed over time?
(29:19) - What are some of the most successful ways you’ve found to attract and keep talent at Bucks?
(32:21) - what does it look like fulfilling a new employee’s goals?
(34:46) - What’ve you learned the most about managing change in a company?
(36:37) - What’s your philosophy for setting goals?
(39:21) - Have you ever made secondary adjustments to annual goals?
(40:30) - What goal do you feel you’re the most excited to achieve this year?
(41:13) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(42:40) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Carl Streck, founder and CEO of MountainSeed, a data and software business serving commercial real estate professionals. I was introduced to Carl by Michael Arrieta after asking Michael for the most interesting entrepreneurs in data he knew of, and Carl’s name was the first out of his mouth. Carl started MountainSeed in 2006 to build software serving banks making commercial real estate loans and eventually developed a data product to help banks make more data-driven decisions.
Carl and I talk about bootstrapping a data software company, evolutions in his management style as the company grew, the business models of data companies, and how staying close to customers impacted the development of their data product. Enjoy!
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
The Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas
Topics:
(2:46) - How has your thought process around raising capital changed over the years?
(5:43) - Does your mindset towards capital change when it comes to accelerating growth vs. starting growth?
(8:03) - What have you learned from peers or your own experience in finding the right investor/company fit?
(10:29) - What was your role and how did it evolve during different stages of team size in the organization?
(14:16) - As companies grow, where do you see CEOs and founders start to struggle?
(17:46) - Is there a way to build a culture that encourages feedback they might not want to share otherwise?
(21:05) - What are some of the most impactful behavioral changes you’ve made to build trust and feedback with the team?
(25:43) - When you study CEOs of larger companies, what is different about how they operate as leaders?
(28:23) - Can you walk us through how you view your product portfolio and how the two work together?
(32:40) -How do you compare SAAS businesses to Data Businesses?
(35:56) - Does your Data Analytics platform work within the platforms or software of customers?
(38:23) - How would you categorize the customers of your product?
(41:02) - Does the Analytics platform license 3rd party data sources?
(43:19) - How are you looking to design and build a data company that lasts?
(46:07) - How do you incorporate customer feedback or determine new features?
(49:09)- What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(52:24) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Sean Joy, CEO at Buccaneer Pirate and Southern Star Dolphin Cruise, a company owned by Chenmark in Destin, FL that provides seasonal boat tours. Sean was a part of Chenmark’s GVP, the Generalist Vice President program that provides a career track to becoming a CEO at a Chenmark company.
Individuals start by working on a couple of projects within the portfolio, then take a non-CEO operating role in a company, before moving to a CEO role. Sean’s background was in control workouts and restructuring, which we talk about to kick off the episode before he found a small business in Chenmark and inquired about their GVP program.
Over the course of the episode, we talk about Sean’s finance experience, what he pays close attention to given his restructuring experience, managing cash in a highly seasonal business, the wide array of services offered on a tour boat and how they interact, and the power of price increases. Enjoy!
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Links:
Topics:
(6:08) - What are some interesting lessons you learned and experiences in restructuring?
(12:52) - What are some habits you have today as a CEO that you can tie back to prior experiences in restructuring?
(14:40) - How did you connect with Chenmark and what about it was appealing to you?
(16:52) - What were the roles you had when you first joined the organization?
(20:27) - Were there any learning curves early on in your role as CEO?
(22:06) - How much debt was in the business?
(23:39) - What are some ways that you manage cash throughout the year with a heavily seasonal business?
(27:33) - What are some of the add-on services you’ve implemented to increase revenue?
(31:46) - What are your criteria for cutting vs. keeping products?
(32:47) - How much time and energy do you spend on pricing your products?
(38:10) - How dynamic is your pricing?
(39:28) - What other improvements are top of mind for you?
(46:26) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(48:51) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Ayo Phillips. You’ll remember Ayo’s episode last March, episode 56 titled “Small Company Firefighting”, where Ayo walked us through all the different challenges he was facing in his apartment turnover services business, Perfect Surface. Since then he sold the business a couple of months ago and I wanted to hear all about the progress he made in the business to professionalize and prepare it for sale.
Ayo and I talk about building from a turnaround position, coaching replacements and developing a management team, the process of selling your business, and his reflections on industry selection.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Ayo Phillips - Small Company Firefighting - Ep.56
On Revenue Quality with Bradley Roofner and Logan Brown - Ep.145
Topics:
(3:50) - What’s the high-level overview of taking over this company and how you rebuilt the business in order to make the acquisition possible?
(23:16)- What revenue streams did the acquirer value most?
(24:47) - Is there some value is approaching potential acquirers to see what would make your company more attractive?
(28:03) - How much more helpful was it that you had a replacement ready to take over your role?
(29:10) - How has your thinking changed around working in a business or industry that you aren’t passionate about?
(31:27) - What factors into your thinking now when you evaluate an industry?
My guests on this episode are Heritage Holding co-founders Alex de Pfyffer and Ross Porter. Heritage acquires companies across industries, but has a special focus on IT services and data centers. I’m a data geek and love talking with entrepreneurs in data, and haven’t talked with much of anyone on the hardware side so this conversation was a lot of fun for me.
We talk about identifying companies offering essential services, their data center acquisitions and strategy, what they’ve learned from private equity on growing companies, and thoughts on a long-term structure for Heritage going forward.
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Links:
Topics:
(3:03) - What’s the background for Heritage and how did you each get to this point?
(5:56) - What ideas were you considering for a startup?
(7:57) - Have there been any guiding principals or common threads through the acquisitions you’ve done thus far?
(11:49) - What does the data center business model look like?
(13:53) - Is there some overlap with your ISP or Fiber investments?
(15:00) - Is there some first mover advantage to bring Fiber Optic Cable to a certain area?
(16:33) - Who is your typical competitor?
(18:38) - Once you own an ISP, what are the ROI metrics for expanding that footprint?
(20:27) - Where do you see other opportunities in data for investments?
(26:10) - What have you learned from managing companies of different sizes?
(34:09) - What changes the most when you go from $10m to $50m of EBITDA?
(37:29) - What are some structure questions in your mind as you look to future acquisitions?
(43:35) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve each changed your mind on?
(49:41) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Johnny Lieberman and Zack Miller, who together founded Worklyn Partners to acquire and grow cybersecurity and IT services companies.
A concept we talk a lot about in the episode is how the two businesses create a flywheel between each other. I find these flywheels fascinating and I've talked about others such as the flywheel between media and data with FreightWaves founder Craig Fuller in Episode 121.
Johnny and Zack share how the two business models function both together and independently, where growth is coming from and trends driving that growth, developing sales teams, and why only the paranoid survive. Enjoy.
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Links:
Topics:
(2:41) - Can you walk us through the timeline of Worklyn and where you’re at today?
(9:35) - How do your cybersecurity & IT platforms work collaboratively together?
(11:07) - Why are you pursuing growth via acquisition on the IT side but not in cybersecurity?
(17:07) - Is there a similar dynamic between sales in IT services and Cyber?
(18:08) - How does the sales cycle work from getting an IT customer over to the Cyber side?
(22:42) - What are some high-level industry tail winds you’ve observed?
(29:49) - Could the flywheel between Cyber and IT extend to software businesses or service tools that could support the business?
(33:59) - Within Worklyn, where do you see most of the value being created?
(36:49) - How have you been working to attract great people to your teams?
(40:01) - How have you structured management compensation?
My guest on this episode is Richard Reese. Richard took over as CEO of Iron Mountain, a physical records management business, in 1981. He ran the business as CEO through going public in 1996 before retiring from the role in 2013. Revenue over that period grew from around $3 million in 1981 to $3 billion in 2013.
Our discussion focuses on incentivizing teams with cash and stock, something Richard has thought deeply about over many decades, developing compensation plans, working with private and public investors, and a few stories from the early years of running Iron Mountain.
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Links:
Topics:
(4:03) - Richard’s background, career, and time as CEO for Iron Mountain
(14:03) - What became easier when you went public? What became harder?
(17:30) - What did your management team look like when you stepped in and how did you look to evolve it?
(24:29) - When you started thinking about incentivizing the management team, what were some ways you got them to buy in?
(38:35) - What kind of challenges did you run into with equity compensations?
My guest on this episode is Judd Lorson. Judd acquired Alliance CAS, a specialty collection agency, in 2018 as CEO and in 2021 resigned from the role after a much more difficult road and path than he’d anticipated. Judd’s story was recently profiled in a Yale paper by A.J. Wasserstein titled “The Judd Lorson Story” which we will link to in the show notes and I highly recommend reading for background on Judd’s time as CEO.
For this conversation, we are focusing on new daily habits and foundations he has created influenced by his experience, what he values today, how those values have changed over time and the power of having a growth mindset.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
“The Judd Lorson Story” by A.J. Wasserstein
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
Judd on LinkedIn
Contact Judd via email at Judd.lorson@gmail.com
Topics:
(4:10) - Judd’s background and career
(14:44) - What was a typical day or week like for you as a CEO and what would that ideally look like today?
(21:10) - How do you feel now in your emotional balance now vs. when you were working in the business?
(23:07) - Do you think if you had started your work as CEO with these habits it would’ve been a more successful experience?
(24:42) - How are you planning to adjust your work-life balance in a potential second stint as CEO?
(28:13) - What advice would you give to young searchers who are in the process of making life changes outside of work such as starting a family?
(31:30) - What are some tactics you could use to engage with those changing dynamics over time?
(33:32) - What goals did you have for 2022?
(38:06) - What are some of your Slight Edge Habits?
(41:55) - Are you totally caffeine free?
(44:06) - Was there anything to simulate day and night while on the submarine?
(47:04) - What other changes in your daily habits or values are you looking to achieve in the future?
(50:04) - Is there a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(53:12) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Luis Reyes, managing partner at Iberian Ventures in Spain. Luis worked in strategy consulting before acquiring small companies in Spain in a similar vein as the search fund model through Iberian. We kick off by talking about the buyout market in Spain and what makes it particularly attractive. For example, all private companies in Spain have to file their financials with the government. As a result, the full financial picture of any company in Spain can be found and sorted.
We also spend a great deal of time talking about one of their core investment theses, the fire protection market, and why it’s an ideal market for consolidation.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Luis on LinkedIn
Iberian Ventures
Topics:
(3:42) - What is Spain like as a buyout market?
(9:05) - What are the regulations around requiring private companies to make their financials public?
(12:17) - Did you have any previous ties to Spain before deciding to plant roots there?
(13:52) - Was your previous career experience in finance and consulting helpful in working with business owners?
(15:12) - Can you give us a walkthrough of the companies you’ve purchased so far and how you structure acquisition?
(18:32) - What does the fire protection industry look like country-wide and how does it compare to how you’ve approached it?
(25:00) - What are financing options for acquisitions?
(26:33) - Can you walk us through an example of a transaction and integration?
(32:18) - What are your options for exiting?
(34:38) - What are the options or paths you’re thinking about in the long-term?
(36:07) - Do you see other Searchers in Spain stepping outside the traditional model?
(38:09) - What other industries do you find interesting and is there any limit to your team's capabilities to manage over multiple industries?
(42:13) - Are you raising money to build internal software?
(45:25) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
My guests on this episode are Bradley Roofner and Logan Brown, who together, along with a third partner Kade Thomas, acquired WLE, a landscaping firm in Austin, Texas, in 2017. After nearly four years of operating, they sold the company to Brightview, a public landscaping company and one of the largest in the country.
Our discussion today focuses on revenue quality, a topic Bradley and Logan have given a great deal of thought to. We talk about defining revenue quality and how to identify high and low quality revenue, creating your ideal customer profile, how to sell that customer building a motivated sales organization, emphasizing high quality revenue across an organization, writing more valuable customer contracts, and various tips they have for CEOs looking to boost revenue quality and thereby their company's valuation. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Bradley on LinkedIn
Logan on LinkedIn
The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
Topics:
(2:44) - What was the business you ran in Austin?
(4:29) - What would you say are some aspects of high-quality revenue and aspects of low-quality revenue?
(6:57) - Was there any revenue that wasn’t as clear cut to be either high or low quality?
(8:35) - How did you beef up the quality of revenue in your first 90 days?
(15:350 - How did you go about determining who your ideal customer would be?
(19:38) - What decisions are made based on the ideal customer profile?
(28:09) - How did you build out your outside Sales Org?
(31:31) - Did you have more success hiring people for Sales that had industry experience or Sales experience?
(33:15) - How did you instruct Sales people to navigate price increases?
(35:01) - Was your Sales Team compensated based on margin?
(36:07) - What were some levers in cash and collections that improved Quality of Revenue?
(44:04) - Did you find that as Quality of Revenue increased, the number of customers in collections decreased?
(46:40) - Did you find some interaction between construction and maintenance?
(50:47) - How did you go about measuring the conversion rate from low to high quality revenue?
(53:11) - How did Quality of Revenue impact your lives?
(59:11) - What advice would you offer CEO’s looking to do general clean up in their business?
My guest on this episode is Josh Schultz, current president CaneKast and previously co-founder of the Chess Group. Josh has partnered with Reg Zeller, a former podcast guest from Episode 81 and CaneKast founder, to acquire and streamline foundries across the country. But as Josh and I talked about in the episode, that is far from their only ambition.
Josh and I talk about what has changed the most in the year since joining CaneKast, how he approaches scaling, organizations, and teams, documenting processes, change management, and finding a complementary partner to work with.
Josh is also a great friend and a person I deeply admire. He's incredibly intelligent, process driven, and creative, and I always love talking with him. Please enjoy our conversation.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Josh on Twitter
JoshuaSchultz.com
CaneKast
Reg Zeller on Twitter
The SMB Ops show
Topics:
(2:58) - What would you say are the biggest changes you’ve seen in your business in the past 10 months?
(4:45) - Do you feel like there’s an order of operations for changing or tracking different things?
(7:00) - How did you go about understanding pricing and mold counts?
(10:47) - Do you believe you’re creating a competitive advantage beyond pricing that contributes to growing sales?
(12:40) - What’s the most challenging piece to improving service?
(14:45) - How much do you think making internal data more transparent has impacted your efforts?
(19:46) - How do you get someone with deep domain expertise to share and document knowledge?
(20:51) - What is the goal for building multiple solo companies within CaneKast?
(23:42) - What are some business models that are inspiring this move?
(25:05) - The importance of building a competitive advantage
(27:15) - Do you feel your competitive advantage will allow you to acquire other foundries?
(29:02) - Do you think there’s correct pacing to change?
(30:45) - How do you approach setting a vision for the company?
(34:49) - How do you view what types of aspects of the business will change next?
(36:51) - Where do you think you’ll feel the strain as you start acquiring companies?
(38:34) - How do you go about learning a new topic?
(42:10) - How have you used media and podcasting to build relationships?
(43:47) - What advice do you have for finding a good partner?
(46:00) - How did you think about your role at CaneKast?
(48:18) - Have you always had this Entrepreneurial Impatience?
(50:43) - Where do you feel like you need to be patient?
(54:56) - Evolving the CEO role to pure people & executive team management
(59:26) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:00:09) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(1:03:24) - What’s next for you in manufacturing after foundries?
My guest on this episode is Brandon Kuchta, the former CEO of Analytical Technologies Group, which provides repair, maintenance, and contract services for lab instruments. I say former because he sold ATG last October, and today's episode is going to cover all things selling a company from determining the right timing, what is typical in a process, and communication across stakeholders. We also talk about life after the sale, including Brandon's consulting period with the new owners and how operators can relax and give themselves a well-deserved and often much-needed break. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Brandon Kuchta on LinkedIn
Seven Springs Partners
Topics:
(2:31) - What was the business you ran and what was the process for selling it?
(4:09) - How did you know it was the right time to sell the business?
(7:03) - What advice did you get from other folks about selling a business and planning for life after the sale?
(8:27) - How long was it between deciding to sell and selling the business?
(9:25) - What sorts of things would you do to prepare to sell a business if you had a 2-3 year runway?
(13:12) - Would you run a business differently if you knew you would be selling it?
(14:39) - What made you decide to hire a bank to represent the company instead of going directly to buyers?
(16:18) - How did you filter which bank you would partner with?
(19:41) - What types of offers were you fielding?
(22:11) - What were the typical terms you saw for seller financing?
(23:38) - How did you think through rollover structures within offers?
(26:04) - What were some expectations buyers had if they wanted you to roll over some equity?
(27:48) - What was your thinking on a strategic sale vs. a PE sale?
(29:33) - How do you think about communicating the process of selling with different stakeholders?
(34:28) - What was the reaction from your team when you announced the sale?
(36:32) - What did the consulting agreement look like?
(38:41) - What is your role today?
(39:16) - How have you relaxed and decompressed as the former CEO?
(43:31) - What are your health and fitness plans?
(49:10) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(50:59) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is A.J. Wasserstein. Early in his career, A.J. founded Archives One, a physical records management business he operated as CEO for 17 years before selling to Iron Mountain. He then acquired One Source Water, which was eventually sold to Water Logic in 2016. He then began teaching at Yale School of Management where he has written ad nauseam about nearly every topic within growing and running small companies and search funds. His writings are my go-to resource for many questions and business concepts I want to learn more about, and I'm quick to recommend them to others.
A.J. and I talk about being a professor and how to get involved if you’d like to teach, why students do not pursue entrepreneurship through acquisition and work-life integration as CEO, a topic A.J. has written and thought very deeply about, among other topics. Please enjoy this fantastic conversation with AJ Wasserstein.
Links:
More on A.J. Wasserstein
The Judd Lorson story by A.J. Wasserstein
Why MBA Students Do Not Pursue Entrepreneurship through Acquisition by A.J. Wasserstein
How CEOs actually spend their time? by A.J. Wasserstein
Topics:
(3:14) - What made you excited to publish a paper covering an unsuccessful search?
(4:26) - Is it a conscious part of your process to present both sides of an issue in your writing?
(5:45) - What was your experience like going from a CEO to academia?
(8:39) - What were some challenges you faced as a CEO?
(13:49) - In your experience, did you find your workload felt reduced as you grew different departments?
(15:20) - Is work-life integration as a CEO possible?
(18:03) - Are there any CEOs you know who have achieved this balance?
(19:39) - How do you think about the ROI of your time spent as an investor, professor, and content creator via research papers?
(25:52) - You said it takes 5 years to be a successful CEO, would you say it takes the same amount of time as a professor?
(27:04) - What are some best practices for being an effective professor?
(30:20) - What moments as a professor bring you the most joy?
(32:02) - How do you help students think by asking them questions?
(34:25) - For someone in the process of selling their business, how would you recommend testing out the waters of academia?
(37:59) - What were some interesting observations you saw in students after they went through the Search Fund curriculum?
(43:20) - For students wanting to pursue Search, what roles were most effective in helping them feel ready
(48:41) - Do you have any desire to turn your papers into a book one day?
(49:55) - Do you find there are any themes that come up consistently in your writing?
(52:15) - Do you get the sense more folks are thinking about work-life integration than ever before?
(55:18) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(57:42) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Jamie Shah. Jamie worked in investment banking and Google before returning to her family's business, Chem-Impex International, which manufactures materials for life sciences companies, as VP of Operations.
Today, she is the managing director at the company and a professor at Chicago Booth, where she teaches a course on family business. Our discussion focuses on lessons to be learned from family businesses, which are more trusted and stable and generate higher returns. We talk about what success looks like in failing businesses, the balance of paradoxes, and how to apply principles that make family businesses successful to all companies.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Connect with Jamie
HeartlandHopeMission.org/Christmas
Jamie on LinkedIn
Chem-Impex International
Kauffman Fellows
Lee Kum Kee
Family Business as a Paradox by Amy Schuman, John Ward, and Stacy Stutz
Unconventional Wisdom by John Ward
Succeeding Generations by Ivan Lansberg
The Three-Circle Model
HBR: What You Can Learn From Family Business
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Topics:
(2:46) - Jamie’s background and career with Family Businesses
(9:46) - How do you feel like your family’s business is run compared to others?
(11:12) - What was the most interesting Family Business you learned about at Northwestern?
(13:24) - Why do you think there are such high levels of stability, trust, and returns in Family Businesses?
(15:54) - The boring aspect of Family Businesses
(18:53) - What are some observations you have about the different paths within entrepreneurship?
(22:01) - What are some examples of different business goals within Family Businesses you’ve studied?
(25:00) - What are some paradoxes you’ve identified in Family Businesses?
(28:38) - How does your Family Business deal with being uncomfortable in these paradoxes?
(30:16) - Do you think conflict is good because it forces clarity?
(31:20) - Which benefits of a Family Business would be most replicable to other styles of businesses? Which would be most difficult?
(34:29) - Why are Family Businesses cautious to take on debt?
(38:35) - How often is the CEO of a Family Business a member of the family?
(40:44) - How do Family Businesses navigate liquidity, control and capital?
(42:24) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(43:39) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Nevin Raj, Co-Founder and COO of Grata. Grata is a fascinating data software business that takes in all available public information about private companies, such as their website, LinkedIn, funding data, PPP data, and so much more. It then uses that data to create the most accurate profile of that company in their industry, headcount, business model, revenue range, and more.
Nevin and I talk about the categories of data businesses and where he sees data businesses evolving into, how to accurately estimate the revenue of private companies and how the best investors do it today, and how to build a data software business.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Nevin Raj on LinkedIn
Grata
Politico Pro
Quorum
Verisk
Second Measure Transaction Data
Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas
Topics:
(3:12) - What are your thoughts on data vs. workflow as business models?
(7:30) - Do you see data businesses developing into more of a ‘wisdom’ category of companies?
(13:42) - Can you walk us through the different types of data businesses?
(22:53) - How would you describe a workflow company?
(24:37) - Within your business, can you walk through the different ways you can get data from private companies?
(27:52) - What are some of the data sets that correlate most with revenue size?
(30:04) - How do the leading investors you’ve studied or worked with historically estimate the size of a company?
(32:14) - How much do you balance measurable data and intuition?
(34:51) - How do you integrate the data you have with your client’s software and workflows?
(38:11) - What were the early days of Grata like and what did growth look like?
(41:27) - What second-level data sets do you want to add to Grata over time to build a moat?
(44:13) - Do you think eventually most data businesses will become workflow businesses?
(46:49) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:18) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(50:56) - Are there any insights you’ve gleaned from ZoomInfo you want to apply to Grata?
My guest on this episode is Nevin Raj, Co-Founder and COO of Grata. Grata is a fascinating data software business that takes in all available public information about private companies, such as their website, LinkedIn, funding data, PPP data, and so much more. It then uses that data to create the most accurate profile of that company in their industry, headcount, business model, revenue range, and more.
Nevin and I talk about the categories of data businesses and where he sees data businesses evolving into, how to accurately estimate the revenue of private companies and how the best investors do it today, and how to build a data software business.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Nevin Raj on LinkedIn
Grata
Politico Pro
Quorum
Verisk
Second Measure Transaction Data
Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas
Topics:
(3:12) - What are your thoughts on data vs. workflow as business models?
(7:30) - Do you see data businesses developing into more of a ‘wisdom’ category of companies?
(13:42) - Can you walk us through the different types of data businesses?
(22:53) - How would you describe a workflow company?
(24:37) - Within your business, can you walk through the different ways you can get data from private companies?
(27:52) - What are some of the data sets that correlate most with revenue size?
(30:04) - How do the leading investors you’ve studied or worked with historically estimate the size of a company?
(32:14) - How much do you balance measurable data and intuition?
(34:51) - How do you integrate the data you have with your client’s software and workflows?
(38:11) - What were the early days of Grata like and what did growth look like?
(41:27) - What second-level data sets do you want to add to Grata over time to build a moat?
