Think Like an Owner

Ep.189: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Dave Thrasher (@dave-thrasher). My guest on this episode is Dave Thrasher who along with his family in Omaha owns Thrasher, a foundation repair business with three core business units: a wholly owned foundation repair brand, an acquisition strategy of non-Thrasher branded services businesses, and Supportworks which sells industry products and offers training to customers on running more successful businesses. It's a fascinating collection of family-owned businesses with no intention of selling. We talk about how their never-sell mentality influences the use of debt, and profitability while scaling, and how it's changed Dave's role as CEO over time. Please enjoy my episode with Dave Thrasher. 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/ I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Links: Thrasher Group Thrasher Foundation Repair Supportworks The Ideal Team Player by Pat Lencioni Great by Choice by Jim Collins Books by Dr. Henry Cloud Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek Topics: (00:03:57) The timeline of the Thrasher family businesses and how they interact with each other (00:10:05) Thrasher's acquisition strategy & mindset changes to fast track growth (00:13:41) Ongoing evolutions to Dave's role to become more effective (00:18:04) Transition points in Dave's role as the business has grown (00:20:34) Self-evaluation strategies (00:22:07)Lessons from being an effective CEO (00:23:58) Becoming more comfortable with giving and receiving feedback (00:27:41) Finding the balance between growth and profitability (00:33:02) Becoming an effective user of debt (00:34:58) Developing a 100-year plan for a business (00:39:03) Headcount driving revenue vs. revenue driving headcount (00:41:28) What to look for in hiring (00:46:00) How core values from Thrasher are aligned with acquired companies (00:48:14) Questions to ask when determining if a potential acquisition will be a good fit (00:52:32) M&A rabbit holes (00:55:40) Overcoming deal fatigue (00:57:32) What's a strongly held belief you've changed your mind on? (00:59:28) What's the best business you've ever seen?

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?

I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Ep.187: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Scott Alderman (@Scott-Alderman) and Alex Temel (@AlexanderTemel). Today's episode is the fifth in our Launch Series, in partnership with Trilogy Search Partners and Pacific Lake Partners. This discussion focuses on the deal structuring and legal diligence process in a search acquisition, and I'm joined by Scott Alderman, partner at Trilogy, and Alex Temel, partner at law firm Sidley Austin, for the conversation. During the episode we cover the key steps in the legal process, timeline, how to mitigate risk, working with sellers, staging, reps and warranties, and much more. We broke the conversation into the key stages of a deal and special considerations to make along the way and ended with advice for entrepreneurs when working with legal counsel. Finally, if you haven't already, be sure to listen to our four previous episodes on industry research, starting a search, the diligence process, and working with sellers. 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: Scott on LinkedIn Alex on LinkedIn Sidley Austin LLP Trilogy Search Partners Pacific Lake Partners Launch Ep #1 Launch Ep #2 Launch Ep #3 Launch Ep #4 Topics: (00:05:01) LOIs: Key components and legal timelines (00:16:36) Pitfalls in Pre-LOI Due Diligence (00:20:09) What happens between the LOI and drafting a purchase agreement (00:22:49) Ways to reduce risk in the legal process (00:26:35) How to avoid conflict between parties (00:32:57) Reps, warranties, and covenants (00:38:58) Where to hold your ground and where to make compromises (00:40:52) Economic drivers of a business (00:43:10) Most frequent deal-killers (00:45:27) Adjusting processes and cadences based on the experience of the seller and their advisors (00:49:59) Helpful advice for entrepreneurs working with attorneys

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 (@mahorowitz). 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

I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Ep.182: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Jim Vesterman (@jim-vesterman). This episode is the fourth in our Launch Series, a partnered episode series with Trilogy Search Partners and Pacific Lake Partners, 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?

I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Ep.178: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ryan Turk (@Ryan-Turk) and Keith Gross (@Keithmgross). This is the third episode in our Launch Series, a partnered episode series with Trilogy Search Partners and Pacific Lake Partners. 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 (@sievakozinsky). 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 Sieva on Twitter 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 Philip Hussey (@philipdhussey). My guest on this episode is Philip Hussey, CEO of Outerland, a landscape maintenance, new build, and snow removal business in Cape Cod, owned by Chenmark. Philip 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 Philip 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?

