The Next Step

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode of the next step, I speak to Tim Moore, who is the Director of Dorado capital. Tim originally was a self funded searcher back in the early 2000s. And then after exiting...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode, I speak to Ak Sabbagh. Ak is Director and Coach at Beckon Business, Co-Founder of Second Squared and Managing Director and Co-Founder of WayFinder Capital Managers. Ak...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode, I speak to Tom McGhie from Fulcra Financial, an advisory firm focusing on providing Debt Solutions for Australian businesses and their owners. I've had the pleasure of...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Rob Gaunt, CEO of ACE Training. Rob started his career selling photocopiers and worked his way up to COO. He then obtained an MBA at Macquarie Graduate Scho...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with John Liston, Managing Director and William Bracewell, Head of Advisory at Liston Newton Advisory (LNA), who have kindly offered to support the EtA Forum wit...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Andrew Locke, Co-Founder & Partner at Ambit Partners. Andrew is an experienced investor, advisor, and board member. Before founding Ambit Partners, he w...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held in Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Richard Hernan, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Broadleaf Financial Group. Richard runs the day to day operations of the Broadleaf Financial Group inclu...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held at the Manly Pacific Hotel, on Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Michael Chew, Managing Director at Flywheel Effect. He is leading a self funded Search based in Melbourne, Australia and will be...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held at the Manly Pacific Hotel, on Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Paige Kohalmi, Founder at Greenstorm Capital. She will be hosting a panel discussion at the forum, with a focus on how Searchers...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held at the Manly Pacific Hotel, on Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Luke Taylor, Founder at Acheron Capital, who is hosting a session focused on the unique role of Investors in the Search Fund mod...

This year, the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum (www.etaforum.com.au) will be held at the Manly Pacific Hotel, on Manly Beach in Sydney, on Friday 16th September. In this episode I speak with Jake Nicholson, Managing Director at SMEVentures. I asked Jake about his experience with bringing a search fund based business m...

This year the Australian EtA and Search Fund community is looking forward to its first big event for the region. The EtA Forum will be held at the Manly Pacific Hotel, on Manly Beach in Sydney on Friday 16th September. In the lead up to the event, I will be interviewing the speakers and moderators to give you some insight into the experience, capability and knowledge that will be on offer when we...

Steve Ressler is an entrepreneur and an experienced investor and advisor in the Search Fund space. He's originally from Ohio and presently based in Washinton DC. Steve was attracted to the Search Fund model because it had similarities to private equity, where you buy great businesses or invest in one at a fair price, but also having the responsibility of an entrepreneur, where you reform and manag...

Ahron Oddman is the CEO of PSS, a small business he bought in early 2020 that provides software and learning on demand for school students in America. Ahron has a diverse background, including spending 15 years in the military as a Marine and five years working in sales for a startup. He's also done an MBA at Harvard. Through all of that experience, he concluded that the next step for him was to c...

Alex Simmons is the founder of Voyager Equity, Australia's first traditional Search Fund launched in early 2019. Before launching that fund, Alex was a manager with Partners in Performance in Sydney and prior to that, an investment manager in the UK. He's had some interesting experience across management, consulting, and also private equity. In this episode, I get Alex's perspective on the search...

Paul O'Farrell is an experienced banking professional and chartered accountant with over 30 years of international banking and risk management experience with companies such as PwC, National Australia Bank and Bankwest. He has an in-depth understanding of the issues facing businesses when applying for finance and a strong network of relationships throughout the banking industry. Paul's blend of co...

Nima Sedaghat is the co-founder of Wayfinder Capital, the first institutional fund of search funds and searcher-led transactions in Australia and a partner of Australian law firm HWL Ebsworth, a full-service commercial law firm with offices all around Australia. He's been advising business owners, executives, Australian and foreign investors, as well as sponsors on restructures, mergers, acquisiti...

Frank Versace is the Chief Risk Officer at Judo bank, one of Australia's newest banks. Judo is taking on the long-established big four banks in the Australian market, with a focus on Small to Medium Businesses... and they're doing a great job at it, too! Through his broad banking experience and first hand involvement building Judo, Frank has a wealth of knowledge and insights in relation to Small...

Rob Gaunt is the Chief Executive Officer of Ace Training who recently took on that role after successfully completing an acquisition of it as a searcher (potentially Australia’s first traditionally funded successful search!). Through his time searching, Rob had the opportunity to look at a whole range of businesses across Australia before pinning one down to acquire, so he has plenty of great insi...

In this episode of the Next Step Podcast, I speak to Jack Lancaster. Jack's currently the director and CEO of Evolution Surgical, a business he acquired as part of a self-funded search. Jack's got a broad and diverse background, including spending time studying in the UK and even attempting to start up his own business from scratch. Jack went into search in early 2020 (an interesting time to start...

Tim Moore and Jake Maisey run Dorado Capital, one of the few Australian family offices actively investing in search funds. Dorado has invested in traditional and self-funded searches both in Australia and overseas. Tim has an MBA and is a chartered accountant who started his career in investment banking and led a self-funded search that resulted in the acquisition of Surpac, a software business se...

In this episode, I talk about the four seasons of search. I think the seasons of the year are a great metaphor to help searchers understand their own journey and the different 'seasons' they will find themselves in along the way. This episode is for all those people out there that are thinking about taking the search journey. If you are someone that's is just about to start a search or have alread...

Lui Pangiarella – founder of WayFinder Capital and Second Squared. Both of these companies are active contributors and participants in the search fund ecosystem here in Australia. Lui co-founded Second Squared a couple of years ago to help build the community of searchers here in Australia. They've just recently founded WayFinder, Australia's first institutional fund focusing on the search fund mo...

Show notes · 01:40 –Heather talks about her how she came across and embraced the search model and its community · 04:19 –Heather talks about how the SBA (Small Business Administration) helps the search community in the U.S. · 07:42 – Pete and Heather talk about the capabilities and coachability of the searcher have an impact on his/her success · 12:05- Pete and Heather talk about the structure for...

On this episode of "The Next Step", I speak to Michael Chew, who's the Managing Director of Flywheel Effect, which is a self-funded search vehicle based in Melbourne, and looking for deals across Australia. I've known Michael for about six months, since he first thought about starting a search. It's been great to get to know him and his approach to this challenge of search, because I think it's a...