(44:13) - Do you think eventually most data businesses will become workflow businesses?
(46:49) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:18) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(50:56) - Are there any insights you’ve gleaned from ZoomInfo you want to apply to Grata?
I'm very excited to share that starting today Think Like An Owner will now be publishing episodes twice per week. This change coincides with our decision to close the Operators Handbook and move those topic-specific conversations to the podcast for Thursday morning episodes. You can expect these episodes to focus on topics like sales, culture, hiring, debt, capital allocation, leadership, board meetings, and dozens of other topics. This is an addition I've wanted to make for a long time, and I finally feel like the podcast is ready to go to this next level towards our endless pursuit of better in small business.
The second episode also means we have more availability to partner with great companies serving operators and investors through podcast sponsorships. If you're interested, please send me an email at alex@jointheoperator.com or connect with me on Twitter or our website alexbridgeman.com. I'd love to chat.
Jessica Markowitz, President and COO at Paragon Legal, kicks off our new topic-specific episodes. Paragon offers outsourced legal services to corporate legal departments, which Jessica and her partner Trista Angele acquired in 2018. Our conversation covers all things culture, including defining culture, maintaining and enforcing culture, and how to build a culture in a remote-first company. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Jessica Markowitz on LinkedIn
Paragon Legal
Topics:
(2:58) - What is the purpose of Paragon Legal?
(5:10) - What values do you view as incomplete and what are some complete ones?
(9:47) - Is there one value that you see as most difficult to live out?
(11:55) - What are some of the most recent adjustments you’ve made to Paragon’s values?
(13:31) - How do you sus out whether someone will live out your values in the interviewing and onboarding process?
(16:42) - Do you have some way to quantify an employee’s alignment with values during performance reviews?
(17:54) - How do you maintain and communicate values to the team?
(19:33) - Have there been any particular challenges with enforcing values?
(23:03) - How have you approached building a culture in a remote-natured company?
(29:07) - What are you considering adding or changing concerning communication or trust building?
(30:20) - How do you approach a situation where a team member is continuously not living up to the Paragon values?
(31:59) - What are some other benefits you’ve seen from focusing so much on values and culture?
(34:04) - Have you found any way to accelerate the process of building trust with a new employee to be open and honest with management?
(37:38) - Do you view the act of building a strong culture allows you to trust your team much easier in terms of delegation?
(39:30) - Where are you focusing on improving right now in terms of culture?
(43:05) - Do you have a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(44:02) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
I'm very excited to share that starting today Think Like An Owner will now be publishing episodes twice per week. This change coincides with our decision to close the Operators Handbook and move those topic-specific conversations to the podcast for Thursday morning episodes. You can expect these episodes to focus on topics like sales, culture, hiring, debt, capital allocation, leadership, board meetings, and dozens of other topics. This is an addition I've wanted to make for a long time, and I finally feel like the podcast is ready to go to this next level towards our endless pursuit of better in small business.
The second episode also means we have more availability to partner with great companies serving operators and investors through podcast sponsorships. If you're interested, please send me an email at alex@jointheoperator.com or connect with me on Twitter or our website alexbridgeman.com. I'd love to chat.
Jessica Markowitz, President and COO at Paragon Legal, kicks off our new topic-specific episodes. Paragon offers outsourced legal services to corporate legal departments, which Jessica and her partner Trista Angele acquired in 2018. Our conversation covers all things culture, including defining culture, maintaining and enforcing culture, and how to build a culture in a remote-first company. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Jessica Markowitz on LinkedIn
Paragon Legal
Topics:
(2:58) - What is the purpose of Paragon Legal?
(5:10) - What values do you view as incomplete and what are some complete ones?
(9:47) - Is there one value that you see as most difficult to live out?
(11:55) - What are some of the most recent adjustments you’ve made to Paragon’s values?
(13:31) - How do you sus out whether someone will live out your values in the interviewing and onboarding process?
(16:42) - Do you have some way to quantify an employee’s alignment with values during performance reviews?
(17:54) - How do you maintain and communicate values to the team?
(19:33) - Have there been any particular challenges with enforcing values?
(23:03) - How have you approached building a culture in a remote-natured company?
(29:07) - What are you considering adding or changing concerning communication or trust building?
(30:20) - How do you approach a situation where a team member is continuously not living up to the Paragon values?
(31:59) - What are some other benefits you’ve seen from focusing so much on values and culture?
(34:04) - Have you found any way to accelerate the process of building trust with a new employee to be open and honest with management?
(37:38) - Do you view the act of building a strong culture allows you to trust your team much easier in terms of delegation?
(39:30) - Where are you focusing on improving right now in terms of culture?
(43:05) - Do you have a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(44:02) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Trevor Flanagan, COO of Flint Group, a home services roll-up founded by Collin Hathaway. Collin’s appeared on this podcast twice, on episodes 32 and 90, for good reason, and I highly recommend listening to those episodes as a primer for this conversation with Trevor. Trevor has a fascinating background as I'll touch on earlier in this episode. He started his career as a district manager for Aldi before becoming GM of Bob Hamilton, a home services business in Kansas City.
He then left and co-founded Professional Chats, which offers website chat software to home services businesses, before selling it two years later. In those two years, he and his co-founder grew it from 3 to 150 employees and nearly $10 million in revenue. Soon after selling, he met Collin and joined Flint.
Our conversation covers how great companies scale, how crucial of a role sales and hiring play in scaling, the role of debt, and everything in between. Like Collin, Trevor has an amazing ability to make hard problems simple and teach through storytelling and I'm positive you'll enjoy hearing his story. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Trevor on LinkedIn
Flint Group
Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
Episodes 32 & 90 with Colin Hathaway
Topics:
(3:40) - What’s your career been like scaling companies across different industries?
(10:24) - How were you able to land a job managing a grocer at only 22?
(14:27) - What was the most common issue these different Aldi locations were struggling with?
(16:54) - How did you set up systems when you co-founded your first company?
(23:23) - Where did your growth in the first 18 months come from?
(26:13) - How did you eventually get to Flint?
(28:55) - What’s scaling been like at the PE level?
(31:07) - Of the companies, you’ve seen, is there a consistent theme as to why they don’t scale?
(33:21) - How do you adjust cultures as quickly as possible without breaking things?
(34:37) - How do you figure out what KPIs are most important for certain roles?
(35:54) - Once you have established a culture and KPIs, what’s next to accomplish to scale?
(38:00) - Do you have a case study example of a formula that works for scaling?
(40:29) - Do you hire first before tackling marketing?
(42:44) - What are some of the most challenging parts of the sales side of these businesses?
(47:57) - How do you identify potential Salespeople and how do you design the training process?
(49:27) - What’s your philosophy for compensation and incentivizing Salespeople?
(50:51) - What’re your thoughts on scaling in terms of cash flow?
(53:43) - What other impediments to scaling are top of mind for you day to day?
(55:15) - What are you most excited about for Flint over the next 2 years?
(56:05) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(57:25) - What characteristics of folks make them desirable to work for?
(1:00:10) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Trevor Flanagan, COO of Flint Group, a home services roll-up founded by Collin Hathaway. Collin’s appeared on this podcast twice, on episodes 32 and 90, for good reason, and I highly recommend listening to those episodes as a primer for this conversation with Trevor. Trevor has a fascinating background as I'll touch on earlier in this episode. He started his career as a district manager for Aldi before becoming GM of Bob Hamilton, a home services business in Kansas City.
He then left and co-founded Professional Chats, which offers website chat software to home services businesses, before selling it two years later. In those two years, he and his co-founder grew it from 3 to 150 employees and nearly $10 million in revenue. Soon after selling, he met Collin and joined Flint.
Our conversation covers how great companies scale, how crucial of a role sales and hiring play in scaling, the role of debt, and everything in between. Like Collin, Trevor has an amazing ability to make hard problems simple and teach through storytelling and I'm positive you'll enjoy hearing his story. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Trevor on LinkedIn
Flint Group
Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
Episodes 32 & 90 with Colin Hathaway
Topics:
(3:40) - What’s your career been like scaling companies across different industries?
(10:24) - How were you able to land a job managing a grocer at only 22?
(14:27) - What was the most common issue these different Aldi locations were struggling with?
(16:54) - How did you set up systems when you co-founded your first company?
(23:23) - Where did your growth in the first 18 months come from?
(26:13) - How did you eventually get to Flint?
(28:55) - What’s scaling been like at the PE level?
(31:07) - Of the companies, you’ve seen, is there a consistent theme as to why they don’t scale?
(33:21) - How do you adjust cultures as quickly as possible without breaking things?
(34:37) - How do you figure out what KPIs are most important for certain roles?
(35:54) - Once you have established a culture and KPIs, what’s next to accomplish to scale?
(38:00) - Do you have a case study example of a formula that works for scaling?
(40:29) - Do you hire first before tackling marketing?
(42:44) - What are some of the most challenging parts of the sales side of these businesses?
(47:57) - How do you identify potential Salespeople and how do you design the training process?
(49:27) - What’s your philosophy for compensation and incentivizing Salespeople?
(50:51) - What’re your thoughts on scaling in terms of cash flow?
(53:43) - What other impediments to scaling are top of mind for you day to day?
(55:15) - What are you most excited about for Flint over the next 2 years?
(56:05) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(57:25) - What characteristics of folks make them desirable to work for?
(1:00:10) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Paul Yanchich and Ryan Beaver. Paul is a co-founder of Arcadea Group, a vertical market software holding company that Paul and his co-founder Daniel raised $320 million to found 14 months ago. In this episode, Paul is joined by Ryan who serves as managing director of value creation and operations.
Our conversation acts as a part two to our first episode with Paul and Daniel, episode 84, and breaks down learnings from 14 months of activity, lessons learned, where software acquisitions see the most improvement partnering with Arcadea, and evaluating management teams for the long haul. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Arcadea Group
Paul Yancich On LinkedIn
Ryan Beaver on LinkedIn
Episode 84 on TLAO with Paul Yancich and Daniel Eisen
The Outsiders by Will Thorndike
Topics:
(3:04) - What have been some early learnings as first-time investors and founders?
(5:50) - In what ways are you efficient with Arcadea and where do you focus your resources?
(9:42) - What do the first 1-2 years look like after closing?
(16:38) - What are some other ways you create value and make it collaborative with CEOs that join you?
(20:53) - What parts of a software business have changed and what’s stayed relatively the same?
(24:46) - When you look at software companies today, what are the most common technical best practices missing?
(30:56) - What are some key learnings you’ve had from chatting with folks like Will Thorndike and Mitch Rails?
(37:47) - What makes founders excited about Arcadea over other potential acquirers?
(40:04) - Do you have any ambition to be a public company?
My guests on this episode are Paul Yanchich and Ryan Beaver. Paul is a co-founder of Arcadea Group, a vertical market software holding company that Paul and his co-founder Daniel raised $320 million to found 14 months ago. In this episode, Paul is joined by Ryan who serves as managing director of value creation and operations.
Our conversation acts as a part two to our first episode with Paul and Daniel, episode 84, and breaks down learnings from 14 months of activity, lessons learned, where software acquisitions see the most improvement partnering with Arcadea, and evaluating management teams for the long haul. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Arcadea Group
Paul Yancich On LinkedIn
Ryan Beaver on LinkedIn
Episode 84 on TLAO with Paul Yancich and Daniel Eisen
The Outsiders by Will Thorndike
Topics:
(3:04) - What have been some early learnings as first-time investors and founders?
(5:50) - In what ways are you efficient with Arcadea and where do you focus your resources?
(9:42) - What do the first 1-2 years look like after closing?
(16:38) - What are some other ways you create value and make it collaborative with CEOs that join you?
(20:53) - What parts of a software business have changed and what’s stayed relatively the same?
(24:46) - When you look at software companies today, what are the most common technical best practices missing?
(30:56) - What are some key learnings you’ve had from chatting with folks like Will Thorndike and Mitch Rails?
(37:47) - What makes founders excited about Arcadea over other potential acquirers?
(40:04) - Do you have any ambition to be a public company?
My guest on this episode is Juan Ruiz. Juan is the founder of CommunEtA, the first-ever student-led search investment fund. The goal of the fund is multifold: provide exposure and training for students wanting to build a career in search, provide a grassroots investment option for searchers, and spread the word about search across the country.
We start off the episode discussing a few student-run funds on the venture capital side that inspired CommunEtA and round out the conversation with topics like building a team of students that are constantly joining and graduating, the power of search to transform someone's career, and how search might evolve in the future. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Juan Ruiz on LinkedIn
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Student Club
Blue Road Capital
Severance on Apple+
Topics:
(3:32) - What models did you study for this dorm room-style fund for the VC world?
(6:52) - What kind of oversight is there from the University staff?
(8:15) - What’s the process for creating systems around the fund given the high turnover of graduating students?
(10:07) - What was the inspiration for the fund and the mission, vision, and value behind it?
(13:36) - What was your background prior to your MBA at Harvard?
(18:40) - What’s the interest level you’re seeing from students toward Search Fund Investing?
(21:50) - What do you view as the main goal of the fund?
(26:53) - What’s the involvement of students in the fundraising process?
(27:46) - What will your role be for Commune ETA going forward?
(29:06) - What are some roles and jobs for students in the Club?
(30:24) - Is there any conflict of interest with students helping to run a Fund while also pursuing Search?
(32:08) - Do you plan to expand this club to other MBA programs?
(33:22) - If this club was in 5 schools, what would the investment committee look like?
(35:08) - Do students get paid?
(35:25) - What are some of the different compensation models you look at?
(35:55) - What challenges do you foresee with growing this club across other universities?
(36:55) - How many students do you need to have quality output?
(37:59) - Evangelizing Search
(42:26) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(44:43) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(46:52) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Juan Ruiz. Juan is the founder of CommunEtA, the first-ever student-led search investment fund. The goal of the fund is multifold: provide exposure and training for students wanting to build a career in search, provide a grassroots investment option for searchers, and spread the word about search across the country.
We start off the episode discussing a few student-run funds on the venture capital side that inspired CommunEtA and round out the conversation with topics like building a team of students that are constantly joining and graduating, the power of search to transform someone's career, and how search might evolve in the future. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Juan Ruiz on LinkedIn
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Student Club
Blue Road Capital
Severance on Apple+
Topics:
(3:32) - What models did you study for this dorm room-style fund for the VC world?
(6:52) - What kind of oversight is there from the University staff?
(8:15) - What’s the process for creating systems around the fund given the high turnover of graduating students?
(10:07) - What was the inspiration for the fund and the mission, vision, and value behind it?
(13:36) - What was your background prior to your MBA at Harvard?
(18:40) - What’s the interest level you’re seeing from students toward Search Fund Investing?
(21:50) - What do you view as the main goal of the fund?
(26:53) - What’s the involvement of students in the fundraising process?
(27:46) - What will your role be for Commune ETA going forward?
(29:06) - What are some roles and jobs for students in the Club?
(30:24) - Is there any conflict of interest with students helping to run a Fund while also pursuing Search?
(32:08) - Do you plan to expand this club to other MBA programs?
(33:22) - If this club was in 5 schools, what would the investment committee look like?
(35:08) - Do students get paid?
(35:25) - What are some of the different compensation models you look at?
(35:55) - What challenges do you foresee with growing this club across other universities?
(36:55) - How many students do you need to have quality output?
(37:59) - Evangelizing Search
(42:26) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(44:43) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(46:52) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Alexis Grant. Alexis and I have gotten to know each other through our mutual interest in media and our two small but growing media companies. We share thoughts, ideas, and advice back and forth all the time, and I'm excited to finally record one of our conversations.
Alexis founded a blog management company that was acquired by The Penny Hoarder, which then sold and gave her some starting capital for The Write Life, which she ran for a few years before selling that business too. Now she's founded They Got Acquired, a media business covering small online business exits with a growing newsletter and data product.
We discuss all things teams, products, creating content, and one of my obsessions: the convergence of media and high-end products like data. Please enjoy this wonderful episode with Alexis Grant.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Alexis on LinkedIn
They Got Acquired
The Penny Hoarder
AirTable
The Hustle
Ben Collins Google Sheets Training
StyleBot.app
Topics:
(3:46) - Alexis’ career journey
(8:52) - Why do you think ‘They Got Acquired’ would be a more interesting business to run?
(9:40) - What issues did you run into in previous roles?
(11:01) - What is They Got Acquired?
(14:16) - How have you approached building your team?
(16:18) - How do you determine what tasks you’ll work on vs. delegating to the team?
(18:40) - Do you try to focus on revenue-generating tasks over content or operations-related tasks?
(20:17) - What next task are you looking to delegate?
(23:41) - What role will you fill for your first full-time hire?
(24:28) - What would a full-time writer be able to accomplish that you can’t right now?
(26:04) - Is the research team for the database different than the writing team?
(27:14) - How do you ensure the media and date sides of the business interact with each other?
(30:04) - Are there any companies you find interesting that have a media arm alongside a high-end product?
(32:40) - Have you seen a media business buying a company that sells products best suited for its audience?
(36:05) - Have you thought about an event strategy at some point?
(37:05) - How do you think about competition in your space?
(41:52) - How do you balance what you want to do with your business vs. customer feedback?
(42:21) - What are you most excited about over the next 24 months?
(43:04) - What college course would you teach if it could be about anything?
(43:43) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(46:37) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Kurt Leedy and Kyle Coots, co-founders and managing directors at Miramar Equity Partners. Kurt and Kyle have an interesting vantage point in the search world being backed by a family office with an agnostic time horizon, allowing them to invest in the widest set of opportunities in search and parallel spaces.
Our episode focuses on a concept they developed they call the three ways to make money, those being classic LBO, M&A-driven strategies, and organic growth. We dive into the characteristics of each along with a few examples from their portfolio.
We also touch on how the intersection of two or more methods can create exponential outcomes. Finally, we discuss a few theses they find interesting in healthcare and software and how they develop a thesis on an industry.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Special thanks to our sponsor: Oakbourne Advisors
Links:
Miramar Equity Partners
Kurt Leedy on LinkedIn
Kyle Coots on LinkedIn
Will Thorndike with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
BPD Zenith
Flint Group
Swoogo
Encore Infusion
Constellation
Business Breakdowns - The NFL
Time Codes:
(3:36) - How did your backgrounds help form this concept of “The three methods to make money”?
(9:18) - Do you have a model of investing that resonates most with what you’re looking to accomplish?
(12:24) - Have Search CEO’s been primarily focused on one of these three buckets in your experience?
(15:51) - What are some characteristics & examples you’ve seen of the Classic LBO investing model?
(18:36)- What questions or risks are you optimizing for when considering LBO?
(22:13) - What are some factors that have correlated with a high retention rate in companies you’ve observed?
(24:23) - Can you walk us through how you divide M&A Driven Strategies into its two subcategories: Roll-Up and Transformative?
(33:46) - Is there some value in having M&A experience for a CEO & their company?
(35:42) - Why do you think there is such increased popularity in the M&A strategy within Search?
(39:00) - Which companies and characteristics fall under the Organic Growth Model?
(46:00) - What are some examples of companies who have combined these methods and found success?
(51:10) - What are your thoughts on Software businesses and any opportunities in that space?
(54:40) - What are some ways you develop and validate different theses?
(1:01:19) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(1:03:32) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Adriana Garcia Ceja who recently launched a traditional search fund backed by Footbridge Partners, Pacific Lake, and others with a primary focus on the healthcare industry. Adriana brings a ton of experience to her search, including corporate development at Home Depot and a head of special products role at Applied Concepts, a search fund backed company, during her gap year in her MBA at Harvard.
We talk extensively about lessons learned at Home Depot, including the many mentors she's had along the way, how to be an entrepreneur in a big company, picking the right search fund model for you, getting hands on experience prior to searching, and how we can encourage more women to become searchers.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Adriana on LinkedIn
Bolivar Health
Applied Concepts
Flying Magazine
Topics:
(2:37) - What are your considerations when looking at different options in your Search?
(5:13) - What factors did you weigh when looking at investors?
(7:33) - What advice did you get from people to help you prepare mentally for Search?
(9:23) - What motivates you to be so interested in the healthcare industry?
(11:05) - What was your experience like working at the corporate level at Home Depot?
(18:14) - Being Entrepreneurial in a Big Company
(20:19) - Where are the similarities you see in service, retail, and healthcare?
(22:13) - What observations did you make in hiring, training, and management from Home Depot that could be applied in an acquired healthcare business?
(26:07) - Where do you draw the line in a Search when it comes to a culture that might be too far gone?
(30:40) - What was your experience like at Applied Concepts?
(35:15) - What challenges did you encounter as a woman in a male-dominated industry?
(37:44) - What will it take to balance the cohort of Searchers?
(42:37) - Who are some female role models that you admire?
(44:16) - What are you most excited about in your first year as a Searcher?
(45:37) - What College class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(46:27) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(48:42) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Mark Brooks, Managing Director of Permanent Equity. Mark leads Permanent Equity’s post-close operations team, partnering with company leaders to overcome challenges and unlock growth.
Mark is a really reflective person, which you can tell from his writing on Twitter. He's thought very deeply about management and creating transformative teams, and this conversation is dense with value and insights. This episode is a fantastic dive into all things management, including brevity and effective communication, creating an environment that encourages debate and disagreement, and why great teams are crucial to combat process depreciation.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Mark on LinkedIn
Permanent Equity
Mark on Twitter
Margin call scene: Explain it to me as if I were a child
Morgan Housel
Ben Thompson
Matt Levine on Bloomberg
Topics:
(2:58) - How important is brevity internally in business?
(8:17) - When you think about writing key messages, how would you coach communicating via email?
(10:10) - How do you share ideas across companies?
(13:10) - How do you make sure your companies aren’t reliant on one person?
(17:13) - Is there a long term goal that operators should aim for in terms of the decisions they have to make?
(19:37) - Healthy laziness in delegation
(23:14) - How do you best shift the mindset of a new manager to think more about team performance vs. their individual performance?
(26:40) - What are some common character traits of leaders who are great delegators?
(28:23) - Building a team for space and for stress
(31:45) - How do you evaluate a candidate’s ability to build a team?
(33:26) - When you bring in new managers, are there common behaviors or patterns that need to be adjusted?
(35:59) - The depreciation of processes
(38:38) - How do you create a culture where employees feel comfortable disagreeing with management?
(41:48) - How do you try to pinpoint holes in your own processes and methods?
(44:34) - Of the highest performing operators you’ve seen, are there any consistencies in their daily routines?
(47:55) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(50:25) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(52:10) - Which newsletter writers do you really admire?
I'm joined by Sara Heston and Peter Kelly. Together at Stanford, Sara and Peter, among other projects and teaching, assemble the Stanford Search Study that has been released every year on even years. The study is widely considered the go-to resource for learning about search funds and is often the first resource shared with folks considering the path.
The first study in 1996 was only two pages long, and the 2022 study released in July is over 30 pages, reflecting both the growth in the Search Fund Model and the increased availability of data. Our conversation covers the purpose of the study, it's evolution since 1996, a half-dozen interesting trends they have observed among Search Funds, characteristics of ideal Searchers, and data sets they want to add to the study in future years. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Email Sara here: sheston@stanford.edu
Sara Heston on LinkedIn
Peter Kelly on LinkedIn
2022 Search Fund Study
Search Fund Primer
Topics:
(1:32) - What’s the background and genesis behind this broad Search Fund Study?
(3:28) - How has the audience changed over time and what are the goals of those reading the data?
(6:28) - What are some decisions you’ve seen made by people utilizing the study?
(8:02) - What’s the methodology for putting together the study?
(9:48) - What are some of the most notable things you’ve added to the study over the years as it’s grown?