I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Ep.174: Alex (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Alex Thinath (@Alex-Thinath) and Nikita Sunilkumar (@Nikita-Sunilkumar). This episode is the second in our Launch Series, a partnered series with Pacific Lake Partners and Trilogy Search Partners, focused on starting a search. We walk through the various phases before and after the search begins, with key questions and best practices on how to approach each phase. I'm joined by Alex Thinath, a current searcher backed by both Pacific Lake and Trilogy, and Nikita Sunilkumar, an entrepreneur in residence at Trilogy. In our discussion, we also discuss differentiation as a searcher, choosing investors, key KPIs and metrics to watch, and measuring success. 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: Trilogy Search Partners Pacific Lake Partners Timestamps (00:02:22) Introducing Nikita and Alex (00:04:54) Activities and questions in the 3-12 months leading up to the Search (00:10:35) Industry research (00:14:35) Cap table and investor selections (00:22:53) Drafting a PPM (00:32:34) Daily activities and tools to use one month into a Search (00:41:55) How Searchers should pitch themselves (00:47:42) Getting into your groove: 6 months into a Search (00:54:12) KPIs and benchmarks to hit during Search (00:59:50) Utilizing interns and VAs (01:05:59) Final thoughts

Ep. 173 Alex Bridgeman (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Clayton Collins (@ClaytonACollins). Today's episode was recorded live in late April 2023 at SMBash in Austin, Texas, with my boss, Clayton Collins, CEO of HW Media. We opened up talking about how the role came together, but for a short preview, I took a Chief of Staff role with HW Media in March 2022 to help build a media and data company in the housing industry. It's been an exciting journey with a steep learning curve that I'm thoroughly enjoying. In the episode, we talk about acquiring within your industry, the acquisition journey at HW Media, the case for acquisitions as a compliment to organic growth, what a bad acquisition looks like, and so much more. This event is fantastic for all those looking to pursue entrepreneurship through acquiring a company, and I hope to see you all at next year's event. 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: HW Media Clayton on Twitter SMBash Timestamps (00:03:56) Introducing Clayton (00:05:36) The Chief of Staff role (00:08:26) Growth through Acquisition (00:11:15) HW Media's 3 acquisitions (00:14:53) What Clayton looks for in potential acquisitions (00:18:47) Evaluating a team inside a company being acquired (00:20:33) Building relationships in an industry (00:22:00) Avoiding train wreck acquisitions (00:26:13) Debt (00:27:24) Advice for CEOs wanting to build a repeatable acquisition process

#172: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Doug Cook (@DougCook). This episode was a live recording at a joint event in Chicago between the Booth and Kellogg Business Schools. My guest was Doug Cook, Chairman of several companies throughout Illinois in windows and siding, chimney care, garages, elevators, and more; With windows and siding being his most notable business in Feldco. Doug gives a deeper walkthrough of his very impressive and entrepreneurial career at the start of our conversation. We also talk deeply about empathy and how to develop it as a skill, empathy when building a team and selling to customers, trust and respect as a CEO, lessons that are the hardest to be taught, and much more. Doug is a fantastic person, I think that will come through loud and clear throughout the episode. 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 Doug on LinkedIn Feldco Jack Welch Books YPO Timestamps (00:04:47) Doug's background and career (00:12:10) Lessons Learned: Less is more (00:16:50) Common Skillsets in CEOs (00:28:09) Developing empathy as a skill (00:34:30) Finding the line between becoming too friendly with employees (00:35:14) Developing empathy with customers (00:37:10) The CEO's role with customers (00:40:37) Refining a Product line (00:47:49) Difficulties in Growth through Acquisition (00:50:37) Building Trust and Respect with Employees (00:56:33) Are there any CEOs you admire? (00:58:32) What's a strongly held belief you've changed your mind on? (00:59:49) What's the best business you've ever seen?

Ep. 171: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Justin Nassiri (@JustinNassiri). My guest today is Justin Nassiri, founder and CEO of Executive Presence, a managed social media service for ambitious CEOs, with a focus on LinkedIn today. We talk about why CEOs should care and focus on building a social media following, and how CEOs can optimize their social presence, including a walkthrough of the most important things to optimize on your LinkedIn profile. We also compare the top platforms for CEOs, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the pros/cons of each and where to start. Justin also draws on his experience being a founder of two prior companies, Captivate and StoryBox, to be a more effective and balanced CEO in his current business. He has a lot of lessons learned and advice for CEOs looking to expand their reach and improve individual performance. This episode was super interesting and rich with actionable ideas and I think you'll come away with a lot to apply to your own company. 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: Justin on LinkedIn Executive Presence Beyond the Uniform Podcast Thumbtack SmartShoot Timestamps (00:04:05) Justin's career prior to Executive Presence (00:09:47) Capturing authenticity in a client (00:15:04) Thoughts on different Social Media platforms for CEOs (00:19:06) How to use LinkedIn in a more optimized fashion (00:23:15) Growth pattern differences between Twitter & LinkedIn (00:24:58) How to optimize your profile (00:36:51) How CEOs can benefit from an increased presence on LinkedIn? (00:41:32) Being Transparent on Social Media (00:47:42) Lessons learned from founding 3 companies (00:57:47) Finding work-life balance and creating high-quality work (01:03:54) What's a strongly held belief you've changed your mind on? (01:05:10) What's the best business you've ever seen?

