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...
Jul 26, 2022•52 min
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 ...
Jul 19, 2022•51 min
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...
Jul 12, 2022•56 min
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 N...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr
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. C...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 7 min
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...
Jun 21, 2022•56 min
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 effic...
Jun 14, 2022•53 min
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 understand...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 22 min
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...
May 31, 2022•52 min
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...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 2 min
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. Th...
May 17, 2022•58 min
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 t...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 6 min
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 y...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min
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 p...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 6 min
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 ...
Apr 19, 2022•46 min
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 ...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr
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...
Apr 05, 2022•53 min
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 h...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 4 min
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 e...
Mar 22, 2022•59 min
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 we...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 7 min
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 extensivel...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min
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...
Mar 01, 2022•54 min
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 ...
Feb 22, 2022•40 min
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 thei...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr 1 min
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...
Feb 08, 2022•45 min
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 h...
Feb 01, 2022•49 min
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 boo...
Jan 25, 2022•36 min
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...
Jan 18, 2022•52 min
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 ...
Jan 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min
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 an...
Jan 04, 2022•1 hr