(13:10) - Where do you get ideas for new data sets to add?
(15:27) - What are some interesting trends you’re paying attention to based on the study?
(18:49) - Why do you think you’re seeing a spike in returns?
(21:58) - How much of the rise in multiples is due to the 10-year bull market we’ve had?
(26:59) - Is there anything else notable you’ve noticed that’s influencing Searcher equity?
(29:22) - How have you seen exits evolve over time?
(31:53) - Are there any interesting sets of characteristics that the best Searchers have?
(37:07) - Do you see Searchers who feel out of their element building teams around them to pad weaknesses?
(39:20) - What are your thoughts on Partnered Searches?
(42:14) - What are some data sets you’d be excited to add to future studies?
(45:53) - Do you have a sense of how large the self-funded Search community is?
(47:39) - How can folks in the community help make studies more robust?
(49:31) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(53:45) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Jay Davis and Jason Pananos. Jay and Jason acquired Vector Disease Control, which provides vector borne disease prevention and lake management services, in 2011. About 4 years after acquisition, they realized serial acquisitions complementary companies could be a powerful growth lever. And 14 acquisitions later, they sold the company in 2017 for a very successful outcome. Following the sale, they founded the Nashton Company where they've been mainstay search investors and the last few years holding company investors.
They're also co-founders of Compounding Labs, a partnership between Jay and Jason, Kent Weaver and Will Thorndike to invest in long-term holding companies. Our conversation covers their investing in holding companies, how they approached serial acquisition at Vector and how they advise other searchers in the strategy, sources of capital and deal pacing, and building deal teams and when to start that process within your serial acquisition or holding company cycle.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Jay on LinkedIn
Jason on LinkedIn
Nashton Company
Compounding Labs
Stanford Search Fund Harvard Business Study 2022
Topics:
(3:17) - If you look at Vector as a play for acquisitions, how did it fit into your strategy?
(6:41) - What actions did you take to prepare yourself for rolling up other businesses and acquisitions?
(10:56) - What key roles need to be in tip-top shape before you begin acquisitions?
(14:39) - What were some best practices you developed over the process of 12 acquisitions?
(16:14) - How have your roles evolved over time?
(20:53) - Have you noticed folks things being easier for serial entrepreneurs if they have a partner?
(22:29) - What other types of investments have high returns in the early days outside of team-building?
(25:24) - Are there any misallocations of time entrepreneurs have in the early innings of a serial acquisition strategy?
(29:49) - Does the presence of Private Equity in a certain industry make it more attractive to you?
(33:10) - What are some factors you weigh when looking at industries to potentially invest in?
(35:27) - What characteristics do you look for in entrepreneurs?
(37:46) - How does pace increase factor into your path as the team grows?
(39:38) - How does the source of capital shift over time?
(42:38) - What are your thoughts on Long-term holding companies and their increased popularity?
(47:27) - How do you sus out whether an entrepreneur knows they’re in this for the long haul?
(50:51) - How do these long-term hold companies shift over time?
(54:02) - How do holding companies shift your role when investing compared to a traditional search fund?
(56:59) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(58:43) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Nick Haschka, back for a third episode to provide an update on his early ambitions of a holding company, which have taken a slight turn. Two years ago, Nick and his partner Anupam Sharma acquired a commercial landscaping company Vargas Gardening. They added a manager and grew the business, but realized the road ahead was going to be substantially more difficult and so made the decision to sell the business, earning a two-year IRR of 122%. Running a second business with a worse economic profile than Wright Gardener wasn't going to be as valuable an endeavor, and thus they renewed their focus on Wright after the sale. Nick has also been thinking more about search investing, having reduced his investment activity due to the declining economics he's seeing. We talk about this change of thought, his interest in investing in public micro-cap stocks, and deeper, more targeted industry theses.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Nick on Twitter
Nick on LinkedIn
The Wright Gardner
Nick's recommended products, reading, and more!
Connor Haley on The Fort Podcast
Topics:
(2:39) - Updates since Alex and Nick last spoke at the outbreak of the pandemic
(5:35) - Nick’s venture into acquiring a commercial landscaping company
(9:49) - Selling the landscaping company
(19:30) - What changed in your growth approach with this second business?
(22:35) - How have the last few years been for The Wright Gardener from a growth perspective?
(24:24) - Why have you slowed on investing in Searchers?
(26:53) - Do you get the sense that terms have gotten worse or the quality of deals has declined?
(28:45) - What’s been your experience with investments since slowing down?
(29:48) - What’s your interest in Micro-cap stocks?
(35:28) - How do you think about expanding your network from Search into Micro-caps?
(36:28) - What’s your long-term vision for this Micro Caps approach?
(38:35) - What other topics or ideas are you focusing on?
My guest on this episode is Andy Cagnetta. Andy is the CEO of Transworld Business Advisors, one of the largest business brokers in the country. The typical guest on Think Like an Owner is an owner operator often running a business they acquired, although not always. And therefore, the buyer's side of a transaction is where we have spent the most time as a podcast. I wanted to hear the other side and learn more about a broker's perspective in the small business and search world. What do they care about? What do buyers do that is counterproductive, and how could they more effectively build relationships? We go over questions like this, along with what a good business broker looks like, why some listings never sell, how to impress sellers and brokers as a buyer, the perception of search funds, and how Andy himself is an acquisition entrepreneur who acquired Transworld and became CEO.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Andy on LinkedIn
Transworld Business Advisors
BizBuySell.com
Closing the Deal by Andy Cagnetta
Halftime by Bob Buford
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
Topics:
(3:59) - Andy’s background and career before acquiring Transworld
(7:25) - What’s the business model of a business brokerage?
(9:24) - How do you find someone who is contemplating selling their business?
(10:28) - What is your thought process behind growing franchises?
(11:41) - What are some of the most common questions or concerns business owners have when you start working with them?
(15:08) - What’s gotten more challenging about evaluating and buying businesses?
(16:41) - Do you find that sellers are consistently overvaluing their business?
(19:33) - What types of listings have a tough time selling?
(22:24) - What are some unique or vanity-play businesses that are tough to sell?
(23:49) - What percent of listings never sell?
(24:20) - How do you identify a good broker?
(25:50) - What are some common miscommunications between buyers and brokers?
(30:59) - What’s the broad perspective of buyers from the eyes of brokers?
(34:15) - How have you seen buyers distinguish themselves from a seller?
(36:41) - What are some ways buyers derail the acquisition process?
(38:44) - How much influence does the broker have over who the seller chooses to go with?
(40:09) - How impactful is a track record of previous acquisitions when compared to a new buyer? How can new buyers make themselves stand out?
(43:30) - What are some helpful tips for sellers to prep their business to be sold?
(44:56) - What should sellers do after they step away from the business?
(45:54) - How have you built relationships in different markets and communities?
(48:43) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(49:21) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(50:04) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
Today I'm joined by Kevin Knoepp and Zack Seely. Zach acquired a healthcare software company called FSI in late 2020 with technical diligence help from Kevin, a software due diligence advisor and Trilogy operating executive.
Our conversation doesn't discuss the attractiveness of software as an investment, which it very much is, but rather on how to properly diligence software and operate and improve the business once acquired. We review common technical issues in software companies, how much technical debt is acceptable, Zach's experience in diligence and operating improvements at FSI, and constructing a capable team to move a software business forward.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Zach Seely on LinkedIn
Kevin Knoepp on LinkedIn
FSI
Martin Fowler - The Strangler Fig tree pattern
Topics:
(4:00) - Zach’s experience at FSI at the acquisition point
(6:05) - Zach’s skills background & where Kevin fit into FSI
(7:34) - Kevin’s process for analyzing the technical side of software businesses
(10:50) - What are some red flags you’ll see in diligence?
(12:22) - What’s your perspective on Technical Debt?
(15:03) - How did you structure your deals or build teams to adjust for technical challenges you found?
(17:03) - How did you first set your priorities for what to fix with FSI?
(22:22) - What are some must fixes before you can complete an acquisition?
(23:52) - What sorts of gaps did you focus on in the first 18 months at FSI?
(26:54) - How did you evaluate the technical team before the acquisition?
(28:12) - What kinds of questions do you ask the technical teams to assess their abilities?
(31:46) - How do you evaluate and mitigate risk on a technical team?
(36:46) - What 2 to 3 changes did you make to the technical team right off the bat?
(41:59) - What sorts of processes have you set up to make work more transparent?
(45:11) - What are your thoughts on outsourcing vs. insourcing tasks or positions?
(49:19) - Is it common for software companies to offer some sort of budget for outsourcing services to their developers?
(51:27) - How do you evaluate if your team is utilizing capacity properly?
(54:34) - How did you evaluate FSI’s pricing strategy?
(57:15) - What common parts of a pricing strategy could use the most improvement in software businesses?
(59:19) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(1:01:30) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Freddie Bellhouse. Freddie and his partner Nick Ashford are co-founders of Fordhouse, a UK-based acquirer of small companies. In the eight years since they're founding in 2014, they've done 25 deals and are beginning to consider more fund-like permanent capital structures for future acquisitions.
I was fortunate enough to meet Freddie's partner Nick in New York City, and we hit it off immediately. He'll be a future guest on here pretty soon. Freddie and I talk about lessons learned going deal by deal, building expertise in integration and organization building, and differences between the US and UK small private equity markets.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Freddie on LinkedIn
Fordhouse
EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme)
Topics:
(3:30) - Can you walk us through some of the deals you’ve accomplished in your career?
(7:24) - What are some nuances between the US and UK in regards to SMB?
(9:55) - Have you met any people in_______
(11:12) - Are there any European companies that have multiples as low as the US?
(12:02) - Why have you decided to raise a fund instead of raising deal by deal?
(15:03) - What’s an example of a company where you needed to build out the executive team function?
(17:53) - How do you evaluate whether a team is ready for growth?
(19:15) - Have you noticed that most of the compounding growth at a company happens at years 4 & 5? Why do people sell right before that?
(22:13) - The scripted nature of acquisitions
(24:19) - What are the differences in transaction costs between the US and the UK?
(26:21) - What kinds of offers have you received for businesses?
(27:45) - How intriguing is Fordhouse as an acquirer?
(30:27) - What is the longer-term focus in your work?
(33:10) - How do you think about keeping managers happy in terms of liquidity or dividends?
(35:33) - What tends to go wrong when interests diverge?
(37:39) - What causes a mediocre performance?
(40:48) - Is there one company you’ve acquired that’s vastly outperformed the others?
(42:35) - Thoughts on integrating companies
(43:45) - What are some of the example PCV’s that you’ve enjoyed studying?
(46:57) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(48:14) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:20) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Rob LeBlanc. Rob is a co-founding partner of Ambit Partners, a search investment fund founded in 2020 that invests in searchers worldwide in countries like Paraguay, Spain, Germany, and South Africa, where Rob is based. Together with his two co-founding partners, they have raised a $25 million fund with plans to back 50 to 60 searchers in this first fund. Today, they have funded 32 searchers in 20 markets with 5 acquisitions thus far.
A recurring concept we discuss in the episode is that investing in search internationally is like going back in time to the early days of search in the US – competition was less, fewer owners were aware of searchers, and search tactics were more effective. Those are still true in most countries around the world today.
Rob and I talk about finding entrepreneurs, themes that are similar across countries, and good and bad reasons to accept a given searcher in your cap table. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Rob on LinkedIn
Ambit Partners
Info@ambitpartners.com
Discovery Vitality
Topics:
(3:47) - Which countries have features that make them attractive for searchers and which countries are on the come up?
(8:52) - How is conducting a search in other countries like “going back in time?”
(13:37) - What business models seamlessly transition overseas from the US?
(15:06) - How valuable is it to have an investor from the country you’re searching in?
(18:02) - What are some “bad” reasons to have a certain investor on your cap table?
(21:37) - How do you think about which companies where you want to be on the board vs. having a partner on the board?
(26:39) - What’s a situation where you wouldn’t be a good fit as an investor?
(27:53) - What have you seen with searchers struggling to fill board seats?
(30:22) - What personalities are best for leadership roles in search as the industry develops internationally?
(34:24) - Where do you typically find international searchers? Would you ever go overseas and try to find people who would be good fits in Search?
(40:00) - Where do you see Ambit over the next 5 years?
(42:17) - Where do most of the exit opportunities exist for international searchers?
(44:20) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(46:18) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(48:41) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Brendan Anderson. Brendan started his post-banking entrepreneurial career by acquiring Stam, Inc., which manufactures custom bent tubing before founding a private equity firm called ScaleCo where he has raised three funds and acquired 21 companies to date.
He built his career by being an operator first and learned to become an investor, a path that's given them a big leg up when talking to other CEOs and potential sellers. One subject I've wanted to study more deeply is building a team that naturally attracts great people, and this is a major topic of our discussion and something Brendan has given a lot of thought to.
We also talk about the use of debt combined with long term investment time horizons, how they facilitate data and information sharing across the portfolio, and what the top idea on his mind is today.
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Links:
Brendan on LinkedIn
ScaleCo
Patrick Lencioni Books
Gino Wickman books
Topics:
(4:21) - Are there any market indicators you focus on that have broad implications for your portfolio of companies
(5:31) - Where do your CEOs get most of their information?
(6:37) - How are you bringing your companies together to share best practices?
(8:40) - Can you walk us through the TAC method?
(13:47) - Brendan’s background and career
(23:16) - What were some notable misses you’ve seen across your 3 funds and what did you learn from them?
(27:16) - How do you find great talent locally in your area?
(29:35) - How do you think about scaling your recruiting pipeline?
(31:03) - How do you retain great people?
(33:52) - What is the “fund route” you offer people?
(34:52) - Are there career advancement opportunities for people working in your portfolio who may want to jump to another company under your umbrella?
(35:49) - How does your mindset shift when you’re operating with a long-term hold mindset rather than selling within a few years?
(37:30) - What kind of freedom does someone at a ScaleCo company have relative to working elsewhere?
(39:03) - How do you view debt within a long-term time horizon?
(42:19) - What's the top-of-mind idea for you right now?
(43:36) - What college class would you teach if it could be on any subject?
(46:52) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(47:55) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
The 4th episode in our Trilogy Search Series features Kristen Glenn from Reverb People. Kristen is an HR professional with over 15 years of experience in HR Leadership and Business Partner roles. We also have Cyrus Symoom, the Co-CEO of Clariti Software, Clariti helps governments across North America with permitting and licensing solutions. Finally, we are joined by Jennie Ellis, who is an Operating Executive specializing in Talent Acquisition with Trilogy Search Partners.
This episode is a deep dive into talent acquisition, sourcing, and HR function development. Each of my guests brings a unique perspective with their experiences in fractional HR for small companies, running HR as the owner of an acquired company, and talent acquisition.
The last several years have been challenging for recruiting and retaining great people across all different kinds of companies and search funds. There are special challenges for smaller firms in hybrid arrangements, and each of my guests provides great insight into how companies can find and keep great team members. Enjoy.
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Links:
Kristen on LinkedIn
Cyrus on LinkedIn
Reverb People
Clariti Software
Topics:
(3:38) - Introductions, backgrounds, and thoughts on the current recruiting market
(8:59) - What are some tactics you’ve seen companies do to adjust downward as the market turns?
(11:30) - Challenges Cyrus faced in building Clariti
(13:43) - What ways have you seen talent compound at Clariti?
(15:41) - Is sourcing talent from companies that are going through periods of change an effective strategy?
(18:00) - How do you determine whether a company has good HR fundamentals in a prospective acquisition?
(23:05) - What was the HR function like at Clariti when it was acquired?
(24:25) - When did you decide to delegate out HR?
(25:28) - How do you coach people on developing their HR function?
(28:38) - How does the HR function look as the company scales?
(30:01) - What does HR at Clariti look like today?
(31:12) - What do fractional HR clients need to do to develop stronger HR functions?
(34:52) - At what stage do companies stop outsourcing HR?
(38:20) - What do some of the best HR functions have in common?
(40:36) - What metrics are most important at Clariti for recruiting and retention?
(41:19) - Can you expand more on the interview process at Clariti?
(43:47) - How do your periodic check-ins with employees differ from the initial interview questions?
(45:32) - How frequent are your retention interviews?
(50:20) - What are some best practices for retention in companies?
(52:40) - Where else can CEOs remind their team that communication should be open and transparent?
(54:11) - Where does Clariti need to improve the most in their HR function over the next 24 months?
My guest on this episode is Joe Heieck. In 2015, Joe acquired gWorks, a software company that takes geographical information system data from government cities and counties and helps them visualize that data on their website among other services. Since then, they have grown impressively well both organically and through acquisition and have recently recapped their investor base through an investment by BV Investment Partners to continue their strong growth trajectory.
Joe was an officer in the Navy prior to his MBA program at Harvard and subsequent search. We talk about how different building culture and leading teams is in the military compared to private companies.
We also talk about building family versus team-based cultures, building a strong M&A strategy, what risks to accept versus walk away from, and knowing when it's time to exit a business.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Joe on LinkedIn
gWorks
Topics:
(3:46) - Why was the location of a business in your search so important to you and your wife?
(7:17) - What other ways did you optimize constructing your life around the business you would buy?
(9:05) - What enabled you to focus and get an acquisition done in just 6 months of searching?
(15:42) - Did you aim for a software company initially?
(18:52) - What would a government use your GIS software for?
(20:45) - Do searchers grow more risk-tolerant as their search lingers and what risks did you feel were acceptable when acquiring your company?
(25:04) - What did you have to change about your leadership style transitioning from the military into a civilian business?
(29:22) - Building family-based vs. team-based companies
(33:22) - How do you negotiate the balance of empathy in a team-oriented environment?
(36:29) - Can you give an example of proper time management within your company?
(39:08) - What’s your philosophy on strategic acquisitions to roll into your business?
(44:08) - How do you think about exiting a business?
(48:12) - How do you know if you’re the right person to keep running the business?
(52:12) - Is there anything you would go back and do differently?
(54:01) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(55:41) - What’s a strongly held belief that you’ve changed your mind on?
(57:24) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
The intersection of media and data has been the top idea on my mind for quite some time now. And my guest today, Craig Fuller, runs one of the best modern examples of this concept in action. FreightWaves, founded in 2016, is a media and data company focused on trucking, freight, supply chains, and all things logistics. To date, they have raised $91 million, will hit $42 million in revenue this year, split 55/45 between data and media, and have a valuation of between $300 and 400 million today.
Craig's work building FreightWaves has been an invaluable model for my work at HW Media as Chief of Staff with CEO Clayton Collins and the rest of our team. Conversations like this one have been instrumental in our discussions on the future of HW Media as an all-things housing media business. But we, and especially myself, also believe this model, this intersection of media and data can be a replicable strategy across industries.
The goal of my episode with Craig today was to better understand how media and data can work together to create transformative companies, and I'm grateful for Craig's willingness to share his experience and expertise. Throughout the episode, we talk about what data sets to focus on first in an industry and how to build around them, developing the product roadmap, the media data flywheel, hiring effective editorial and sales teams, and the investor perception of FreightWaves. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Craig on LinkedIn
FreightWaves
The Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas
Topics:
(4:31) - Why do media companies typically misunderstand ‘data’ and data companies?
(7:13) - How did the Media & Data arms of FreightWaves impact each other as you built this business?
(13:07) - When you think back about creating high-frequency data, how did you approach building it for FreightWaves?
(17:54) - Where has the bulk of your capital gone in building the company?
(27:24) - How do you think about expanding your data sets going forward?
(32:12) - Who is involved in your product development process?
(38:06) - How did you two sides of your business interact in the early days, and has that changed over time?
(49:35) - How do you attract high-quality talent?
(54:18) - How do you structure your sales teams? How do you think about pricing?
(1:01:23) - What’s the investor perception on businesses running on Media & Data?
My guest on this episode is Poppy MacDonald. Poppy is the CEO of USAFacts, a not-for-profit data company founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to gather, organize and share data about the US government at the federal, state, and local levels entirely for free.
Many of you will know about my fascination with media and data companies, and this episode with Poppy is a continuation of that strong interest. But not only is Poppy’s story about running a super interesting data company, but also about growing an organization from 5 to 47 employees in less than 4 years. The company is very much a startup with everyone wearing multiple hats and driving to the same goal.
Through our conversation, Poppy and I talk about why government data can be so hard to find, building a data-centric, non-partisan organization, growing pains, the long-term vision for USAFacts, and why the company was compelling to her when Steve offered her the job.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Poppy on LinkedIn
USAFacts
Topics:
(4:03) - Poppy’s background and career
(7:29) - How did your experience in media at Politico transfer over to the world of Data?
(10:54) - What channels are you using to share and gather data?
(12:54) - What are your visions for further disseminating information to the broader US population?
(17:51) - As you work down from federal to county size to gather data, does it get harder as you go smaller?
(20:45) - How do you help governments & agencies gather their own data?
(25:12) - How does your team need to grow and evolve?
(28:28) - Where have you had growing pains when going from 5 or 6 to now nearly 50 people?
(33:25) - What team has been the most challenging to build within the company?
(35:33) - The importance of having patience while building USA Facts
(37:21) - What 5-10 year growth and marketing goals do you have for the organization?
(42:03) - Do you think your company could ever have a media side?
(44:53) - Are there any comparable companies to yours in other countries that you can learn from?
(48:06) - What’s been the most interesting or odd piece of data that’s been hard to get a hold of?
(50:09) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(51:28) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(52:35) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Ujwal Velagapudi. Ujwal has acquired nine small companies, pieces of real estate, and other investments over the past few years and has stumbled upon quite a number of unique companies. He's invested in a vending business, virtual assistant business, commercial real estate, a sports bar, and several others.
This episode is about getting started and is a departure from our usual episodes about larger businesses in order to focus on small incremental deals running efficiently.
Ujwal is really thoughtful and claims to not be a great manager or operator, but I advise you not to believe him. We talk about all things amusement vending, re-investing profits, close calls, what he is interested in today, and his changed views on debt. Enjoy.
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Links:
Ujwal on LinkedIn
HiByron
Topics:
(4:20) - Ujwal’s acquisition off of Microacquire and other businesses he’s bought
(10:06) - What did the business do when you acquired it and what have you grown it to?
(12:05) - What did you do before you decided to start buying companies?
(13:31) - How are you getting the capital for these deals?
(16:49) - Do you still live off of $1500 per month?
(17:26) - What stands out to you now in a potential acquisition vs. when you first started?
(18:45) - What businesses do you stay away from?
(19:35) - Can you share more information on your vending business?
(21:28) - What types of machines are the most profitable?
(23:41) - How does the operations structure for the Vending business work?
(25:10) - How many employees are in your portfolio?
(25:44) - What have you learned about management during this journey?
(28:15) - How do you onboard new employees at your companies?
(30:58) - Where do you see things needing to improve?
(32:56) - What’s the growth plan?
(37:15) - How much would the average machine earn in net profit for the restaurant on a monthly basis?
(41:46) - What are some mistakes you’ve made that could have been "nails in the coffin" for your business?
(45:53) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(47:37) - What’s a strongly held belief that you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:38) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Tom Klein and Roland Lessard, Tom and Roland launched a partnered search after running a background screening business together and acquired a language service business focused on intellectual property in 2016, which they sold last year in 2021. In both companies, growth through acquisition was a core to their playbook and we spend a ton of time diving into best practices and things to avoid in doing so.
This is one of the best episodes of the podcast for understanding M&A, synergies, and change management, and if any of these topics apply to your business, you'll want to tune in. This conversation covers all things M&A, shifting teams, understanding culture and structure, effective leadership, and integrations with new companies and teams.