I want to tell you about our audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it. After 30 days we are giving $250 cash to 4 survey responders, just add your email at the end of the survey. Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Ep. 170: Alex (@Aebridgeman) is joined by Aaron Perrine (@AaronPerrine) and Kevin Oxendine (@KevinOxendine). Today's episode is the first in our new seven-episode series titled Launch Series, in collaboration with Trilogy Search Partners and Pacific Lake Partners. This series is meant to be a guide to preparing a search entrepreneur for their upcoming CEO role, the next major step in their career. Our episodes will focus on topics such as starting up a search, deal structuring, seller relationships, first hundred days, governance, and much more. This first episode focuses on conducting effective industry research with guests Aaron Perrine and Kevin Oxendine, Partners of Trilogy and Pacific Lake, respectively. 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: Aaron on LinkedIn Kevin on LinkedIn Trilogy Search Partners Pacific Lake Partners Grata Listen to last year's Trilogy Search Series on Spotify Timestamps: (00:02:40) Kevin and Aaron's background and careers (00:04:37) How Searchers are approaching Industry research and focus (00:19:17) Evaluating M&A activity in an industry (00:24:56) Characteristics or factors that remove industries from consideration for investment (00:31:31) Finding Industry experts (00:36:54) How Searchers can best tell their own story (00:42:09) The process of doing online research before getting on the phone with owners (00:45:50) Writing a phenomenal PPM (00:49:14) Tools for Searchers Doing Industry Research (00:51:12) Different Levels of Industry Research

Ep 169: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Amir Haboosheh (@amirhaboosheh) My guest on this episode is Amir Haboosheh, Co-Founder and CEO of Snowball Industries, a home services holding company with 4 portfolio companies today. Their vision is to build a permanent, publicly traded home for these companies, and Amir and I talk extensively about what an IPO looks like and the benefits and tradeoffs it brings. We also talk a lot about empathy, a skill ambitious CEOs cannot get enough of, lessons from Amir's family on empathy, and how he coaches new managers on empathy and leadership. This conversation had a lot of depth and I think you'll be able to take away many of these lessons to your own company. 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: Snowball Industries Amir on LinkedIn Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters $FIX - Comfort Systems John Wilson on Think Like an Owner Color Code Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:45) Favorite Warren Buffet Lessons: Reputations (00:07:28) Being flexible in purchase agreements (00:09:31) Snowball's Origin and business strategy (00:14:52) Home Services companies going Public (00:16:48) Revenue required to go Public (00:19:27) How the role of the CEO changes through company growth and Going Public (00:25:45) The power and importance of Empathy (00:41:28) Screening for empathy in candidates (00:44:14) Color Code (00:49:06) Giving feedback (00:53:35) Leaning on a board for expertise (00:57:29) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (01:00:01) What's the best business you've ever seen?

Ep. 168: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Daniel Hudspeth (@danielhudspeth). My guest today, Daniel Hudspeth, is the CEO of Discover Health, a concierge medical practice business with locations in California, Boston, and soon to be Seattle. During his search Daniel did extensive research on private pay healthcare and eventually developed a thesis to acquire multiple concierge practices across the country. We talk about this pivot during his search, what the concierge model looks like for patients and doctors, why it's an attractive business as an investor and operator, and what growth could look like over the coming years. Given my mom is a family physician, this episode felt close to home and I enjoyed the chance to connect with an entrepreneur like Daniel who's looking to build a better model in patient healthcare. 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: Discover Health Concierge Medicine Today ROAMD The Predictive Index Founders Podcast - Yvon Chouinard: Patagonia's Founding Principles Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:23) - Daniel's Search Journey (00:14:31) - Investor hesitations force the Search to go longer (00:17:28) - Recruiting Doctors to the Organization (00:25:57) - Churn dynamics (00:29:47) - Staffing requirements (00:31:45) - Establishing a playbook for how these businesses are run (00:35:18) - Concierge-centric Podcasts (00:37:23) - Defining Executive roles (00:40:09) - How the CEO role has changed (00:43:06) - Utilizing peer networks (00:46:05) - Tools for hiring and recruiting (00:50:13) - What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (00:52:47) - What's the best business you've ever seen?