We got on such a roll near the end that I entirely skipped my closing questions to make room for more discussion, and I think it paid off. By the end of this longer-than-usual episode, I hope you're in agreement. Enjoy.
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Links:
Tom Klein on LinkedIn
Roland Lessard on LinkedIn
Morningside Translations
Topics:
(3:58) - Tom and Roland’s Backgrounds
(13:03) - How many companies within the industry did you speak with during your search?
(16:35) - What was the company you bought and how did you plan out growth?
(20:02) - Where were the biggest pains during your massive growth from $5mm to $30mm?
(26:25) - What strategies did you use to get up to speed with everyone’s role when making changes?
(32:08) - What’s your philosophy and experience with M&A?
(42:51) - What are some Do’s and Don’ts of tuck-in acquisitions?
(58:07) - How do you implement synergies and change management when you’ve acquired one of these companies?
(1:12:45) - Additional commentary on synergies
My guest on this episode is Michael Arrieta. Michael is the founder of Garden City and has raised $51 million in permanent capital to acquire family-owned businesses across the country. The raise was completed in March 2020, and already they have three wholly-owned companies and minority stakes in two.
Michael came highly recommended by Brent Beshore, and I can see why from our conversations. It's clear that Michael is a student of business and has mental models of hundreds of companies floating around in his head. He also has a remarkable sense of empathy and mission at Garden City, a mission which we discussed throughout the episode extensively.
During our conversation, we talk about raising without a private equity background, how to involve investors in your portfolio companies as mentors, how they recruit, the technology and systems they implement at their companies, and all things Chick-fil-A, a business Michael has studied extensively. Please enjoy my episode with Michael.
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Links:
Michael on LinkedIn
Garden City Companies
Why it only costs $10k to own a Chick-Fil-A Franchise
Topics:
(4:42) - Michael’s background and career
(7:27) - What was it about VC that caused you to hesitate to pursue your career in that world?
(8:59) What memories stick out from your time as a chief of staff that have helped you in your current role?
(12:00) - What’s the thesis behind Garden City?
(13:39) - How did you go about fundraising?
(17:12) - What started to become possible once you saw an increase in capital interest and were there any tradeoffs you had to make in order to secure more funding?
(22:14) - Where are you seeing your deal flow come from?
(24:55) - What are some of the companies that you own?
(28:52) - How do you approach implementing technology in your acquisitions?
(31:42) - How do you find great people to bring on to your companies?
(34:11) - How much advice do you get from your investor base?
(36:25) - What do you view as your role within Garden City?
(39:21) - How do you build relationships with leaders in the companies you acquire?
(41:26) - What companies inspire you?
(47:46) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(48:25) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(49:41) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Caroline Matthews and Connor McCarthy, a husband and wife team running an investment firm called Canyonlands Funds that acquires youth summer camps from Maine to Florida. Both are extremely passionate about the outdoors and met on a trip to Bhutan while getting their MBAs at Stanford. After working in private equity for a few years after graduating, they decided to become entrepreneurs in the outdoors and have acquired two summer camps to date.
Their strategy is one of the most unique and interesting I've maybe ever come across as I haven't heard of anyone else investing in used summer camps. Their business model is pretty interesting, and naturally we spend a lot of time diving into how it works.
We also talk about challenges in running summer camps, how they decided to raise capital and find great investors, strategies for finding and building great teams, and why Levain's Bakery in New York City makes the best cookies in the world. Enjoy the episode.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Caroline on LinkedIn
Connor on LinkedIn
Canyonlands Fund
Levain Bakery
Topics:
(3:56) - Caroline & Connor’s background and starting Canyonlands
(7:43) - What made you decide to pursue private equity & tech before building Canyonlands?
(9:33) - What were some skills you developed before starting Canyonlands?
(11:35) - What business models did you consider when developing the company?
(13:19) - What is the financial model backing the company?
(16:35) - What are some ways you’ve leaned on your board for feedback?
(20:17) - What is the business model for a Summer Camp?
(27:23) - How do you find a great Camp Director?
(30:37) - How are you measuring results through qualitative data from campers?
(33:55) - What is the hardest data to track?
(36:47) - How difficult is it to buy a camp and install a great reputation and values if it doesn’t already have them?
(39:08) - What are some levers and options for growing a camp?
(41:29) - What have you learned about pricing in your business?
(42:47) - Do you have any plans for a punch-card or subscription type model?
(45:31) - How do you go about sourcing camps to acquire?
(51:03) - What’s the dynamic like being business partners and married?
(54:35) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(55:55) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(56:46) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(58:18) - How would you describe Levain Cookies to non-East Coast people?
My guests on this episode are Ayo Phillips and Peter Lohmann. Both operate businesses and property services and management and also run Traction EOS in their companies. EOS rightfully gets a lot of attention in the small business world for providing a structure to grow and being what Peter calls it as a culture in a box system. But every operator uses EOS in slightly different ways, and I wanted to hear from two operators using it to hear how they've customized the model for their businesses.
This episode is a breakdown of why they decided to implement EOS, choosing between self-implementing versus hiring an implementer, benefits they've realized from using EOS, how EOS impacts company culture, and their advice for other operators considering us for their businesses.
Also, Ayo’s previous episode, episode 56 on Think Like An Owner, was a very popular episode for good reason. Ayo has quite the story to share, and I highly recommend book-ending that episode with this one for a great story and more background. And now enjoy our all-things EOS conversation.
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Links:
Peter Lohmann on LinkedIn
Ayo Phillips on LinkedIn
Traction by Gino Wickman
TLAO #56 w/ Ayo Phillips
Perfect Surface Inc
RL Property Management
Vision Traction Organizer
Who by Geoff Smart
Topics:
(5:08) - Ayo Phillips’ & Peter Lohmann’s backgrounds
(7:17) - What prompted you to implement traction?
(11:20) - What were some of the lightbulb moments from Traction?
(18:17) - The decision to self-implement EOS
(25:32) - When did you notice that the implementation was working and a culture was being developed?
(30:11) - How much movement had to happen within your teams to successfully implement EOS?
(35:49) - Building the base layer of EOS
(38:59) - How do you think through picking “Rocks” and setting goals? Did you ever have to refine any of them?
(44:31) - How have each of you personalized EOS to best fit your respective companies?
(52:28) - What advice would you give to operators considering or struggling with EOS?
My guest for this episode is Kaustubh Deo. Kaustubh recently acquired a tree service business in Seattle through a self-funded search after working in private equity in New York. I've had the pleasure of getting to know Kaustubh over the last two years and have found him to be one of the most insightful thinkers in the search space.
A good portion of our conversation focuses on concepts like risk-reward and making transitions, topics he has given a lot of thought. Throughout our discussion, we talk about the differences operating in large private equity compared to in small companies, loosening his deal-breaker list, effectively investing his time learning the new business, and YouTube strategy for the tree service industry.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Kaustubh Deo on LinkedIn
Blooma Tree Experts
Guilty of Treeson on YouTube
SingleOps & the Green Industry Perspectives Podcast
Topics:
(4:24) - Would you ever get on YouTube?
(5:43) - Why don’t tree-climbers gravitate toward W2’s?
(8:21) - What’s your main recruiting base?
(10:49) - Are you seeing any tree service content creation outside of YouTube and Instagram?
(11:48) - How did you end up in the world of tree services?
(14:02) - How did you decide to focus on the Seattle market?
(17:31) - What was your deal process like?
(19:13) - Thoughts on Deal-breakers in search
(22:40) - The deal experience in private equity vs. small business acquisitions
(26:15) - What are some ways you tried to learn about the company’s culture without interacting with the employees?
(31:12) - What are some ways you are looking to improve communication with customers?
(37:34) - What’s your transition been like actually running the business?
(41:15) - How helpful has it been seeing customer interactions first-hand?
(43:10) - The differences in operations for private equity acquisitions vs. small businesses
(46:40) - Do you have any advice for people in Search?
(48:42) - What were your personal preferences when you started your search and how did those change over time?
(52:30) - What growth goals do you have for the next 10 years?
(54:58) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(57:08) - How do you determine the risk vs. reward balance in a decision?
(58:59) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:01:51) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Alex Mears. Alex started his career in investment banking and consulting before leaving for the Navy and eventually returning to private equity at the Carlyle Group. Two years ago, Alex launched a non-profit called Search and Acquire to support veterans pursuing search. And he just recently announced a search investment firm he's co-founded called the Brydon Group to invest in searchers from all backgrounds.
I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Alex over the last few years. I always appreciate his ability to take concepts from the military and large-cap private equity and apply them to our own lives and careers. He's a wealth of knowledge, and I've been excited to record an episode with him for a while. Alex and I kick things off by talking about the causes of failure in search, why you should always invert due diligence, best practices from large-cap private equity, and how to run software and government services businesses.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
The Brydon Group
Alex Mears on LinkedIn
Topics:
(4:32) - What are some major causes of failure in Search?
(10:17) - What are some interesting strategies you’ve seen used to maintain a healthy pipeline while in a live deal?
(11:52) - Phase 2 failures & the period of greatest risk in a search transaction
(15:56) - Alex’s background and career
(18:11) - Why did you join the military?
(20:12) - What were some of your learnings and best practices from working in Large Cap Private Equity?
(24:56) - Why are you investing in government services businesses?
(27:13) - How do you pair government services with your search model that emphasizes customer diversification?
(30:09) - What are some KPIs in government that Government Services Business CEOs need to pay attention to?
(31:58) - How do you find out if there are tailwinds and what the government will be spending more money on?
(32:56) - What is inverting in due diligence?
(34:50) - What are some of the best and worst traits in veterans as business leaders?
(36:19) - Are there certain business models veterans outperform in?
(37:23) - How can Brydon be a better supporter of Searchers?
(41:29) - What has been the investor appetite for Search over the past 5 years?
(43:15) - What were the values you spent a lot of time working on?
(45:03) - Brydon’s Entrepreneur & Residence Program
(53:23) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(55:22) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(56:55) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Tony Layne. I met Tony and his wife Cassi at SMBash in February after several folks strongly recommended I talk with them and I'm glad they did. Tony and Cassi are lifelong entrepreneurs in various ventures, but by far, their most successful venture is Senior Dental Care, now called Aria Care Partners under private equity ownership.
Senior Dental Care started as a mobile dental services company for senior care homes and evolved to partner with insurance companies to pay for their services on behalf of patients through Medicare, meaning it didn't cost patients a dime to get dental care. Once the insurance aspect clicked, this business exploded, and it's created life changing financial results for them both.
Our discussion is very story-based as we go through Tony and Cassi's journey, which is fantastic as their story is anything but dull, boring, and smooth, which brings me to a point about challenges. At the end of the episode, Tony said he was concerned that he'd talked about too many near death experiences in their business, but I feel these stories are perhaps the most important to share.
When we hear stories of successful entrepreneurs today, they rarely share failures and hardships endured during the path to success, and that makes other growing entrepreneurs think that they're failures when they hit a rough patch. Sharing near death experiences in entrepreneurship is incredibly important as it demonstrates that hardship is normal, even for those that become successful. I hope Tony sharing his near-death experiences encourages others on this podcast and others to share the same.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Tony on LinkedIn
Lynniam Farms
Topics:
(6:07) - Tony’s background and career in Real Estate, construction & dental health care
(32:50) - Being extorted by the state of Florida
(37:08) - Butting heads with the board
(40:39) - Growing their business and growing their family
(44:31) - Acquiring an 1,800 acre property that would become Lynniam Farms & selling off the dental business
(54:22) - Stepping away as CEO and getting into the transactional side of the business
(56:31) - Setting up a Family Office
(58:46) - Do you want to spend more time working with traditional searchers?
(1:00:13) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(1:01:28) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:02:46) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Tom Birchard. Tom has spent a great portion of his career managing service and operations teams for Ingersoll Rand and Trane, and as of March 2022, has taken a president role with a family office to acquire home services businesses. The family office is Whitney Wilder and it's technically a multifamily office based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that operates like a private equity firm, but without a fund, giving them lots of flexibility, investments, and timelines. The office was formed after some successful real estate investments and their next move is acquiring home services businesses with Tom leading that new effort.
Tom and I discuss managing projects and teams, getting to know a new team and designing successful transitions, how to handle having an iPad thrown at you, and involving family more in your career, among other team management topics. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Tom’s Blog
Whitney Wilder Family Office
The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins
Brent Beshore
Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel
Searchfunder.com
The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman
Topics:
(4:44) - Tom’s career and background
(6:36) - What does IR & Train do?
(7:59) - Tom’s transition into family office & different roles he’s held during his career
(10:23) - What were some common themes you saw in successfully managing teams of different sizes?
(11:42) - How would you define the management role as the size of the team differs?
(13:44) - Are there nuances in managing teams with different missions?
(16:16) - How do you think about improving as a manager and getting feedback from your team?
(19:30) - How do you encourage teams to give genuine feedback?
(22:07) - What have you learned about managing difficult transitions?
(24:21) - What are some effective ways to build relationships with key team members early on in a new management role?
(27:15) - How do you start working on the early wins to build trust with your team?
(29:53) - How do you approach a team member who isn’t pulling their weight and determine whether it’s a firing vs. training solution?
(32:04) - Where did you get your interest in SMB?
(35:38) - How did you bring your wife into these decisions?
(38:38) - Do you involve owner’s families when potentially acquiring a company?
(40:45) - What college class would you teach if it could be on anything?
(41:41) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(43:41) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Ryan Turk. Ryan raised a traditional search fund in March 2020 and closed on Radiation Detection Company only nine months later in December 2020. Prior to searching, Ryan served in the Navy aboard nuclear submarine USS Michigan as an officer managing their onboard nuclear power system.
Ryan used this experience to launch his impressively short industry focused search. Ryan and I talk about the pros and cons of being from the Navy prior to becoming a CEO, his thoughts on industry focus versus broad searches, establishing credibility and building relationships in a new team, and how his board has been helpful along with other advice to folks working with boards. Enjoy.
Links:
Ryan on LinkedIn
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin
Radiation Detection Company
Topics:
(5:26) - Ryan’s background and career in the Navy before RDC
(9:28) - What were some key sales skills you learned working for a startup?
(10:58) - How did you go about the process of developing your Cap Table?
(12:50) - How did you decide your industry focus?
(18:13) - Once you had a targeted industry focus, how did you reach out to different companies?
(20:13) - How fast was it from Fundraise to close?
(20:26) - What does RDC do?
(21:57) - How did you build relationships with the most influential people on your team?
(27:27) - Were there any challenges with the fact that you were taking over a 3rd generation family business?
(30:18) - What have you found is most helpful in communicating that painful growth is best for the employees in the long term?
(33:24) - How did your time in the military affect how you look at job progression and giving people more responsibility?
(38:32) - What were some blind spots you developed while in the military?
(43:44) - How have you leaned on your board?
(45:43) - How did you develop your board?
(48:13) - What advice would you offer to searchers looking to create a board?
(52:35) - What college course would you teach if it could be on anything?
(54:56) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(57:01) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Preston Holland. Preston is the COO of FLYING Magazine, which was purchased in July 2021 by Craig Fuller and has been going through a broad transformation to a modern media business.
Preston and I became friends over our mutual love of aviation and media, and our conversations are always wide ranging and leave me with a new idea or view of the world. I'm very excited to share today's episode on niche media and publishing.
Over the course of our discussion, we talk all things print publishing, why your favorite magazines aren't what they used to be, why the print is dead narrative is misleading, FLYING’s fly in community plans, how to grow an editorial team, and aviation puns. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Preston on LinkedIn
Preston on Twitter
Flying Magazine
Watch: Flying into Oshkosh
Alpine Airpark
Topics:
(5:03) - Preston’s career leading up to Flying Magazine
(7:15) - Are you a pilot now?
(8:51) - What’s the culture like at Flying?
(14:28) - What was the process like of acquiring Flying from Bonnier?
(17:45) - What were some new directions Flying needed to take to become a more modern publication?
(23:31) - Why isn’t print publication dying out?
(30:07) - How did you think about the different products that Flying could offer?
(34:32) - Is there a plan to build more of these fly-in communities?
(41:10) - How did you transform the Flying team since the acquisition?
(44:34) - What have been some challenges or growing pains you’ve experienced?
(46:37) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(47:48) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:34) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is David Dodson. David started the second ever search fund after being a Stanford case writer, purchasing Smith Alarm Systems in 1989. Over his career, David has been the CEO or executive chairman of five companies, has and continues to invest in search funds today through his firm Futaleufu Partners, and he is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching classes about search and the management of small companies.
My conversation with David starts with his time as a case writer before launching his search fund. We talk about peaks and valleys in his search career, including some very hard conversations. We dive deep into the topic of transitioning from a contributor to a leader of a small firm and important leadership skills.
We also talk about how the search fund world has evolved over time and where it might continue to change in the future. Finally, we talk about the relationships searchers have with their investors and how to foster better ones. I've been really excited to have David on the podcast for quite a while, and I hope you enjoy our wide-ranging conversation.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
David on LinkedIn
Futaleufu Partners
Topics:
(5:26) - David’s background and career
(9:21) - What sticks out to you the most when thinking back on getting someone to write you a check?
(12:11) - Once you had the capital, what did you do to search for companies?
(13:43) - What were some of the more stressful calls you had with owner/operators?
(15:03) - David’s experience acquiring & running Smith Alarm Systems
(19:06) - How did you approach your first 18 months as the new owner?
(23:50) - The 5 skills of Leadership
(29:11) - What are some examples of early prioritization as a leader?
(31:42) - How do you advise making the transition from being a contributor to one organization to being a leader of your own organization?
(34:46) - What are some common struggles folks have when they become a manager of managers?
(38:48) - What have been some “near-death experiences” in your career?
(45:16) - Are there any exercises you try to do to put your mind at a pause when you’re making a critical decision?
(47:41) - What are some ways you’ve seen the Search Fund world change throughout your career?
(51:11) - Are there too many searchers?
(53:00) - What advice do you have for searchers to build relationships with their investor base?
(56:26) - What college course would you teach if it could be on anything?
(58:22) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:00:15) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Glenn Gonzales. Glenn is the founder and CEO of Jet It, a fractional share private jet business with a unique model serving customers across the country and in Europe. Prior to founding Jet It, Glenn was an F-15 pilot in the Air Force and sold private jets on behalf of Gulfstream and Honda.
This episode is a deep dive into all options available for business owners who want to fly private. If you want to explore private travel options, fly private more frequently, or even buy an aircraft directly to make your business and personal travel more efficient, this episode is for you. We talk about high level benefits to flying private and what factors to consider when evaluating your options. We walk through each of the four core private travel models – charter, jet cards, fractional ownership, direct ownership – along with their pros and cons and what kind of person or business each is meant for.
After diving into each model, we talk about how Glenn's company Jet It fits into the private travel ecosystem and where that ecosystem is headed in the future. Finally, I ask him what it is like flying an F-15. I hope you enjoy this episode and find it useful for deciding how you and your business can utilize private travel in the near future.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Glenn on LinkedIn
Jet It
NetJets
Topics:
(5:04) - Glenn’s background in aviation and military career
(6:41) - Do you have any favorite memories from your days in aviation sales?
(8:27) - What are the different breakdowns of customers who would buy a place directly?
(10:22) - Where does someone get started in exploring private aviation?
(12:54) - What are the broad pros and cons of flying private?
(18:25) - Glenn’s rule of them for business owners considering flying private
(20:29) - Private aviation models: Chartering & Jet Cards
(24:26) - The state of Jet Cards as an industry
(25:41) - Costs within Chartering and Jet Card
(27:07) - Private aviation models: Factional Ownership
(29:32) - Pricing within Factional Ownership
(33:48) - Yearly income needed before considering direct ownership of a plane
(35:12) - How does JetIt fit into the ecosystem of private aviation?
(39:05) - Does JetIt help arrange transportation after landing?
(40:31) - Have you faced any near-death experiences in building your business?
(42:17) - How do you hire and recruit folks?
(43:46) - What do you think the private aviation landscape will look like in 10 years?
(46:03) - How can private aviation become more affordable?
(48:05) - How much does an electric plane drop the cost of a flight?
(51:01) - What college class would you teach if it could be anything?
(51:37) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(53:32) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(54:10) - Who are some aviation entrepreneurs that you admire?
(58:26) - What are some differences between flying a Honda Jet and the F-15?
Welcome to the first episode in our trilogy search partner series with great entrepreneurs and investors from the traditional search world. Today, I am joined by Nikita Sunilkumar and Kush Das who both search and acquired home healthcare businesses through the traditional search process. Kush acquired Ennoble Care and works as a CEO today. Nikita acquired Crown Health in June 2020 and, in fact, just recently sold in early 2022.
Both Nikita and Kush are fantastically talented entrepreneurs, as well as being friends which will be apparent as you listen to the episode. Their combined experience offers a great lens into what acquiring and operating a healthcare business looks like today and how to succeed.
During our conversation, we talk about search interest in healthcare, different subcategories of health care, value-based trends, challenges and diligence, talent management, changes from COVID, and so much more. Please enjoy this first trilogy search episode.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Crown Health
Ennoble Care
Nikita on LinkedIn
Kush on LinkedIn
Planet - Daily Satellite Data
Topics:
(10:07) - Nikita and Kush’s Backgrounds
(14:05) - Nikita and Kush’s businesses: Ennoble Care & Crown Health
(18:10) - Can you explain what value-based care means and the implications for both of your businesses?
(21:40) - Are there challenges behind running a value-based healthcare company?
(24:38) - What are some challenges running this kind of business model without the scale behind it?
(26:29) - What is the team management dynamic like in your businesses?
(29:33) - What does it take to find really great people to plug into your company?
(33:13) - Have there been any challenges or benefits with increased remote patient monitoring since the pandemic?
(40:21) - How have you approached Revenue cycle management?
(43:29) - How have you seen Health Care in Search become more or less popular?
(47:35) - What are some challenges or mistakes searchers make in diligence health care businesses?
(52:53) - What were some pandemic-related changes you saw in your respective businesses?
(58:13) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(1:01:30) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(1:03:22) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Michael Curry and Keith Burns who together have acquired 11 diagnostic radiation and other physics services businesses since 2014 through their platform Apex Physics Partners.
This episode is loaded with wisdom and insights. I had a number of alternative titles I considered based on quotes for the conversation like "the CEO of Delta doesn't know how to fly" or "putting out fires with your face." Ultimately, earning the right to lead felt right as we talk extensively about their experience being first-time CEOs in an industry they had no background in, but through it all, they've managed to build an impressive track record at Apex with an ever-growing team.
Over the course of this episode, we discuss the concept of the messy middle between the start and ultimate success of a business, signal versus noise and learning about the company you've acquired, how to know you're a good leader, letting go of control, and building a culture that grows. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Keith Burns on LinkedIn
Michael Curry on LinkedIn
Apex Physics Partners
Seneca Creek
Kruger Gilbert Health Physics
The Hard thing about Hard things by Ben Horowitz
Topics:
(5:07) - Michael & Keith’s backgrounds
(11:19) - What does a medical physics business look like?
(15:19) - Learning about what you actually bought vs. what you think you bought
(20:17) - Earning the right to lead
(22:33) - How did you figure out where you needed to invest your efforts in repairing relationships with the team?
(28:07) - How do you interpret the “messy middle” of acquiring a business?
(33:14) - Are there key memories where you felt like things were turning in your favor?
(39:33) - Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.
(42:34) - How do you let go of people who aren’t a good fit yet are embedded within a small company?
(48:27) - How did you approach hiring people who were smarter than you and giving them control?
(56:14) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(54:45) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(59:40) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Lori Harrington and Bruce Vanderzyde. Lori launched a search in October 2020 and recently acquired Bruce's company Anterra Tech at the end of 2021, which offers business intelligence software for the construction and real estate industries.
This episode is a great discussion of how building a better relationship with a seller, negotiating upfront, bringing great advisors, and emphasizing strong and frequent communication can lead to a successful deal.
Whether you're buying or selling a business, this conversation has a ton to offer. During the episode, we go over how their first meeting went, how they made their due diligence process easier on each other, the power of building a strong relationship, and their advice both for searchers and owners looking to sell their companies.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Anterra Tech
Lori Harrington on LinkedIn
Bruce Vanderzyde on LinkedIn
Traction by Gino Wickman
PEC Safety (now Veriforce)
Buc-ees
Topics:
(4:36) - Lori & Bruce’s Career backgrounds
(10:00) - What has become more difficult as the company became larger?
(11:18) - Why made Lori’s offer more interesting than others to buy your company?
(14:33) - What was it about meeting with Bruce that made his company more attractive to buy?
(16:10) - How did meeting with Lori increase your confidence in the deal?
(18:51) - What parts of the process did you focus on to make the transaction as smooth as possible?
(22:45) - The importance of constant communication during an acquisition
(23:36) - Bruce’s experience balancing due diligence while still running the company
(26:38) - Thinking about life after selling your business
(29:02) - Thinking about life after completing the search process
(30:10) - How do you look to the board for guidance?
(31:09) - What did your first 30 days look like in terms of communication, especially with a remote team?
(35:07) - Are there any compound benefits to running a remote company for 6+ years?
(36:00) - Dealing with letting go of control of your company
(39:09) - How do you discover best processes from a company you acquire?
(40:02) - What advice would you offer to searchers and sellers?
(45:45) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(47:53) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:33) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guests on this episode are Justin Burris and Tim Ludwig who together have co-founded a new search investment fund named Majority Search. Majority Search aims to be the preferred buyer of small companies while giving searchers the chance to own the majority of the companies they operate. This is a brand-new model they've spent the last year working on, and I'm so excited to see it finally become public.
This episode was recorded live on February 4th at SM Bash in Orlando, Florida, in front of over a hundred attendees, my first podcast ever in front of an audience. We did have a few microphones snafoos here and there, and the overall quality was affected some, which I apologize for. Even so, this is a fantastic episode that I hope you thoroughly enjoy.
Over the course of the conversation, Tim and Justin share their inspiration for Majority Search, the keys to being a better buyer, great investors they both admire and learn from, and advice for building great relationships. If you want to learn more about Majority Search, reach out to Justin and Tim at majoritysearch.com. Please enjoy the first live conversation of Think Like an Owner.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Majority Search
BDT Capital Partners
Constellation software
Waste Management
AB-Inbev
BizBuySell
Y Combinator
Topics:
(4:12) - How Alex came into contact with Justin and Tim
(5:29) - Introducing Tim Ludwig
(6:24) - Introducing Justin Burris
(7:44) - How Majority Search builds upon the traditional search fund model
(9:53) - The inspiration behind Majority Search
(13:32) - What types of buyers have you studied when building Majority Search?
(16:00) - What are some of the challenges of designing a search firm?
(21:57) - What goes into being a perfect owner of a company?
(23:44) - How close is Majority Search to modeling how a high-net worth individual would behave investing off their own balance sheet?
(25:57) - What would you advise operators who don’t have access to capital do when searching?
(30:56) - How do you think about building a Berkshire-level cache of businesses from scratch to build a reputation as a buyer?
(32:44) - What college course would you teach?
(35:11) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(36:40) - What mechanisms that give YC its distinct notoriety?
(38:48) - Wrap Up
This week is a bonus episode. We are cross posting a guest appearance I had on John Wilson's Owned and Operated podcast. I'm a big fan of John and enjoy his podcast immensely, and I wanted to share it with you all. In this episode, I share more about my philosophy behind the Operator's Handbook and all the ins and outs you want to know about podcasting. Near the end, I manage to turn the mic around on him and learn about his idea of bloating before optimizing and growing Wilson Plumbing and their other acquisitions. I hope you enjoy this Owned and Operated episode with John Wilson and myself.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Owned & Operated Podcast
My First Million Podcast
Think Like An Owner Ep. 47 with John Wilson
Peter Attia’s private podcast
Knifepoint Horror Podcast - Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Grant’s Interest Rate Observer
The Economist
Harvard Business Review
BizBuySell
How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis
Topics:
(1:36) - Introducing Alex & discussing podcasting
(5:08) - Alex’s background, starting Think Like An Owner & The Operator’s Handbook
(9:34) - When did Think Like An Owner shift from being a hobby to a business?
(12:03) - The podcasting business model
(19:07) - Building The Operator’s Handbook and why Alex chose a print format
(31:20) - The process of creating one issue of The Operator’s Handbook
(35:39) - Subscriber growth from the first issue
(37:05) - The team behind The Operator’s Handbook
(39:16) - What’s the process like of bringing on a team?
(40:43) - Acquiring & growing publications and media outfits
(50:39) - John on growing his service businesses
(53:57) - Bloating with an imperfect process
(57:32) - Alex’s search for a media acquisition
(59:43) - Wrap up
My guest on this episode is Greg Geronemus, co-founder and managing partner of Footbridge Partners, a traditional search investment firm. This is my second episode with Greg, the first being episode 17 back in April 2020, where Greg shared his experience acquiring and operating his search company SmarTours and launching Footbridge.
Well, two years later, Greg and his partner David have raised that fund and are halfway through their investment period with a budding portfolio of searchers. In this second episode, Greg shares his view on the role of a search investor, misconceptions in traditional search, the risk in buying at larger multiples, and a few wild stories from his time running SmarTours. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Footbridge Partners
Greg's first appearance on TLAO
SmarTours
Forest Park Capital
The Skin Center
Topics:
(4:45) - Greg’s Background and career
(6:43) - How much did the experience of running smart tours help in your advisement to searchers?
(8:40) - Is there a specific experience from your time with Smart Tours that you reference often with searchers?
(10:21) - Greg’s experience cancelling a season of Ukrainian river cruises
(11:11) - Have you invested in any companies that have the same exposure as Smart Tours?
(12:19) - Are there any themes you’ve noticed in the investments you pursue?
(14:10) - What is your perspective on the role of a search investor?
(18:10) - Can a hands-on investor approach be scaled across 60-70 searchers?
(19:53) - Common misconceptions about the world of search
(25:35) - What risks do you see in searchers buying larger and larger businesses?
(29:30) - What are some interesting changes you’re seeing on the self-funded searcher side?
(33:23) - How can a self-funded searcher or search investor protect themselves during the process?
(37:33) - As an investor, What sorts of numbers, metrics and reports are you looking for from searchers either quarterly or annually?
(40:13) - How frequently do you communicate with searchers?
(42:16) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Mehtab Bhogal, co-founder of Karta Ventures. Karta is a Canadian based e-commerce acquirer investing primarily in e-commerce turnarounds, a corner of the world I didn't even know existed but that is incredibly fascinating.
This episode is one of my recent favorites because of Mehtab’s ability to share high level insights and then, in the next sentence, dive deep into obscure e-commerce details.
If you enjoy conversations with seasoned operators who love to get their hands dirty, you will love this episode. During our conversation, Mehtab describes the dynamics within turnaround businesses, the risk return profile of each of them, which mimics venture in many ways, how he finds companies, and some incredible stories about what he's discovered in declining e-commerce companies.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Mehtab Bhogal on LinkedIn
Karta Ventures
Diapers.com
Josh’s Frogs
Josh’s Frogs on YouTube
Topics:
(5:06) - Mehtab’s background and career
(7:14) - Dropping out of college to flip guitars full-time
(8:40) - Launching a search vehicle
(9:54) - What kinds of deals did you find via Reddit?
(11:02) - When did you get the sense that you were on the right track with DTC brands?
(12:48) - What are the dynamics of a turn-around business?
(14:24) - What are the main reasons an e-commerce business will become a turn-around business?
(15:59) - What companies in a turn-around situations do you steer clear from?
(17:02) - Why are you able to do due diligence so much faster with these types of companies?
(17:52) - The nuance between product issues and marketing issues
(19:15) - The low cost of entry for these businesses
(20:30) - Risk-return vs. Venture
(21:59) - How do you find these companies and choose the best ones?
(24:12) - What happens day 1 after acquiring the business?
(26:00) - What are some easily identifiable expenses that you find and cut?
(28:50) - How do you evaluate managers?
(29:59) - What do you do to shift companies into growth mode?
(31:22) - What changes do you make on the product, sales and marketing side?
(32:34) - A discussion on Lean production
(33:50) - How do you evaluate whether a product is a breakeven bread product?
(34:25) - Are you able to see what order items are added to someones cart?
(36:58) - What are you surprised by that’s missing or not done well at these companies? Any wild stories?
(40:56) - What college class would you teach if it could cover anything?
(42:28) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(42:59) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Sam Shepler. Sam is the founder of Testimonial Hero, a company he bootstrapped that helps companies create more effective video customer testimonials. Sam and I spend much of the episode talking about how to create great testimonials for your company and what the driving reasons are for using video over text or other mediums.
In addition to being focused on a really interesting part of a sales process, Testimonial Hero itself is an interesting case study at what a bootstrap services company grows into overtime.
Over the course of the episode, we talk about hiring a great team, using software and technology in your business to automate processes, and we spend some time near the end discussing time management and productivity. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Sam on Twitter
Testimonial Hero
Gumroad
Andrew Wilkinson: Lazy Leadership
Topics:
(3:31) - How do you think about investing yourself and your professional development?
(6:45) - What are some of the biggest changes you’ve made in your routine as you’ve grown in your career?
(8:05) - What are some learnings you’ve had from working with coaches?
(10:02) - How did you build Testimonial Hero? What were the early days like?
(12:12) - What research have you found in the comparison of effectiveness between pull quotes and video reviews?
(14:15) - What kinds of companies are best suited for video testimonials?
(17:16) - If a company doesn’t have a content strategy or video testimonials, which should they pursue first?
(18:16) - Were video testimonials always the main product at Testimonial Hero?
(19:11) - What’s been your journey as a founder?
(21:01) - Was there a tipping point that launched your growth?
(22:15) - What did your day as a CEO look like in year 1 vs. now?
(24:40) - Was there a moment where you realized you needed to bring on a General Manager?
(25:50) - Tracking a CEO’s time
(27:53) - What college course would you teach if it could be on anything?
(28:35) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(29:24) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(30:53) - Are there parts of Gumroad you’ve tried to emulate?
My guest on this episode is Robert Graham. Robert worked in management roles at Eaton prior to attending Harvard Business School, after which he worked in investment banking and private equity. Eventually, he decided to search for a business after seeing his HBS classmates do it, and today Robert is Managing Partner at Pillar Health Group, the holding company for four healthcare businesses he acquired together as a searcher.
He's also a partner at Search Investment Group, which advises searchers on finding and acquiring their dream business. Search Investment Group also invests in self-funded searchers and has launched a new funded search program that functions as a hybrid between self-funded and traditional funded search.
We discussed this program, its goals and feedback they've received from searchers in the episode. During our conversation, we also talk about what managing large manufacturing facilities with hundreds of employees is like, why Robert didn't want to acquire a manufacturing business as part of his search, running two businesses at once with Pillar Health and Search Investment Group, and time management as a CEO.
Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
Robert on LinkedIn
Harvard Business School
Search Investment Group
Pillar Health Group
Topics:
(4:07) - Robert’s journey into Search
(5:32) - Could you have launched a search fund directly after attending HBS?
(6:38) - How did your experience prior to Harvard Business School help prepare you for searching?
(7:40) - Robert’s experience running operations in manufacturing facilities
(13:37) - Did you ever come across any SMB’s that would’ve existed as suppliers within manufacturing plants that interested you?
(16:43) - Running Pillar Health Group
(18:51) - The explosive growth of the three branches of Pillar
(20:30) - How similar are the three businesses?
(22:46) - What does your current day-to-day look like?
(25:33) - What adjustments are you looking to make in your role for 2022?
(27:31) - Do you do any exercise that helps you decide what needs to be delegated?
(29:37) - Thoughts on grocery delivery
(30:57) - Search Investment Group
(32:17) - SIG’s program for funding self-funded searchers
(35:25) - Is there a step-up in any expenditure you make when helping the searcher
(36:45) - What’s the reception been like from searchers?
(37:53) - What personality tests have you found to be most effective when interviewing potential searchers?
(41:12) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(41:44) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(43:32) - Have you found any correlation between a searcher’s experience in an industry to their success in that industry?
(45:55) - Warren Buffet’s annual shareholder meeting
(47:10) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Eric Friend. I reached out to Eric after seeing him talking on Twitter about his family’s printing business Friend Paper, which was founded in 1908 in Zion, Illinois, by Eric's great grandfather. As a print publisher through our quarterly publication called the Operator's Handbook, I was curious to hear what ideas he had on using print as a content medium. It turns out he's an even bigger print publishing nerd than I am, and we hit it off immediately. I forgot to hit the record button during our first phone call, but Eric agreed to be on the podcast to share more about his family business and print as an under-loved medium.
Eric shares his journey from investment banking to his fourth-generation family printing business, challenges inherent in family businesses, the rebranding effort, and how companies today can use print to stand out from their competitors with customers and create unique experiences. We also spend quite some time nerding out about print publishing and the business cards from the movie American Psycho. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
H.A. Friend & Co., Inc (Eric's Company)
Eric on Twitter
The Luxury Strategy by J.N. Kapferer
The Best Made Company x Duluth Trading Co.
Topics:
(4:02) - The Catholic Church Story
(10:14) - The timelessness of print media
(13:36) - Eric’s background, his career in Investment Banking, and moving into the family business
(31:36) - What are some ways you want to see other companies use high quality print products?
(39:14) - What are some ways to communicate luxury through print?
(42:49) - Challenges in the business across generations
(49:31) - What are you most excited for over the next 12 months in the business?
(52:27) - What college class would you teach if it could be anything?
(54:20) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(55:31) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(59:27) - Wrap up
John founded a professional services company in 1984 focused on energy conservation, inspections, and design work for large companies. He eventually grew the company to 43 employees and $13 million in sales and sold to Eclipse Combustion for $10 million in 2011.
Since selling the business, he has taken on specific consulting projects to keep himself active and in the loop. I met John at a happy hour gathering in Akron, Ohio, of small business folks on Twitter and around Ohio. We shared a beer and chatted all things building a team, growing a business and life after a sale.
His journey of being a founder and selling his business is the other side of the table from many of our podcast guests who acquired the business they run. John's story is filled with all the trials and triumphs of growing a business from scratch and creating a life changing outcome for your family. And I had a lot of fun recording this conversation. Over the course of the episode, we talk about reinventing yourself repeatedly, creating a saleable business, courage as a muscle that can be developed, and a few horror stories.
Listen weekly and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links:
CEC Consultants
Honeywell Combustion Safety
Sales Concepts Course
John Puskar Books
John Puskar on YouTube
John Puskar on LinkedIn
Topics:
(4:11) - John’s background and career
(12:05) - What does an energy conservation audit look like?
(13:11) - How long were you working before you could bring in a team to help you?
(15:09) - Was there a point where you could accelerate the growth of your team?
(24:29) - How did your day to day and the perspective of your business change when you hit that period of hyper growth?
(29:03) - Courage is a muscle that can be developed over time
(33:26) - John’s Pivot into creating a Sale-able business
(41:32) - What changes occurred in your life after selling the business?
(48:52) - Horror Stories of the business
(53:59) - What college class would you teach if it could be about anything?
(55:31) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(56:59) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(58:10) - Wrap up
My guest on this episode is Jordan Evans. Jordan grew up in an entrepreneurial family in California. His parents started a language translation and interpreting business when he was two years old, and it grew over the course of his childhood. It grew enough that he actually acquired it from his parents in 2019 and has since been growing the business organically and through strategic bolt-on acquisitions of other language companies. I love episodes of family businesses. I've become more interested recently in roll-ups, so this was a really fun episode for me.
Over the course of the episode, we talk about how his parents started and grew the company, childhood with entrepreneurial parents, best practices in running a fully remote team, and developing and growth through an acquisition playbook. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links
Language Network
ScanSnap
Topics
(3:48) - Jordan’s experience growing up in a family business and his ultimate decision to buy it from his parents
(5:07) - Jordan’s previous career in software
(7:08) - What options were you weighing when you were let go?
(8:31) - How old were you when your parents started their business?
(9:09) - Was there a moment when it clicked that your parents were entrepreneurs?
(10:40) - What was the overview of the business when you took over?
(12:34) - What do customer relationships look like?
(14:50) - How do you organize your team to handle so many different relationships?
(16:50) - How did your parents optimize the business around lifestyle and what changes did you make to prime it for growth and bolt-on?
(20:57) - What was the most difficult part of going paperless?
(24:32) - The process of hiring and developing a sales team
(28:01) - How do you manage a team of 1500+ freelancers?
(30:45) - What was the transition like from an office to fully-remote?
(32:36) - Why did you decide to start acquiring bolt-on companies?
(36:58) - What’s gotten more difficult as you do each acquisition?
(40:21) - Where do your deals generally come from?
(44:02) - How do you structure deals with sellers?
(46:50) - Have you used SBA debt at all?
(48:23) - What are you most excited for over the next year?
(50:07) - What college class would you teach if it could be anything?
(51:42) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on?
(53:26) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
My guest on this episode is Chris Williams. I was introduced to Chris via Justin Vogt about a year ago. And since then, Chris and I have talked monthly about his search, thoughts on running a small company, the podcast, and all things work and life. I've really enjoyed getting to know him, and I'm thrilled to have him on the podcast finally. Chris recently bought a bookkeeping and accounting outsourcing business in California called System Six, which had 24 employees and around a million dollars in EBITDA at the time of acquisition. As Chris has spent more time in the CEO seat, it's been fun hearing about his ideas, challenges, and new growth plans for the company, and I'm excited to share them on the podcast.
Over the course of this episode, Chris and I talk about why he chose to buy a small company versus continuing in private equity, the daily life of being a CEO, building a team around flexibility, and growth opportunities ahead. Also, Chris is looking to build a specialty in searcher owned companies for bookkeeping and accounting. If this is an area you need help in, definitely reach out to Chris at chris@systemsix.com and tell him you heard him on Think Like an Owner.
Listen weekly and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links
SystemSix
Alpine Investors
Emporos Systems
Topics
(5:27) - Chris’ background and career
(7:15) - Was there a specific moment where you realized that you wanted to run a business yourself?
(8:28) - Did you find PE to be focused less on People?
(10:36) - Were there any opportunities for PE firms to recruit you to work directly within portfolio companies?
(12:32) - Chris’s search and the emotional journey
(17:13) - Are there any high-level takeaways you would share with other searchers?
(19:30) - What is the business you bought?
(21:29) - How much interaction did you have with the owner during the process?
(24:43) - What kind of questions did the owner’s wife ask you?
(26:23) - How has the team received you?
(28:20) - What are the biggest differences in your day to day compared to your time spent in PE?
(31:24) - Is there a specific moment or memory you’ve had since operating that has made it all worthwhile?
(33:44) - What’s an operating rabbit hole you’re going down right now?
(36:12) - Profit Sharing
(39:28) - SystemSix’s interesting flexibility offerings
(42:50) - What are you most excited for over the next 6 months?
(44:34) - What college class would you teach if it could be anything?
(48:00) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on?
(49:36) - Have you found any interesting or reliable ways to experiment with different paths?
(51:02) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen?
(52:51) - Is there a reason you didn’t focus more on software businesses during your search?
My guests in this episode are Austin Hall and Palmer Higgins. A few months ago, I ran a survey with Think Like An Owner listeners to get feedback on the direction of the podcast. And one of the questions I asked was on new episode formats. One of those formats that received great feedback was facilitating conversations between two owners in similar industries that they could dive deep into their own businesses in a way I can't since I don't operate a business like theirs.
I reached out to Austin and Palmer, who both lead lawn care businesses in Chicago and Maine, respectively, and are great friends. And they work to test the format with me. This wide-ranging conversation between the two of them covers what they're struggling with within their companies, pricing, materials, hiring and training, tractions, EOS, implementation, and everything involved in scaling a people-intensive business. Please let me know what you think of the format. I'm posting this episode specifically to get feedback on the format. And if I should do more episodes like this one or not. Send me your thoughts via email to alex.e.bridgeman@gmail.com. On Twitter, where you can find me at @aebridgeman and finally via my website, alexbridgeman.com.
Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Think Like an Owner has teamed up with the podcast app Clever FM to provide show-specific features like searchability, sorting episodes by tags, episode transcripts, and the ability to highlight and annotate episodes. Do us a favor and download Clever FM on Apple or Android and tell us what you think and what other features you would like to see.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
My guest in this episode is Ryan DeCaire. Ryan joined a private equity firm called Ashbridge Partners in Toronto Canada and became president of one of their portfolio companies, Geroline, in February 2019. Geroline is an industrial safety products company that sells ice cleats to companies in the energy, aerospace, mining, transportation, and construction industries among others. Geroline has a pretty incredible growth story from the time of acquisition in February 2019, when it had low double digits revenue, Ryan and his team doubled the size of Geroline and sold for 10x gross return to investors only 16 months later.
The story of how they did it with sweat and tears will have a familiar theme to anyone in a growing small company. Ryan and I discussed building systems and a growing business, hiring for culture, creating an incentive structure for their team, going to 55 trade shows per year, and all the work needed to handle those leads and the challenges of being a business with only one or a small handful of products.
Think Like an Owner has teamed up with the podcast app Clever FM to provide show-specific features like searchability, sorting episodes by tags, episode transcripts, and the ability to highlight and annotate episodes. Do us a favor and download Clever FM on Apple or Android and tell us what you think and what other features you would like to see.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Ryan DeCaire on LinkedIn * SureWerx Official Website
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank — Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP — Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest in this episode is Sandro Mina. Sandro is a co-founding partner of Relay Investments, a search investment fund based in Boston. Prior to Relay, Sandro and his partner, Martin launched their own search fund after graduating from Stanford's MBA program in 1991, acquiring and eventually exiting three companies.
Sandro delves at the company he ran called Camera World and explains what this world of search funds looked like in the early Nineties. During our conversation, we discussed the history of search funds, how searchers should think about transitioning ownership from the seller to themselves, and how searchers can construct and utilize a great board for their company.
Think Like an Owner has teamed up with the podcast app Clever FM to provide show-specific features like searchability, sorting episodes by tags, episode transcripts, and the ability to highlight and annotate episodes. Do us a favor and download Clever FM on Apple or Android and tell us what you think and what other features you would like to see.
Download Clever FM now on the App Store or Google Play Store
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Sandro Mina on LinkedIn * Relay Investment
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank — Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP — Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest in this episode is Timi Okah. Timi is the first CEO in Kingsway Financial CEO Accelerator Program, having acquired an HR and accounting business called the Ravix group in October this year of 2021. There's several interesting wrinkles within this search model. One of the most interesting being that Kingsway is a public company and Ravix was acquired as a subsidiary of Kingsway. On top of this, Kingsway has significant NOLs or net operating losses on their books, which offers a unique tax opportunity at Timi and Ravix.
Over the course of this episode, Timi and I talk about his engineering background and switching to business, choosing Kingsway's program, pros and cons of buying on behalf of a public company, some nuances of working with public shareholders, and what he's excited to build within Ravix over the coming years. Enjoy.