Episode 167: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Chris Hoffman (Chris-Hoffman). My guest, Chris Hoffmann, is the President and CEO of Hoffmann Brothers, a home services business based in St. Louis. Hoffmann Brothers have scaled from $10 million in 2015 to over $100 million in revenue in 2023. We talk about how that journey happened, their experience building executive teams, investing in people through a training university they started for ongoing training, and investing activity for home services today. We also talk about what perpetual non-private equity ownership enables them to do, including their unique strategy for managing cash investments and liquidity as a growing family office. This was a ton of fun for me and I hope you enjoy this conversation as well. 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: Chris on LinkedIn Hoffmann Brothers NexStar Network Chapters: (00:03:38) - Hoffman Training University & NexStar (00:08:26) - Enabling scale and revenue growth (00:10:55) - Differences in PE-backed company structures (00:14:25) - Retention and morale-boosting tactics (00:17:59) - Leadership team composition (00:21:17)- Surfacing high-performers & evaluating management teams (0:28:53) - Using Search Firms to find talent (00:30:25) - Choosing an Executive Search firm (00:33:30) - Financial sponsor interest in the HVAC and Home Services market (00:36:15) - Reasons Consolidators are failing (00:38:41) - Debt, Public Equity Strategies & Fund Investing (00:48:00) - Goals for the family office (00:49:47) - Building new locations from scratch vs. acquiring existing companies (00:55:37) - Acquiring a school (00:58:53) - Changing strongly held beliefs (00:59:54) - Chris' favorite business

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: Ed on LinkedIn AVUITY Evermore Industries 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: Chenmark Trish on LinkedIn James on LinkedIn Will Thorndike on Invest Like the Best Legacy by James Kerr Chenmark Series 1 Chenmark Series 2 Topics: (00:04:51) Earning the right to take risks (00:11:10) Accelerating acquisitions and faster processes (00:13:04) Expanding capacity beyond headcount growth (00:17:25) Reinvestment in current companies vs. new platforms (00:22:08) Not having a full-time person searching for deals (00:26:13) Chenmark's GVP Associate's Program (00:36:31) 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: James on LinkedIn Palmer on LinkedIn Chenmark 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 on LinkedIn Palmer on LinkedIn Chenmark 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?

Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast 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: The CAM Collective Orlando on LinkedIn Jalen on LinkedIn 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

Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast 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. Links: Daniel on LinkedIn IntellaTriage Traction by Gino Wickman Scaling Up by Verne Harnish 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?

Please take 2 minutes to complete this audience poll and give feedback on the podcast 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 President 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. Links: Axero Solutions Michael on LinkedIn Adam on LinkedIn 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: Ryan on LinkedIn VoiceFriend (Now Icon) Caremerge 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: Stijn on LinkedIn Trilogy Search Partners Browzwear 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. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Ross on LinkedIn Westerly Group Sylmar Group Era Services Group Evermore Industries Northrim Horizon Business Model Generation 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 The Jackson Laboratory Explora BioLabs Sandy on LinkedIn 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 [email protected]. Thank you, I look forward to chatting soon! Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Paxos Michael on LinkedIn 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 BUCS Analytics in 2006. 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. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Nick on LinkedIn BUCS analytics Sean Joy – CEO Journey within Chenmark – Ep.152 Timestamps (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:15) What is Bucs Analytics and the founding story? (00:07:35) Are there any industries you've specialized in? (00:09:38) Can you walk through product development? (00:13:11) How do you decide on outcomes of experiments where results come out similar? (00:16:25) Are there 2-3 ways you measure engagement and value? (00:17:41) What's been the process of evolution on the sales side? (00:20:53) What are the channels you're hoping to develop further? (00:22:13) What are the benefits of having a group of peers over time? (00:25:34) Is there one change or development in your peer group that's helped the most? (00:27:35) Where was your mindset when starting Bucs and how has it changed over time? (00:29:19) What are some of the most successful ways you've found to attract and keep talent at Bucs? (00:32:21) What does it look like fulfilling a new employee's goals? (00:34:46) What've you learned the most about managing change in a company? (00:36:37) What's your philosophy for setting goals? (00:39:21) Have you ever made secondary adjustments to annual goals? (00:40:30) What goal do you feel you're the most excited to achieve this year? (00:41:13) What strongly held belief have you changed your mind on? (00:42:40) 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: Carl Streck on LinkedIn MountainSeed EOS What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith YPO.org The Economics of Data Businesses by Abraham Thomas Craig Fuller on TLAO 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! Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Sean on LinkedIn Southern Star Dolphin Cruise Buccaneer Pirate Cruise Chenmark 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 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. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Heritage Holding Alex de Pfyffer on LinkedIn Ross Porter on LinkedIn 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. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Johnny Lieberman on LinkedIn Zack Miller on LinkedIn Worklyn Partners Quadrant Information Security 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. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Richard on LinkedIn Iron Mountain 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 [email protected] 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?

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 [email protected] 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?