One more thing before the episode, if you've ever wished you could highlight podcasts, Kindle-style, and share specific moments you can now do so using the Clever.fm app. Think Like an Owner has teamed up with Clever to create show-specific features within the thing like an owner show page. In addition to the ability to highlight and annotate episodes, you can now filter episodes by tags, search across episodes for industry's names and keywords, transcribe my episodes live, and click on links like books, articles, or definitions. As you listen along, download the app on iOS or Android by going to Clever.fm and listen to Think Like an Owner for an enhanced podcast experience.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Timi Okah on LinkedIn * Timi Okah on Twitter
Think Like an Owner Sponsors:Live Oak Bank – Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP – Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest in this episode is Collin Hathaway. You might remember Collin from Episode 32 back in October 2020, which quickly became and has remained the most popular episode of Think Like An Owner. Collin joins me again to more deeply discuss lessons learned through his career of buying and building HVAC and plumbing businesses across the country.
Just like last time, this episode is filled with great stories, all centered around learning how to understand and work with people. Over the course of our conversation, we discussed Collin's first business acquisition in Utah that went south fast, the current market for HVAC and plumbing businesses, consequences of higher prices for those companies both to investors and those operating, governance searchers should expect from investors, and how to build companies that enable talented team members to advance their careers. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Collin Hathaway on LinkedIn * Collin Hathaway on Twitter * Skylight Capital * Think LIke An Owner Episode 32 (Collin Hathaway - Investing and Operating in Home Services)
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank – Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle-market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP – Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and Employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest on this episode is Jason Jackson. Jason searched and acquired Unified Dental Care, a collection of dental practices in the Detroit Metro in April 2017. Jason is quick to share all the mistakes he made through his search and his time as CEO. But you can tell he's an incredibly resilient person with tons of entrepreneurial energy.
Jason and I talk about the challenges of turning around a bad culture, trying to establish trust in your team, hiring for core values, the pressure that comes from being a minority searcher, and how running a business is just like boxing. This is such a fun conversation around perseverance, fighting through hard times, and building a better future for yourself and your family. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Jason Jackson on LinkedIn * Unified Dental care
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank - Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP - Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies- Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company's commercial insurance and Employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August's experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest in this episode is Mike Botkin. You might remember Mike from episode 48 where he described acquiring B&B landscaping in Orlando, Florida with his investor equity raised entirely from Twitter.
Well, he's acquired a bigger one and has raised a holding company called Benchmark Group to buy and build a vertically integrated lawn care and landscaping business in central Florida. In addition to Mike's new acquisition and holding company, we also talk about systems and policies he's implemented at B&B, how he hires and routines members of his team, and benefits from scale and vertical integration.
Mike has become a great friend of mine over the last year, and I always leave our calls thinking we should have hit a record. I'm glad we were able to do so for this episode and mark this momentous event in his career.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links Mentioned:* Mike Botkin on LinkedIn * Mike Botkin on Twitter * Benchmark Group * Think LIke An Owner Episode 48 (Mike Botkin - First 30 Days in a Small Landscaping Business)
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank - Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP - Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies- Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company's commercial insurance and Employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August's experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
My guest in this episode is Matt Moldenhauer. Matt is the president of Bellwether Forest Products, an integrated wood supply company owned by a family office called Elmore Companies, where Matt is also a partner. Matt became president after Bellwether was acquired in 2016 and has grown the business from 13 employees to over 60 today with plenty of ups and downs along the way.
In this episode, we talk about identifying and promoting talent from within, running an asset-heavy business, building trust with your team and customers, adding technology and systems, the fragmentation of the timber industry, and their broader timber acquisition strategy at Elmore. Matt was recommended to me by Rich Jordan, who I consider to be a phenomenal operator. And when he recommends someone I listen closely, I think you'll see why in this episode. Enjoy!
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank – Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP – Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and Employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
Links Mentioned:* Matt Moldenhauer on LinkedIn * Matt Moldenhauer on Twitter * Bellwether Forest Products Official Website
My guest in this episode is Heather Endresen, co-director of Search Fund Lending at Live Oak Bank. Her name probably sounds familiar as Live Oak is a sponsor of this podcast. Given the strong interest from our audience, I decided to bring Heather on the show to share the ins and outs of the SBA program as it's highly relevant to the subject matter of Think Like an Owner. During our episode, we discussed the history of the SBA program as a government program, high-level terms of SBA debt, what companies and deals are good fits, what add-backs are accepted and which are not, risk to searchers and the worst case scenario, and the SBA programs value to strategic acquirers.
I hope you enjoy this in-depth episode on the SBA program with Heather. Enjoy.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank – Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP – Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and Employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
Links Mentioned:* Heather Endresen on LinkedIn * Heather Endresen on Twitter * Live Oak Bank Official Website
My guest today is Collin Hathaway. Collin runs a small micro private equity fund in Seattle, WA called Skylight Capital and has developed a strong core competence in plumbing, HVAC, roofing, and other home services businesses. He also has one of the most interesting stories I’ve heard of getting into micro private equity. During the episode, we talk about his path to Skylight, why he focuses on home services businesses, characteristics he looks for in new acquisitions, and a little bit of his home services operating playbook.
I’ve been trying to get Collin on the podcast since our first conversation a year ago and I wish this episode could have been longer. Collin is a great, entertaining storyteller and I hope you enjoy his hearing fascinating journey so far.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Think Like an Owner SponsorsLive Oak Bank – Live Oak Bank is a seasoned SMB lender providing SBA and conventional financing for search funds, independent sponsors, private equity firms, and individuals looking to acquire lower middle market companies. Live Oak has closed billions of dollars in SBA financing and is actively looking to help more small company investors across the country. If you are in the process of acquiring a company or thinking about starting a search, contact Lisa Forrest or Heather Endresen directly to start a conversation or go to www.liveoakbank.com/think.
Hood & Strong, LLP – Hood & Strong is a CPA firm with a long history of working with search funds and private equity firms on diligence, assurance, tax services, and more. Hood & Strong is highly skilled in working with search funds, providing quality of earnings and due diligence services during the search, along with assurance and tax services post-acquisition. They offer a unique way to approach acquisition diligence and manage costs effectively. To learn more about how Hood & Strong can help your search, acquisition, and beyond, please email one of their partners Jerry Zhou at jzhou@hoodstrong.com.
Oberle Risk Strategies– Oberle is the leading specialty insurance brokerage catering to search funds and the broader ETA community, providing complimentary due diligence assessments of the target company’s commercial insurance and employee benefits programs. Over the past decade, August Felker and his team have engaged with hundreds of searchers to provide due diligence and ultimately place the most competitive insurance program at closing. Given August’s experience as a searcher himself, he and his team understand all that goes into buying a business and pride themselves on making the insurance portion of closing seamless and hassle-free.
If you are under LOI, please reach out to August to learn more about how Oberle can help with insurance due diligence at oberle-risk.com. Or reach out to August directly at august.felker@oberle-risk.com.
Interested in sponsoring?
Links Mentioned:* Alpine Investors * Skylight Capital * Flint Group
My guests in this episode are Paul Yancich and Daniel Eisen, who founded Arcadea Group, a permanent capital holding company that has raised $320 million to invest over ultra-long periods of time in typically independent, founder-controlled software companies with strong growth in duration potential.
Prior to founding Arcadea, Daniel and Paul had careers in private equity, growth equity, and buyout. Most recently is Constellation Software, where they both were hired by and worked for Mark Leonard in various senior executive roles in the company. We talk extensively about what they learned in their backgrounds, how Arcadea differs from PE growth equity in Constellation in their approach, and what it means to invest in and grow a company over a very long time horizon. It seems like more and more of these permanent capital vehicles are being created.
If you know any great ones with a unique approach, please reach out and let me know. This is a fascinating area that I want to learn more about.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
My guest on this episode is Badge Stone. Badge started his search journey with a Stone Pump & Trench that was on the verge of bankruptcy when he acquired it. After turning it around, he acquired another company called Perimeter Security. He sold both and made investing in searchers his full-time role through his firm, WSC & Company, alongside two other partners. Badge has invested in over a hundred searchers and has extensive experience as both an investor and operator.
WSC’s seven-person team is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and is investing and of its second fund, a $100 million fund closed earlier this year focused on the traditional search fund model.
During our discussion, we talk about turning stone-pumping trench around, lessons learned from over a hundred search fund investments, a few notable companies, he's been a part of, what's typically missing in a new company, and a wide range of discussion on board construction, and usage for entrepreneurs and investors alike. This episode is fantastic and I learned a ton and I think you will too.
Listen weekly and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
My guests on this episode are Andrew Soon and Michael Novielli, co-founders of Due West Education. Due West counsels and helps Chinese students apply to top American universities and study abroad programs. I visited China in college on a school trip and it was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. Since then I’ve been looking for interesting businesses abroad to study and invite on the podcast. Andrew and Michael are incredible examples of US entrepreneurs creating new businesses in other countries around the world and I think you’ll love our conversation.
We discuss China’s cultural view of US education, tailwinds pushing Due West’s business along, how data factors into process of helping students apply to the most elite colleges, fighting inherent incentives in the education industry with great internal communication, and how their business might be impacted by moves against after school tutoring in China.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
This is a special episode of Think Like an Owner. In this episode, Tim Ludwig turns the microphone around to interview me on where my interest in small companies came from, starting and building Think Like an Owner, memorable moments from running the podcast, my answers to my own closing questions, and much more.
We also discuss a new media company I’m incredibly excited to announce called The Operator’s Handbook. The Handbook is a print publication interviewing small company operators to find new ideas on how to operate, improve, and grow small companies more effectively. Tim has been very impactful in starting The Operator’s Handbook and is a close advisor of mine as I build this new media company. If you want to learn more about the Handbook, visit theoperatorshandbook.com and sign up to receive updates as we prepare the first issue for release.
Tim believed in me when I had very little to show for my ambition and has continued to be an impactful mentor in my life and career. He was the perfect person to host this special episode and I am incredibly grateful for all the time and wisdom he’s shared with me. Please enjoy this turn-the-tables episode with Tim Ludwig and myself.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
My guest on this episode is Reg Zeller. Reg worked in corporate engineering roles for many years before deciding to leave and do his own thing. His own thing ended up being rolling up foundry businesses through his holding company CaneKast, with five companies acquired so far. These companies are very hard to acquire and operate and Reg spends a lot of time sharing why most buyers can’t acquire foundries and why he’s best suited instead.
Over the course of this episode, Reg and I talk about how foundries operate, how he looks to acquire others, finding your strengths and leveraging them, some of his operations playbook for new foundries, and drinking too much coffee.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Mia Jackson. Prior to searching and acquiring her health care supply business, Vital Care Industries, Mia worked in consulting, engineering and supply chains, a friend’s start-up for a time, and received her MBA and Masters of Science in Engineering Management from Northwestern. She brought a ton of great experience into her search business and we talk about how impactful that was in being a CEO for the first time. I haven’t had too many health care entrepreneurs on the show so we also spend some time diving into Vital Care’s product line and where it fits in a hospital setting. I found this part fascinating and I think you will too.
During our conversation, we also discuss her passion for health care, supply chains, and going paperless, how she wants her company culture to evolve, how she motivates her team, and how she helps team members advance in their careers and their ongoing education. This was such a fun episode and Mia’s energy is impossible to ignore, I hope you enjoy the episode!
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Craig Fuller. Craig is the founder of FreightWaves, a data and media business focused on freight and supply chains. FreightWaves is a VC backed company with $19 million in revenue with editorial content, a data product, job board, video content, and multiple podcasts. Prior to FreightWaves, Craig had no background in media but has built quite a playbook for media businesses with a data component. Craig, as of a month ago, is also the new owner of Flying Magazine, an iconic, blue-chip publishing brand in the general aviation community which we discuss extensively in this episode. For a deeper background on FreightWaves, I highly recommend his episode on A Media Operator, which we’ll link to in the show notes.
During our conversation, we discuss his fascinating background in his family’s trucking business, starting a tech business before FreightWaves, launching FreightWaves, and his acquisition of Flying Magazine and his plans for growth and improvement.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is John Rood. John started an education business with his wife that began as a SAT and other tests prep business and eventually found its niche in MCAT testing. Together they grew the business adding tutors and a management team before selling to private equity. John has also invested in a few search funds and is contemplating a search himself in the education space.
During this episode, we talk about starting their education business, how they pivoted from tutoring to content, building a business in the context of operating systems and learning from others, and the value of organizations like Traction and Entrepreneurs Organization to small business operators. We also talk broadly about education businesses and where future business models in the space might lead.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Peter Bell. Peter and Justin Turner were guests on my fourth ever podcast episode and were very early supporters of the show. Their firm, along with two other partners, is Traction Capital Partners in Tacoma, WA. Traction is an independent sponsor which now owns 3 companies with a potential 4th on the way in the next few weeks. Peter joined in late 2018 and set to work at their first portfolio company, SeaWestern, in Kirkland, WA. SeaWestern is a distributor of firefighting equipment across the Pacific Northwest and Peter was tasked with learning the business and looking for avenues of growth and improvement. Needless to say, in the two and a half years since, he’s learned a lot.
During this episode we talk about stepping into a new leadership role, learning a new business model, growth opportunities at SeaWestern, and why your resume doesn’t matter in a small business. And for a thorough background on Traction, I highly recommend listening to episode 4 where Peter and Justin share Traction’s mission and investment model. And now, enjoy the episode.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Brent Beshore, the founder and CEO of a lower middle market private equity firm called Permanent Equity. Permanent Equity acquires family-owned companies and has 11 in their portfolio today. They have also raised two 27 year funds, a $50 million fund in 2017 and a $248 million fund in 2019. Permanent Equity is probably the most experienced, systematized, and well-known acquirer in the small business world and I’m excited to finally have Brent on the podcast.
During this episode Brent and I talk about their marketing strategy, what competitive advantages they’ve built and are building for tomorrow, how businesses can build a margin of safety in their operations, and lessons learned from buying and improving family-owned businesses. I recently moved near Brent’s headquarters in Columbia, MO to Omaha, NE and we also spend a few moments discussing life in the Midwest. Finally, I will be attending Brent and Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s conference Capital Camp in Columbia at the end of August and I hope to see many of you there. If you’re going, please reach out and let’s connect beforehand. And now, enjoy the episode.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Peter Kang, who co-founded a digital branding and design company focused on direct to consumer e-commerce called Barrel. For long-time listeners of the podcast, the name Barrel may sound familiar. Barrel was one of the original sponsors of Think Like an Owner as we became a weekly podcast. Today Barrel is no longer a sponsor and thereby doesn’t pose a conflict of interest, which allows us to share Peter’s exciting and fascinating personal story on the podcast.
During our discussion we cover the founding of Barrel, big moments in their growth cycle which includes designing the annual report pages for large public companies, how Peter realized he as an owner didn’t need to be the salesperson for the company, and how they allocate excess capital at Barrel.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Dave Waters. Dave is the founder and CEO of Alluvial Capital, a value based hedge fund focused on the smallest public companies with market caps of $5-100 million, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dave is fascinating to me because he has dedicated his career to investing in similar sized companies as other podcast guests of this show, but through the public markets. I wanted to learn how he views these companies through a public lens, his investment process, and his thoughts for private company owners thinking of investing in comparably sized public companies.
We also talk about how his business-owner LPs view their investment in his firm, the most unique companies he’s come across, and how he evaluates managers of these small public companies. This was a super interesting discussion that I’m positive you’ll enjoy.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Nick Fedele who recently acquired a 30 employee sheet metal construction business called Metal Alliance Inc near Philadelphia. Nick has a background in public accounting before taking on a management consulting role and eventually becoming a CFO. After 2 years as a CFO, he felt ready to seek out and acquire a business for himself.
Nick and I talk about the ownership transition with the previous owner who wanted to remain involved, his principles for handling situations that go wrong - hence our episode title “death, taxes, and stuff goes sideways”, his strong dislike of paper, and what he’s excited for next in the company. I learned a ton from Nick in this conversation and I’m sure you will too.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Tony Cappaert. Tony started his career at Microsoft before co-founding a CRM software business for real estate agents called Contactually. The company was acquired by Compass in 2019 where Tony serves as Head of Lead Generation. As you’ll see though, Tony is a busy man. He also founded a cabin rental and management company called Blue Maple and is raising a fund to invest in self-funded searchers.
Tony and I talk in-depth about niching down Contactually to target real estate brokers, his thoughts on pricing including why every company underprices, why they sold the company to Compass, and his view on the search fund world including what he looks for in prospective searchers as a former operator. If you ever want to reach out to Tony to talk software, property management, or search funds, don’t hesitate to send him an email at tony@bluemaple.co.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Manny Saxena. Manny grew up in India and decided he wanted to become a CEO. To prepare for the role, he attended Kellogg’s MBA program and built leadership experience at Sears and Persado. Finally, he partnered with Broadtree Partners to acquire two commercial sweeping companies called Contract Sweeping Services and Statewide Construction Sweeping in Northern California.
Manny and I talk extensively about the sweeping business, how he’s learned the ropes in the sweeping industry from the previous owners, unique businesses he came across in his search, new systems and technology he’s implemented in both companies, lessons from his time at Sears, and much more.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My third and final guest in this real estate miniseries is Chris Powers. Chris is the founder and GP of Fort Capital, a real estate private equity firm in Fort Worth, TX focused on industrial real estate. He’s also a fellow podcast host with his show called The Fort Podcast, which is excellent and I highly recommend listening and subscribing to.
While it was a shorter episode, Chris and I covered a lot of ground. We discussed how business owners should view their ownership in company-specific industrial real estate, options available if an owner wanted to acquire other industrial property, trends he’s seeing, and why he loves boring businesses.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This is the second episode in a three part miniseries on real estate, which kicked off last week with Nick Huber, and is resuming with this episode focusing on residential real estate with Moses Kagan. Moses is the founder and GP of Adaptive Realty, a real estate private equity firm which acquires and remodels multi-unit residential real estate in the Los Angeles area. Moses is very thoughtful and intentional and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him better.
In this episode Moses and I discuss his family’s background in real estate and lessons he learned as a child, different options for small company owners to invest in residential real estate and pros and cons with each, and how he develops a unique lens for viewing assets in a different way than his competition, among other interesting topics. Enjoy!
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Today’s episode is the first in a three-part miniseries on real estate. Even though Think Like an Owner is a small company focused podcast, many small company owners also own real estate and I thought a short miniseries would be an interesting way to bring that conversation onto the podcast.
This first episode features Nick Huber, who owns self storage facilities through his company Bolt Storage across the East Coast in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. What makes Nick so interesting is he started out owning and operating a small moving company he started in college called Storage Squad. Over the course of this episode, we talk about life running Storage Squad, why he decided to branch into real estate, using Reddit and Twitter to grow your business, and where he’s taking his own podcast next.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guests on this episode are Eric Factor and Austin King who together raised a long-term holding company called Era Services with the mission to acquire, operate, and grow industrial service companies. Their first acquisition completed earlier this year is a company called CraneTech which installs and maintains overhead cranes fixed inside factory buildings. Eric and Austin have a connection to another Think Like an Owner podcast guest, Ross Brendel of Westerly Group, an LP of Era Services, who I interviewed on episode 57. Justin Vogt and Ed Redden of Evermore Industries from episode 59 are also an investment of Westerly Group.
During the episode, we discuss all things cranes including how they found CraneTech, challenges and tailwinds facing the business, the ins and outs of the crane labor market, how they’re competing for customers and employees, and what’s next for the business. If you enjoy heavy machinery, you’ll love this episode.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Sam Rosati. Sam was an early supporter of the podcast and was featured on Episode 11, which I highly recommend listening to prior to this one. In that earlier episode, Sam shares his background and how he and his brother Joey together acquired a company called Alpha Dumpsters. In this episode, Sam shares that they’ve since sold Alpha Dumpsters and have started an SMB conference in Orlando scheduled for February 3-6, 2022, which I’ll be attending.
Sam also shares with me a new incubator model they have built for self-funded searchers. I’ll let Sam share most of the details, but self-funded searchers should listen to this episode and learn about this new program. Sam is doing wonderful things for the self-funded search world and I believe the incubator and conference will both be massive successes. Now, please enjoy my follow-up episode with Sam Rosati.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I’m a big aviation geek. I love flying, looking at airplanes and seeing where they’re going via Flightaware on my phone, and collecting model aircraft. My guest today, Elliot Epstein, founded Geminijets, a company that makes metal diecast commercial airplane models. Beyond just the aviation nature of the company, this is a fascinating business for its relationship with hobbyists and collectors, the airline industry and current trends, all in addition to being a manufacturing and distribution business.
In this episode Elliot shares why he started the business, the process of creating a new model from start to finish, how coronavirus and the 737 MAX program have impacted sales and shipping, how the model business has evolved, and available growth opportunities for the company.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Chase Murdock. Chase started his career as a venture-style entrepreneur with a custom suit business after spending time working in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. After the business didn’t go as planned, Chase and his business partner Adam Malmborg decided to pursue smaller, creative, more high end businesses. Today they have two businesses, Tailor Cooperative, a local custom suit business, and Workshop SLC, a fine arts studio, both located in their hometown of Salt Lake City.
This episode was a fascinating dive into boring vs creative businesses, gathering customer feedback and NPS scores, pricing, and designing a high end client experience. I loved this episode and learned a ton and I hope you do as well.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Victoria Sylvester, or Vikki for short. Vikki is the founder of Acacia Training, a U.K. based training company focused on childcare, healthcare, and dental care. I was very excited for this conversation for a number of reasons. First, Vikki sold Acacia to MBH through their Agglomeration model whereby Acacia’s private stock is exchanged for MBH’s public stock. We discuss the model in great length and it’s one of the more unique models for SMB acquisitions I’ve come across through the podcast. Second, Vikki’s role as CEO has changed dramatically over time as the company has grown and I was very interested to hear about each of those stages and what tasks have been challenging for her to let go of.
Over the course of this episode we discuss the early years of Acacia, how she receives feedback from her team and her students, what she looks for when acquiring other training programs, and her perspective as an owner selling her company.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today is Steve Ressler. Steve has been an entrepreneur for much of his career in software and government services and has recently been translating that experience into search fund investing, among other projects. A good portion of our discussion focuses on evaluating and scaling niche software businesses and whether niche means limited growth prospects or a formula for other markets. I’ve gotten to know Steve pretty well and he’s an absolute wealth of knowledge for searchers interested in software and government services, please reach out to him if those are areas of interest for you.
Over the course of this episode we discuss Steve’s experience being a founder and having his company acquired, what he looks for in search investing, tailwinds in government service businesses, and whether individuals should invest in self funded searchers.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This is the second episode of an experiment I did on a new episode format that was shorter, 20-30 minutes, and focused entirely on ideas and challenges operating small companies. The first episode in this experiment was last week’s episode with Jason Hill on adding food to the office and some of these interesting benefits there.
On this operating focused episode, I talk with Palmer Higgins of Mainely Grass and Chenmark on why he’s getting rid of sales roles and doesn’t operate on a commission structure. We talk about the positive and negative unintended consequences of becoming a more versatile team, the training and adjustment period of shifting roles, and some of Palmer’s thinking on paired metrics and why commissions are a poor metric and incentive to use in their business. If you want to learn more about Palmer and his work, you can listen to our earlier podcast, episode 43, on his move to CEO at Mainely Grass. For now, enjoy our episode on sales roles and incentives.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This episode and next week’s episode are both experiments I did a while back with Think Like an Owner when I was considering launching a new podcast series. The aim for these was to have short, 20-30 minute episodes on specific ideas and challenges operating small companies. I may eventually launch the new series, but I have other projects I’m excited about and want to invest more time into. Let me know what you think of these next two episodes and if you want to see more episodes with a similar format.
This first one is with Jason Hill. Jason appeared in episode 50 to share his learnings acquiring and growing his father-in-law’s countertop business. In this episode, we talk all about food at the office and some of the benefits to making food a stronger priority at work. Jason has done a lot including adding coffee machines, more microwaves, and even doing company pig roasts at his house. I’d advise listening to this episode on your lunch break, it’ll probably make you hungry.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guests, Justin Vogt and Ed Redden are the co-founders of Evermore Industries, a holding company looking to acquire industrial service companies with a time horizon measured in decades. Justin and Ed also happen to be the co-founders of the Stanford Search Fund Club during their time at Stanford. They hosted over 20 events and met professionals all across the search space and used that experience to shape what they wanted to create with Evermore. One interesting podcast connection, Westerly Group, through podcast guest Ross Brendel on episode 57 and co-founder Rich Littlehale, are investors in Evermore Industries, among other long term investment vehicles.
During our conversation, we talk about their time running the search fund club at Stanford, their views on search funds, how they raised capital for Evermore Industries, and benefits of being acquirers with an ultra long term view.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Deepa Talwar. Deepa is currently searching for a company from her home in Fort Collins, CO. Her background includes working with prominent Silicon Valley tech companies like Uber, Thumbtack, and Stripe, and she decided she wanted to become an entrepreneur, but not in the typical Silicon Valley way. During our conversation, we talk about how her tech experience gives her a new perspective when looking at companies, red flags she’s seen looking at deals, how she seeks the truth from owners and brokers, helpful advice she’s received along the way, and her own advice learned through experience.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Ross Brendel is the cofounder and managing partner of Westerly Group alongside cofounder Rich Littlehale. Westerly Group was founded on the principle of supporting acquisition entrepreneurs with committed, permanent capital to pursue a specific industry thesis over an indefinite time horizon. Groups they’ve invested in thus far have theses in the water industry, mission-critical B2B services, industrial services, and route-based and multi-site consumer businesses. Permanent capital and longer hold periods have become much more popular in recent years and Ross and Rich take an incredibly interesting and unique angle in their study and investing in the model.
In this conversation, Ross and I discuss Westerly’s permanent capital thesis and model, whether buying a business has become harder or easier and how to think about a purchase price with a longer term view, the types of entrepreneurs Westerly seeks to invest in, and nuanced advantages of committed capital in pursuing acquisitions.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Ayo Phillips has the wildest story I’ve ever heard on the podcast. He’s from Nigeria, immigrated to the U.S. when he was young, worked in engineering before getting his MBA at Kellogg, acquired countertop and bathtub refinishing company called Perfect Surface in Houston while his wife had their second child in Chicago, and went on to discover major structural problems in the business including the use of strippers and suspicious financial activity. Oh, and he recently became a U.S. citizen. He has an incredible story we can all learn a lot from. In this episode we discuss his experience acquiring Perfect Surface, warning signs to look out for when buying a company, how he looks at hiring and growing his team, and so much more.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest, Mark Valdez, is starting a new permanent capital holding company called Eads Bridge Holdings to acquire small profitable, durable companies with a long-term focus. What I found so interesting about Mark is he began his career in venture capital and was one of the early employees at Andreesen Horrowitz, an extremely successful and storied venture capital firm. We talk about Mark’s time in venture and parallels to the search fund world, a thesis of Eads Bridge they are exploring, and how we might apply some elements of the venture capital content playbook to small company investing.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Mark Hunter is a treasure trove of insights and stories from a career in micro private equity. Mark is a co-founder of KLH Capital in St. Petersburg, Florida and has been a part of deals all over the country from all walks of life. In this episode he shares many counter-intuitive methods he’s used in buying companies, how to develop emotional intelligence, be more thoughtful about who you work with, and what felt like dozens of stories buying and running companies. This conversation is loaded with advice and experience and I hope you walk away with a few ideas for your own life and career.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest, Kelcey Lehrich, is the co-founder of 365 Holdings, a firm that acquires and grows e-commerce brands with a focus on shared services and vertical integration. He and his firm view e-commerce with an interesting lens, one of their most interesting ideas being their view on product vs customer focused brands, which we dive into. During the episode, we discuss which services they began sharing across portfolio companies and the timing on when those became shared, a story of a failed e-commerce growth plan, building 365’s brand, and more.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest Ryan Callaghan and his partner Nick Parisi set out to finding an enduring business where the owner was in need of a transition and continue what they started. Through a friend of a friend they found a company named Oilstop and made it their first acquisition. Oilstop is a car service business on the west coast with 30 locations across 4 states and a strong customer focused culture. During this episode, Ryan and I dive into what makes Oilstop’s culture so unique and what he and Nick are looking to do next through their investment firm Cojourn.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Rob LaBonne has been an entrepreneur his whole life. His early business pursuits include a small summer landscaping business, web development, and a tent rental business he owned for a brief period. He now works in his family’s 6th generation grocery business, LaBonne’s Markets, and recently purchased a self-storage business. Through our conversation we talk about the long history of his family’s business, stories and lessons his family has passed down to him, operating in the grocery industry and its razor thin margins, and why he loves jiu-jitsu.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Jason Hill. Jason acquired Precision Stoneworks, a custom countertop fabrication and installation business, from his father-in-law and now runs it as the CEO. Since acquiring, he’s been relentlessly focused on customer service, improving efficiencies in the company, and making sure employees have the tools they need to do their jobs. I loved learning from Jason’s experience constantly searching for a better tool and better way of operating. And if heavy machinery is interesting to you, you’re in for a good one.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I’ve had my guest, Nick Haschka, on once before for episode 5 and I wanted to have him on again to talk through a thesis of his more in depth. The core element of his thesis is acquiring a small company, between $200k and $500k in cash flow, quickly can often be more beneficial for someone looking to buy a business than going the traditional search route. This is the path he’s taken and so draws a lot from personal experience as well as deals he’s seen over time.
We talk about advantages and disadvantages of acquiring small, some unconventional ideas of his such as not using accountants or lawyers, unique items to look for in due diligence, and a few stories. If your plan is to acquire a company in the next few years, this is an idea you should listen to and pay some consideration. I hope you pull a few lessons from Nick’s thinking here.
For the full transcript and more, visit our website at alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest Mike Botkin has recently acquired a landscaping company in Orlando, FL called B&B Landscaping and has finished his first 30 days in the business. One unique aspect of his deal is he raised his equity entirely through Twitter, which we talk about at the end of the episode. Mike and I discuss why he decided to acquire a landscaping business, what he’s learning from the seller and employees as he’s getting adjusted to being the new owner, building trust with employees and customers, and the roll-up potential of other landscaping companies in his area.
If you’re about to acquire a company and are curious on what your first few weeks are going to be like in the company, this is an episode you have to listen to.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is John Wilson. John purchased his 3rd generation family business, Wilson Plumbing, which was started by his grandfather and has grown it from 4-5 plumbers to 20 and still growing strong. I’ve had guests with just one company and those with a half dozen companies or more. John’s in the middle and we spend some time talking about his evolution into a holding company role and desire to build a portfolio of companies.
We also talk about building his plumbing business, hiring and training new plumbers including how to walk up to a customer’s house, why plumbers often don’t make good managers, and how to scale a home services business. I learned a ton about the nuances of operating in this episode and I hope you take away a few great lessons from John’s experience so far.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Bill D’Alessandro, CEO of Elements Brands. Elements buys digitally native consumer brands and uses their expertise and playbook to scale them upward. Bill also co-hosts a podcast called Acquisitions Anonymous with Michael Girdley and Mills Snell, which I highly recommend checking out.
Bill and I talk about his experience starting a skin care brand while working in investment banking, why he decided to acquire more brands, the use of debt to acquire them, and the growing Elements Brands ecosystem. If you want to buy any online business, this episode is for you.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Matt Hinson. Matt is a director of corporate development at Orthopedic Care Partners, a private equity group focused on acquiring orthopedic surgery practices. Matt and I talk about how he acquires these practices, some operational improvements they apply in new acquisitions, how their strategy unlocks value for physicians, and how to hold onto physicians after buying their practice.
One last note, Matt recently published two articles on Substack, one about calculating working capital in a deal process and another about how a seller might rake you over the coals in a deal. I’m adding links to these in the show notes and I highly recommend reading them if you’re involved in acquiring small companies in any way.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This is the second time I’ve had David Krock on the podcast, the first was episode 6 where we broadly discussed his investment firm, Sunset Coast Brands which has now become PermaVentures. This second episode with him goes off the beaten path a bit. We talk about his firm’s rebranding, his hospitality and wedding investments during 2020, a concept he calls serendipity-as-a-service and how he designs his companies to benefit from serendipitous moments, and a few things he’s learned from doing deals through two recessions.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Palmer Higgins, a founding partner of Chenmark along with Trish and James Higgins. I’ve had Trish on the podcast twice before, episodes 1 and 23, and in those episodes we talked about Chenmark as a whole and what they look for in companies.
In this episode with Palmer, we talk about his move to one of their operating companies, Mainely Grass, as CEO. We go over lessons learned as an operator, how he thinks about acquisitions differently now being in the seller’s shoes, how they are making Mainely Grass more efficient, tuck in acquisition opportunities, and what happened to his great podcast, Big Time Small Business.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
David Johnson started Northridge 4x4, a Jeep parts and accessories business, in his father’s garage and eventually hired his father and brother to help in the business. The company only grew from there and David has several great stories in his 20 years growing the business. Northridge also does most business online and so a good portion of our conversation revolves around running an e-commerce business model.
In the episode we talk about the hires he made to grow the company, why he still answers most emails from customers, how he hires skilled mechanics, and new ways and technologies to better serve and market to his customers.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest is Brandon Laughridge. Brandon lives in Kansas City and owns a property management company North Terrace and a furniture and home interior store Nell Hill’s, along with a growing real estate portfolio. This is the first episode on the podcast where we discuss how real estate overlaps with owning small companies, something I hadn’t spent much time thinking about until meeting Brandon. Those on Twitter will recognize Brandon as he has been a key contributor to SMB Twitter, perhaps most notably from a thread he did on what he believes is the most certain path to building a high net worth that I’ll link to in the show notes.
In addition to real estate and Twitter, we talk about using SBA loans to buy small companies, what drives key employees, and why Brandon moved away from online based businesses towards property management, home goods, and real estate.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest Matt Estep got his business start early in life when he started a go-kart manufacturing business in high school with dreams of eventually being a professional NASCAR driver. The business still exists today but Matt sold it with other plans in mind. Matt went to Harvard Business School, launched a search fund, and acquired Midwest Supplies. Following the sale of that business to a private equity group, Matt has invested in multiple other small companies and dozens of search funds.
During the episode Matt and I talk about some of the changes and improvements he made in Midwest Supplies, a business of his that has struggled through COVID, what he looks for in new acquisitions, and some niche companies he’s found such as a fireworks retailer and a mall Santa business. This conversation was a fantastic blend of investing and operating and I hope you walk away with some great lessons from both sides.
For the full episode transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest Aaron Green founded a staffing company called Professional Staffing Group, or PSG, in 1996. He has grown it along with 6 other related companies to just shy of $100m in revenue and 2,000 employees. Most of my guests operate small companies and PSG of course started small, but I wanted to learn from an owner who had managed to scale a company and their role in it over a long period of time.
Frequent listeners of Think Like an Owner may notice a connection to previous guest Jared Henderson, CEO of Assist Services. Aaron is an investor in that company along with Tim Ludwig, who introduced me to both, and we chat briefly about the company near the end of our conversation. Over the course of the episode, we talk about hiring for growth, books and models for managing that have worked for Aaron, how he’s learned to delegate, and how he spends his time today as his company has grown.
I learned a lot from this conversation with Aaron and I hope you walk away with a few lessons and insights too.
For the full transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest, Mitchell Blackmon started Patriot Chimney, a chimney service and installation business in Roanoke, VA, last year with his brother Matt and his friend Billy. They have recently made their first hire and have another one coming shortly, a testament to the growth they’ve been experiencing.
If you liked the recent episode with Rich Jordan, you’re going to like Mitchell’s story too as he’s thinking about many of the growing pains and plans. We talk about getting into college despite losing the opportunity to play college track & field due to an injury, starting a home cleaning business, how wrapping his trucks has brought in more customers, developing a new routing system, and how he’s hiring new employees.
This episode is an example of what I love about the small business investing and operating space. Discovering new businesses and industries you never knew existed. I knew nothing about the chimney business and loved learning about it from Mitchell in this episode. I hope you find a few great takeaways from his story.
For the full episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Lacey Wismer. Lacey runs her recently started search investment fund called Hunter Search Capital and has been conducting research on female searchers and unique challenges they encounter while seeking and operating a business. We talk extensively about women in search along with how she’s seen the model grow over her career, alternative models in search, constructing a searcher’s board, and how she’s instilling entrepreneurial values with her two daughters.
Speaking of, her 11 year old daughter has a bakery business for residents in the Park City, Utah area. If you live nearby, you can place an order on her website at bananasbakedgoods.com. She makes cupcakes, macarons, cakes and more, an entrepreneur in the making. This conversation was super interesting, thought-provoking, and fun and I hope you benefit from hearing her experience.
For the episode transcript and more, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest is Rich Jordan. Rich bought a home service plumbing business only a few short weeks ago in Pennsylvania. If you’re on Twitter, you might already be familiar with Rich as he has been tweeting about his time running the business and has been so much fun to follow. If you’re not already following him you’re missing out. During the episode we talk about Rich’s first few days in the business getting his hands dirty, fighting off competing offers for his plumbers from competitors, and a few moves he’s done to grow revenue 60% in only 8 weeks of ownership.
If you liked the Collin Hathaway episode from a few weeks ago you’re going to love this one as Rich reminds me of an early-days version of Collin. He is just getting started but has made tremendous progress already and I hope you enjoy getting to hear about his short journey so far.
For the full episode transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest, Mark Sinatra, raised a traditional search fund with a partner in 2006 after graduated from Wharton and a year and a half later acquired an HR company called Staff One HR. I’ll let him tell the full story but there were significant ups and downs running the company including moving the company from Southern Oklahoma to Dallas, managing staff turnover of roughly 85% during that move, and losing their biggest customer who was 30% of their revenue. Despite those downs, the company grew significantly and led to a successful exit, leading eventually to what Mark focuses on today which is investing in search funds.
During the episode, we also talk about hiring great employees, building culture in a growing organization, and advice to prospective searchers. Mark was very open in sharing his experience and I hope you find some great takeaways from his story.
For the full transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
A.J. Gordon runs Gordon Aluminum in Schofield, WI, a company that was founded by his grandfather, passed to A.J.’s father, and eventually to A.J. himself. The company has a fascinating story told in great detail that includes machines breaking down, closing business lines, multiple recessions, and a lightning strike that set fire to their offices and burned their computers and data, forcing them to start from scratch.
This is a story about a company and family’s will to survive, rebuild, flourish, and constantly improve. We also talk about lessons passed down to A.J. by his father and grandfather, what he’s teaching his kids from his experience, and the stress and excitement in running a company with a storied history.
For the full episode transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I interview many folks with unique backgrounds and Jared is among the most unique. Jared worked at NASA, then McKinsey, got his MBA at Harvard, then alternated between working at McKinsey and Teach for America, ran for governor of Arkansas, and last year became the CEO of Assist Services. Assist is a Portland based transportation company for underprivileged children to help them get to and from school and other important locations. Jared is leading Assist Services to become a nationwide company, all remotely from his home in Arkansas.
I’ve been very excited to have him as a guest because of his focus on social missions, building a great team to serve a very vulnerable group, and expanding a storied regional company to a national level. Enjoy the episode.
For the full episode transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today is Collin Hathaway. Collin runs a small micro private equity fund in Seattle, WA called Skylight Capital and has developed a strong core competence in plumbing, HVAC, roofing, and other home services businesses. He also has one of the most interesting stories I’ve heard of getting into micro private equity. During the episode we talk about his path to Skylight, why he focuses on home services businesses, characteristics he looks for in new acquisitions, and a little bit of his home services operating playbook.
I’ve been trying to get Collin on the podcast since our first conversation a year ago and I wish this episode could have been longer. Collin is a great, entertaining storyteller and I hope you enjoy his hearing fascinating journey so far.
For the full episode transcript and other information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My two guests for this episode are Ryan Lechner and Nico Gimenez who have raised a traditional search fund together as partners called Bonsai Group and are a few months into their search. I’ve had searchers with partners on the podcast before, Sam Rosati being a great example, but I haven’t had them on the podcast before together. What made this episode particularly fun is Ryan and Nico are lifelong friends and it shows. Finding a partner for a search with aligned values can be very difficult and luckily for them they had a very long due diligence period.
In this episode we talk about why they chose to search as partners, how the role is divided now and might be upon close, how their outreach strategy has evolved, and a company with a very niche monopoly in surfing.
For the full episode transcript and more information visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest is Brian Vanderheyden who ran a search from Chicago starting in 2015 and 2 years later in 2017 acquired a company called Richmond Alarm Company in Richmond, VA. Richmond Alarm was founded 73 years ago and Brian acquired the business from the founder’s two sons who had taken over the business from the father. During the episode we talk about Richmond Alarm’s history and their in-office museum of 73 years of security technology, how he’s developed his team over time, the dynamics of the security industry, and why he admires Chick-fil-A. Enjoy the episode.
For the full episode transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today is Scott Picker. Scott was born and raised in Oregon and went to college at Washington State University where he majored in agriculture education and horticulture, before starting Aspen Creek Landscaping in Sherwood, Oregon. Over the last 20 years, Scott has built a 55 employee landscape construction and maintenance company focused on high end residential and local wineries. During the episode we talk about him planning out and building Aspen with his wife from the ground up, how it has evolved over time and how he’s had to change his role to suit the company, building a great, customer focused team, succession planning, and his side business raising 160 longhorns on his ranch.
This episode was an amazing look at what running a company looks like on the inside and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
For the full transcript and more information, visit our website at alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Most of the investors I’ve had on the podcast aren’t interested in consumer businesses, which is precisely why I wanted to talk to a consumer focused investor. Enter Ben Rudman. Ben is the founder of Charis Consumer Partners, a consumer focused independent sponsor, and has a passion for consumer businesses that is hard to resist. In this conversation, we review his time developing his expertise in consumer, why it’s such a challenging place for investors and where he looks to invest, some pitfalls and things to avoid in consumer, and what he’s learned being an operator.
Whether you care about consumer or not, this episode is a must listen and filled with insights on investing and building companies. Ben is a wealth of knowledge and experience and I hope you find some great takeaways for yourself.
For the full transcript and information about Think Like an Owner, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today, Mason Myers, has spent the last 10 years building an incredible investment vehicle called Greybull Stewardship. With Greybull, Mason has acquired 11 portfolio companies with an evergreen fund structure with opportunities for LPs to add or withdraw capital only every four years. This structure gives Greybull a very long time horizon to offer the right owners a great home for their business. Mason’s founding idea behind Greybull was to build the firm he believed owners deserved to sell to and one that could get better over time.
Mason is a big fan of Berkshire Hathaway and has applied many similar concepts at Greybull that we spend time going over. We also talk about Mason’s time as an operator and how it makes him a more effective investor, how Greybull strengthens over time with its network of owners, operators, and LPs, and how to be a good steward of an owner’s life’s work.
For the full transcript and more information, visit alexbridgeman.com/podcast.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today, Joel Blake, has a fascinated story about how he became an owner of a manufacturing sales company called Marketing Technologies. Before acquiring, Joel first worked for the company as an employee before he and another partner took over the business from the two retiring owners. Joel calls this model entrepreneurship through apprenticeship and it’s a major topic of our discussion. Joel also, as you can imagine, has a deep appreciation for sales and we talk extensively about how to cultivate a sales mentality and develop the ability to connect with people you’re meeting with for the first time. We also talk about his transition to being an owner and working through that process with the previous owners, how owners can prepare their business for transition, what being an owner is like after being an employee, and what he’s learned from being a parent of two young children.
I loved this episode. It’s been one of my favorite of the podcast so far and I hope you come away feeling the same. Enjoy.
For the full transcript and more episodes of Think Like an Owner, visit alexbridgeman.com.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I’ve done a few search fund focused episodes, for instance last week’s episode focused on life during a search. In this episode exploring search funds, Betsy Brandt joins me to talk her preparation in launching her search fund, Forest Park Capital. I wanted to hear more about how a search fund is planned, the benefits of an MBA program, how capital is raised, and so on. Betsy was kind enough to share her experience working in investment banking and operating at a private equity backed company, going through the search program at Harvard, starting and setting up her traditional search fund, and a few advantages of being a female searcher.
This episode is a great review of the many questions asked when considering launching a search. If search is an option you’ve weighed at any point, you will enjoy hearing from Betsy. Enjoy.
For show notes, episode transcript, and more, visit alexbridgeman.com.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I continue exploring search funds and with this episode I talk with a searcher who is in the middle of the process and thus is experiencing it’s ups and downs live. My guest, Jules Brenner, runs a self-funded search called Manufacturing Succession and as the name implies is focused on acquiring a manufacturing company. Jules has an interesting background with engineering and start-ups and talks about how that background guides his search. In addition to life as a searcher, we talk about preparing for a self-funded search, owner outreach, and searching as an engineer.
If you’re an investor interested in manufacturing companies or just want to connect and learn more about Jules, go to manufacturingsuccession.com/contact.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Links Mentioned
- Manufacturing Succession
- Salesmate.io
- Big Ass Fans
Trish Higgins was the guest on my very first podcast episode and was kind enough to share her time with me when I had no downloads, no show, and no website. Funny enough, that first episode is still my most downloaded episode to date. A lot has happened since then and I’m very excited to have Trish on the show for a second episode. In this episode, we cover Trish’s recent move to the operating side, how Chenmark has evolved including what’s become easier and more difficult over time, and we dive briefly into landscaping.
For those listeners interested in eventually operating your own company, Chenmark has begun recruiting future operators into existing leadership roles at current portfolio companies where they will be trained for eventually running a future portfolio company. If this is interesting to you, I highly recommend reaching out to Trish. Finally, Chenmark writes a weekly newsletter called Weekly Thoughts about their views on investing and operating small companies, behavior and psychology, and concepts from other disciplines that can be brought over to business. I’ve been a reader for years and I’ve found it extremely valuable. Go to Chenmarkcapital.com/weeklythoughts to subscribe.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Links Mentioned
- Chenmark Capital
- Yale Case Study
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
- Weekly Thoughts
I’m continuing to focus on specific themes within small company investing and this episode focuses on owner outreach during a search. My guests for this episode are JR De Agostini and Max Artz from Peterson Partners who ran their own search and are now running the search investment fund at Peterson. Our conversation covers how to craft your message to owners, filter through owners who aren’t actually interested in selling, build relationships, and a short detour near the end on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Links Mentioned
- Peterson Partners
I’ve wanted to record a few episodes that focus on specific themes, industries, and strategies around acquiring small companies and this episode is the first in a few to come. My guest today is an anonymous Twitter account named Defensive Capital who I’ve gotten to know over the past few months. True to the account’s name, he works in supply chain in the defense industry and our conversation focuses on opportunities for entrepreneurs and searchers in the industry. If you have any interest in the defense industry or manufacturing, you’re going to like this one. Enjoy.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest Ali Aydar has a fascinating background. Today he’s the CEO of Sporcle, an online trivia business, but earlier he worked in various venture backed companies playing the finite game and decided to play the infinite game at Sporcle instead. He is the first business owner on the podcast and we talk about operating a business through tough times, the advantages of having permanent capital in a business, and his choice in leaving the finite game.
Ali is a wealth of experience in operating companies and we’ve both been thinking about this episode for a while. If you like our discussion on finite and infinite games, Andy Ellis and I also talked about the concept extensively in an earlier podcast episode I will link to in the description.
Episodes of Think Like an Owner are available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
For show notes and links, visit the podcast page here.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guests today come from the recently created ESOP holding company called Empowered Ventures which today owns TVF, a textiles company in Indianapolis. Chris Fredericks is the President of TVF and Empowered Ventures and will be joined by Spencer Springer full time once Spencer’s MBA program with Northwestern is wrapped up. During this episode we talk about pros and cons operating an ESOP and using it to acquire companies, how they build an employee owned culture, and some of their plans for Empowered Ventures. Chris and I connected late last year and I knew it would turn into a podcast one day and I’m very glad it has.
One other note, you might notice my closing questions happen 2/3rds of the way through the episode and not at the end. Our trains of thought just kept going and hope you enjoy the results.
Links
- TVF
- Empowered Ventures
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is a person who writes anonymously on Twitter under the pseudonym Clearing Fog. We connected a few months ago on Twitter and in this episode we talk about his career in investment banking and private equity, why he writes anonymously and his thoughts on writing publicly, and what he’s thinking about next. I don’t come across many people in traditional finance careers who have a blog and Twitter account and I thought it would be interesting to hear from someone who thinks a little differently.
Please enjoy, I hope you like the episode as much as I did.
Links
Letter to Younger Self
Clearing Fog website
Clearing Fog Twitter
Nikhil Krishnan
Taylor Pearson
David Perell
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today is Greg Geronemus. Greg and his partner David Rosner founded a search fund named Footbridge Partners after their time at Harvard Business School and acquired a tour operating company called smarTours. Four years later they sold smarTours to a private equity firm and raised a fund to invest in other searchers. Greg and David take a more concentrated approach and aim to invest in 8-10 searchers, rather than dozens, to spend more time and energy with each individual searcher.
Greg and I discuss their search fund days, investing in search funds, and how the model has evolved and may continue to change. I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did.
Links Mentioned
Footbridge Partners
David Rosner
smarTours
Summit Park
Ninth Street Capital
280 Group
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This is my second episode hearing from investors on how they are adapting their companies, this time with Justin Turner from Traction Capital Partners. For more background on Justin and Traction, I recommend listening to our earlier episode, episode 4, with Justin and their associate Peter Bell.
In this episode, Justin talks about how his two portfolio companies have performed and what he’s thinking about next. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Episodes of Think Like an Owner are available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
I recorded this episode with Mikel Berger from Little Engine Ventures and another with Justin Turner from Traction Capital Partners to hear from investors on what’s going on in their companies today. I asked Mikel what he’s seeing in his portfolio companies, community, and what he’s been advising his companies to do. I hope this helps you when looking at your own businesses and sheds some light on what others are experiencing. Both Mikel and Justin have been on the podcast before and if you want learn more about them I recommend listening to those as well, which are episodes 4 and 10 of the podcast respectively.
Also, I’m trying something new with this episode. If you have a follow-up question for Mikel you can ask via this Google Form I've created and they'll be answered in a later post.
Enjoy the update from Mikel.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Michael Girdley who is chairman and head of strategy of Dura Software, a holding company that acquires small software companies based in San Antonio. Michael is also a co-founder of Geekdom Fund, a small venture firm, and a co-founder of Codeup, a coding bootcamp in San Antonio.
I’ve had guests from software on the show before but this episode was particularly good and I learned a ton. I’ve wanted to learn more about investing in software and Michael provided a fantastic overview of the space and Dura and their strategy. If you want to invest in software companies, this is an episode you’ll enjoy and get a lot of value from.
Episodes of Think Like an Owner are available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links
Dura Software
Codeup
Geekdom Fund
Buc-ee’s
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Will Schoeberlein. Will started his career in investment banking and private equity before taking a leap to Southeast Asia to work on startups and software. He finished his time in Asia in Japan where he met his wife and he has since developed a small company acquisition thesis on the Japanese market.
In the episode we discuss his thoughts about investing in private companies, acquiring companies in the U.S. and Japan, aging Japanese business owners and what that means for their economy, IPOing in Japan, and our shared use of Twitter.
Episodes of Think Like an Owner are available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.
Links
Golden Southeast
Nihon M&A Center
Teledyne
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guests on this episode are Lui Pangiarella and Akram Sabbagh from Second Squared, an emerging search fund accelerator looking to bring the search fund model to Australia for the first time. The three of us discussed educating the marketplace, the mindsets of investors and owners in Australia compared to other countries, how they view themselves compared to counterparts in the U.S., and more.
As they'll describe, Australia does not have a M&A market that is nearly as developed as the U.S. and a large part of their role is education. I had a great time learning about the challenges with introducing search concepts and acquiring companies in Australia and I hope you enjoy it as well.
Links Mentioned
Second Squared
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Sam Rosati who, along with his brother Joey, ran a search fund called Pursuant Capital in the Tampa area and acquired a waste management broker called Alpha Dumpsters. There are a couple pieces about Sam and Joey’s story that are unique. For one, it’s one of very few search funds I’ve seen run by two searchers instead of one. And two, they are continuing to look for further acquisitions.
In the episode we chat about Sam’s experience searching for companies before and after acquiring Alpha Dumpsters, how he and his brother split roles, lessons learned, and what they want to do next with Pursuant. If you’re looking to run a search fund, you’re going to like this episode.
Links Mentioned
Pursuant Capital
Alpha Dumpster
The Partnership Charter
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest, Mikel Berger, is the co-founder and partner of Little Engine Ventures, along with co-founder Daryl Starr. Little Engine Ventures is a very unique investment firm in the already unique world of small company investing. They have a strong regional focus of companies within a 2 hour drive of Lafayette, IN and are building a firm, brand, and community that resonates with small, midwest business owners. Little Engine also has a very unique partnership structure that includes a maximum investment for an LP, along with a minimum, and allows them to close deals faster than most private equity firms that raise capital by deal can do.
In this episode with Mikel, we cover his software background, how he describes Little Engine Ventures and their target business owner, how he protects investors and business owners, among other subjects. This was a fascinating conversation, and I hope you agree with me by the end of it.
Links Mentioned
Little Engine Ventures
DelMar Software
Building a Story Brand
RelaNet
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Tim Ludwig, managing partner of Ohana Capital in San Diego. Tim is a search fund investor through Ohana and has extensive experience, having invested in 75 deals over his career. More recently, Tim has been investing in companies directly rather than investing in searchers through a fund.
During our conversation, we cover topics like being a search fund investor vs investing directly, the history of search funds and investing in them, the search fund climate today, and Tim’s exciting and sometimes dangerous study abroad experiences in Colombia and Spain. Tim was in Portland on business and was kind enough to share part of his morning with me for this podcast.
Links Mentioned:
Ohana Capital
Stanford Search Fund Study
Predictable Revenue
Nonviolent Communication
Radical Candor
Never Split the Difference
Random Lengths
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest on this episode is Andy Ellis, a managing partner of Localize Capital in Pittsburgh which, as the name suggests, focuses on investing in companies and entrepreneurs around the Pittsburgh area. Little known fact about me, I used to live in Pittsburgh as a young kid and was extra excited for this conversation because of that. Andy grew up in Pittsburgh, worked in Southern California, and eventually moved back to Pittsburgh to help form Localize.
Andy and I talk extensively about the structure of Localize and how they choose to invest in companies over a very long term, with a core idea being to look for owners who think not just in years, but generations.
You may have heard of the concept of finite and infinite games, a concept written about by author James Carse. A finite game has known players, a beginning and end, and set rules, whereas infinite games have known and unknown players, no end, evolving rules, and the goal is to perpetuate the game. If this concept sounds interesting, this conversation is for you as we discuss this concept in the context of private equity and entrepreneurship.
Please enjoy the episode.
Links Mentioned
Localize Capital
Bryan Materials Group
Finite and Infinite Games
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My guest today is Kevin Graham, an Australian native living in Thailand running a web hosting company called Site Arrow, which he uses as his acquisition vehicle to buy other web hosting companies. The topic of software in micro private equity has come up more and more often and has been a recent focus of mine to learn more about, and Kevin was very helpful to that goal. While a great deal of the technical side of our discussion went over my head, his thinking around using permanent capital to perform a roll-up of sorts of small web hosting companies was fascinating.
Beyond web host acquisitions, we also briefly discussed digital nomads and the life of living abroad. I hope you find our discussion as interesting as I did and if you or someone you know is in the business of acquiring small software companies, I'd love to chat as I want to continue learning about this space.
Please enjoy the episode.
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This space has some of the most unique backgrounds and my guest on this episode is no exception. David Krock joined a band as their drummer coming out of high school, did not go to college, and wound up starting a recording studio which led him on a path to entrepreneurship and micro PE investing, which he does today through his firm Sunset Coast Capital. David is your quintessential outside-the-classroom learner and has a rare depth of thought and experience.
The topics of our conversation include his early years switching from music to entrepreneurship, the advantages of seasonal and cyclical businesses, lessons learned along the way, and a way he's trying to emulate Amazon. You can follow David Krock on Twitter and on through his sites DavidKrock.com and SunsetCoastCapital.com.
Please enjoy our conversation.
Links
• Scaling Up
• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits
• DavidKrock.com
• SunsetCoastCapital.com
Show notes
1:14 Music background and switch to entrepreneurship
2:51 Parallels between music and business
7:13 Leaving the recording business behind
7:58 Advantages/disadvantages due to music background
9:36 Lessons learned by failing
10:50 Not being afraid to ask for help and potentially look dumb
11:30 Initial businesses started & growing into an entrepreneur
16:20 Starting entrepreneurship meetups
19:02 Becoming a consultant
22:06 What industries/characteristics do you look for?
24:00 Investing in a retirement community
25:55 Wedding industry/business model, being a seasonal business
31:55 Building the business in the offseason
34:40 Cash management strategies for cyclical/seasonal businesses
41:00 Using earnings from portfolio companies to reinvest
43:41 Funding projects within portfolio companies
45:07 Calculating returns
50:52 Using Amazon's model in micro PE through Sunset
1:02:58 Which service are you going to turn into a business first?
1:03:56 What class would you teach in college?
1:07:57 Most fortunate event that was completely random?
1:09:07 Best business you've ever seen?
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This episode is unique and is a joint episode with Karen Spencer from Searchfunder, Walker Deibel, and myself, and is something I'm calling "Author's Chat." I recently sent out a survey to see what content listeners and readers might enjoy hearing most and many of them said that conversations with authors of books relevant to micro PE would be interesting to them. This is one conversation along those lines.
Karen and I's guest, Walker Deibel, is an acquirer of 7 businesses, author of the book and site "Buy Then Build", and is an active investor and advocate for entrepreneurship through acquisition. This conversation focuses on his book and lessons and stories from his investing and operating experience. I hope you enjoy our conversation and if you want more episodes with authors, please let me know!
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My fifth guest of the show is Nick Haschka, an MIT graduate living in San Francisco focused on buying small private companies through his firm Cub Investments, along with two other partners. Together, they recently purchased a business called The Wright Gardner which provides interior plant leasing and maintenance services to companies in the bay area. One thing that is interesting about Cub's approach is their use of add-on acquisitions to expand the plant leasing business and part of our discussion is on how they view the risk with add-ons versus platform acquisitions, which was very interesting.
The more I read and learn about the micro PE and permanent capital space, the larger and more diverse it feels. Every investor invests differently and each story is different. Nick is no exception, and in our discussion we cover how his background has influenced his investing, his unique work experience, misconceptions he sees in small company investing, and his disagreements with the concepts of competitive advantage and Porter's Five Forces.
I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
Show Notes
Links
• Cub Investments
• The Wright Gardner
• Credit Parent
Notes
1:30 Brief overview of Nick's background
4:00 Strategy of focusing on local businesses, found The Wright Gardner
5:04 No external investment, utilizing SBA loan program
5:30 What experiences prepared you best?
6:44 How do you view add-on acquisitions at Cub and diversification?
9:31 Weighing buying a new platform business versus an add-on
11:32 Risk of investing in an add-on and integrating it into your existing companies
14:42 What is involved in the Cub Investment "car wash?"
16:46 Examples of new processes added to companies
18:18 Are there benefits to not having experience in the business you're going to acquire?
19:31 Misconceptions with buying small companies
23:34 What gets looped into the earnings number that you need to remove and how do you view that process?
25:22 Role of the 80/20 rule in due diligence and working with the seller
27:53 Role of the previous owner after acquisition
30:29 Is the size of purchase an indicator of the replacement value of relationships with customers?
32:28 Growth of Cub Investments
34:26 Change of valuations recently
36:39 Competition for deals
37:34 What class in college would you teach?
39:10 Most fortunate event that was completely random?
40:47 Best business you've seen?
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
Today I'm chatting with Peter Bell and Justin Turner from Traction Capital Partners in Tacoma, WA, just south of Seattle. Peter and Justin both reached out over Twitter and the more I learned about their firm, the more interesting to me it became. Traction is a small private equity firm that blurs the lines between a private equity fund and a permanent capital vehicle, which is what made them so interesting to me. They have a handful of long-term investors and seek to buy and hold great companies indefinitely, which gives them the unique ability to make long-term oriented decisions and wait for great opportunities.
We begin with Peter telling me about a content idea he has for Traction and move through the topics of starting a private equity fund, lessons learned, what they look for in both businesses and owners, and a few stories. Peter and Justin are both deep thinkers and have been fun to get to know, and I hope that shows in the episode.
Links
• Hodinkee
• GF Data
Show notes
1:25 Peter's video/audio content idea
2:50 Firms using content to attract deal flow and find business owners
4:28 Backgrounds and early days of Traction Capital
6:10 Justin's jump to private equity and general views on investment banking
6:45 Founding of Traction in April 2017
7:26 Peter's background and work in investment banking and BlackRock
8:38 Team at Traction, division of labor
9:28 Balance between using Traction as an investment firm and offering a service to the seller
10:20 Traction's operating philosophy compared to traditional private equity's perception
10:50 Group of investors and their philosophy
12:26 Evolution of Traction's source of capital
13:43 Benefits of being a permanent capital vehicle with closing deals
15:10 General discussion on current valuations
16:06 GF Data
16:44 Lessons learned in starting Traction
18:40 Lessons learned in operating companies in that first year after acquisition
19:25 Importance of people in small companies
20:20 Perception of private equity
21:34 Growth of Peter at Traction
22:22 Looking for intellectually curious people, private equity is designed for insatiably curious people
23:49 Frustration with deals not closing
25:38 How small can private equity funds invest?, Economics of investing in small deals
28:18 Traction fits between private equity and search funds
29:16 Backgrounds of Traction partners and benefits of having operating backgrounds
30:29 Differentiation of Traction
31:25 Optimum business owner and ideal characteristics
32:33 Finding passionate business owners who are focused on their people and business, rather than the highest price
33:50 Looking for businesses where the owners has effectively has taken themselves out of the day-to-day
34:41 Questions to ask during due diligence
35:03 Red flags that come up during research and due diligence
40:09 Importance of background checks on management
41:02 Relationships with intermediaries and the evolution of those relationships
42:29 Establishing credibility and a reputation at Traction
44:40 Will Traction go upmarket or remain in micro PE size?
44:57 What class in college would you teach?
47:30 Mental models used in private equity
50:09 Most fortunate event to have happened to you by chance
54:02 Best business you've ever seen
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
This is my first conversation on this podcast with more than one person. I'm meeting with the team from Searchfunder.com, an online community dedicated to search funds and the various parties involved. A search fund is the smallest form of micro private equity I've found thusfar and is typically one entrepreneur seeking out a company to buy and run as the CEO. The team consists of the two co-founders, Luke Tatone and Mark Yuan, and their COO Karen Spencer, all of whom are graduates of MIT. Luke is the first speaker, followed by Mark, and finally Karen.
During our conversation, we discuss what a search fund is, how they're structured, who participates in search funds, and how they've evolved over time. If you are interested in running/buying/or even starting your own company one day, this conversation is for you.
I met the team after signing up on Searchfunder only to discover all three of them lived here in Portland, OR. Mark initially reached out and invited me to coffee where we chatted about all things search funds and I quickly met the rest of the team. This conversation is the result of one of my most recent, and favorite, small world stories. I hope you get as much value out of this conversation as I did.
Links mentioned
- Stanford Report
- Asurion
- Stanford 2018 Report
- Housatonic Partners
- Alpine Investors
- Peterson Partners
Show notes
1:38 What is a search fund? Structure, goals, parties that participate
3:08 Harvard business school: Royce Yudkoff, Richard Ruback, Jim Sharpe
3:26 Search fund accelerators
4:18 What individuals create search funds?
5:38 Risks of launching a start-up vs running a search fund
7:20 Shift from finance professionals to operational professionals
7:47 Most valuable experience to have had prior to launching a search fund?
9:00 It is important to investors that you're able to lead a team
9:32 Number of searchers that Searchfunder.com has studied and had on the site
10:01 Strong growth in number of search funds launched and corresponding acquisitions
10:34 Number of search funds formed last year compared to five years ago
11:09 Reasons for growth in number of search funds
11:30 Who are these searchers buying from and why is the owner selling, normally?
12:22 Steps in creating a search fund and acquiring a company
13:30 Best thing to do to learn about search funds, intern for one
15:44 Importance of practice and repetitions
16:07 Putting a timeline on a search
16:40 Who are the searchers talking to and involving during the search phase?
18:13 Brokers working with searchers, searchers are here to stay
18:57 Pros and cons to working with brokers vs direct outreach
20:40 Searching within regionally vs nationally
21:33 Average distance between the searcher and the company eventually acquired
24:19 Normal size range and multiple size of companies acquired
25:44 Why do these companies have lower multiples than larger companies?
26:30 A business is only as worth as much as someone is willing to pay
27:27 Lower bound of company size in search funds
27:51 What types of companies are these search funds buying?
29:00 Examples of companies acquired
30:32 Company that leases plants to office buildings
32:08 Pet funeral services business
32:44 Asurion Insurance
34:35 Controlling your downside as a searcher, no cap on upside
35:07 Convincing sellers to sell
37:11 Due diligence on acquisitions
39:14 Role of interns
40:01 How many companies close after signing an LOI?
40:40 Structure of deals
41:58 Using seller note
42:39 Benefits to self funded in terms of deal structure
43:09 What should a searcher do in their first year with the new company
44:35 Holding period
45:55 Search fund market on Searchfunder.com
46:15 Stanford report on search funds
47:45 Why they started a site on search funds instead of a search fund
49:43 Would you like to run a search fund in the future?
50:15 How Karen joined Searchfunder.com and importance of your alumni network
50:55 More than just search funds on the site, goals for the site
53:11 Gap between mature private equity and micro private equity/search funds
53:37 How do these larger private equity firms access this space?
55:08 Economics of mature private equity firms buying these small companies with in-house staff
57:33 What's the most fortunate event to have happened to you by chance?
1:00:40 Best business you've ever seen
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
My conversation today is with Mike Boyd. Mike is originally from Brisbane, Australia and currently lives in Singapore where he runs one of the leading car rental comparison websites in the world - Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, among other portfolio companies. He has been an entrepreneur for virtually his entire life, starting at a very young age. Mike built on his experience starting businesses and has evolved to buying them whole. Today he invests his own money, permanent capital, into digital-only companies and intangibles globally, with the goal being to build a portfolio of cash-flow producing companies for the very long term.
Our conversation includes discussion on his early entrepreneurial stories, how he became CEO at such a young age, what he looks for in digital investments, and his experience building a remote team. This one, and our prior phone call, are two of the most memorable conversations I've had about business and investing. I hope once you finish listening, you will feel the same way.
I got to know Mike after he reached out over Twitter after seeing my conversation with Trish Higgins and was very generous with his time and experience. If you work in micro private equity or permanent capital, or know someone who does, please feel free to reach out through my website or Twitter - I'd love to have a conversation.
Links mentioned
Mudbrick Capital
video on future of workplaces
Vroom Vroom Vroom
Upwork
CEO AMA
Hiccup Insurance
CarHire
Envato
Show notes
0:00 Introduction
1:49 Early entrepreneurial businesses, keg rental business, video on future of workplaces
2:15 Planning 18th birthday party
4:50 Decision to start keg rental business, Coolybar Keg Hire
6:50 Story about inbox filled with orders for keg rentals, top of Google results for “keg hire Brisbane”
8:40 Evolving beyond college, moving from Brisbane to Singapore, started non-profit called The Hive
10:20 Getting to know various entrepreneurs through starting non-profit program, mentorship
11:45 Using photos to market Coolybar Keg Hire
12:12 Digital/social media consulting
12:50 Vroom Vroom Vroom opportunity
13:30 Owners of Vroom Vroom Vroom reached out
15:26 Offered, and accepted, to run Vroom Vroom Vroom as CEO
17:01 Starting adding/fixing processes within the company, scaled
21:20 Frequently seeing poor business skills within digital world
22:10 Discussion on why only digital companies, finding these companies, filtering
23:28 Vroom Vroom Vroom business model
25:45 Why Mike moved to Singapore, remote workforce
27:30 Training freelancers for remote work
28:50 CEO AMA’s, http://ceoama.co/
33:40 Sourcing acquisitions and deals, finding new digital companies, filtering
34:25 Hiccup insurance
35:44 Mudbrick Capital, private company diversification
36:20 Finding opportunities in digital intangible space
38:05 Types of digital companies sought out
40:12 Challenges in reinvesting capital in digital companies
42:20 Types of companies found, examples, transacting sellers
45:40 Purchase price multiples
48:00 Example prospective acquisition company
52:30 Demographics of owners
53:27 Benefits of permanent capital for sellers, Mudbrick value proposition to sellers
57:54 Reasons why digital companies with great economics don’t receive higher multiples than 2-4 times EBITDA
1:01:08 Add backs/withdrawals from EBITDA to get to true “owner earners”
1:04:02 Reinvestment risk, if Mudbrick Capital is in part solution to this risk
1:07:01 Carhire
1:09:38 Can only really reinvest in marketing when it comes to digital companies
1:10:26 Most fortunate event to have happened that was completely by chance
1:16:34 Best business you’ve ever seen, Envato
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.
For the first conversation of the podcast, I'm meeting with Trish Higgins who, along with her husband James Higgins and brother-in-law Palmer Higgins, run Chenmark Capital in Portland, Maine. Chenmark Capital acquires and operates small companies for the long term using their own capital, with no intention of selling - a perfect example of permanent equity. What makes Chenmark unique is they look for slow growing, steady, and boring businesses and seek to operate them as efficiently as possible.
Trish is the perfect first guest for Think Like An Owner because she has experience being both the investor in the business and serving an operator role in their portfolio companies. Our conversation ranges from discussions around capital allocation within portfolio companies, to the "Chenmark carwash", and why the small business acquisition market at the moment feels a lot like Zillow.
We held our conversation in a quieter area of a shopping mall in Boston so there is occasional background noise. I assure you however, that this past audio performance is not indicative of future audio performance. In fact, I hope it makes the conversation sound more authentic and relatable. Please enjoy my conversation with Trish Higgins.
Chenmark Capital: https://www.chenmarkcapital.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chenholdco
I’m also the founder of The Operator’s Handbook, a print publication where small company operators share their insights and ideas for building more effective and profitable companies. Articles focus on process improvement, sales, hiring and training, managing culture, and all responsibilities within operating a small company. If you run a small business and are looking for new ways to grow and improve, subscribe today and join your peers in the endless pursuit of better at theoperatorshandbook.com.