Think Like an Owner

My guest Aaron Green founded a staffing company called Professional Staffing Group, or PSG, in 1996. He has grown it along with 6 other related companies to just shy of $100m in revenue and 2,000 employees. Most of my guests operate small companies and PSG of course started small, but I wanted to learn from an owner who had managed to scale a company and their role in it over a long period of time...

My guest, Mitchell Blackmon started Patriot Chimney, a chimney service and installation business in Roanoke, VA, last year with his brother Matt and his friend Billy. They have recently made their first hire and have another one coming shortly, a testament to the growth they've been experiencing. If you liked the recent episode with Rich Jordan, you're going to like Mitchell's story too as he's th...

My guest on this episode is Lacey Wismer. Lacey runs her recently started search investment fund called Hunter Search Capital and has been conducting research on female searchers and unique challenges they encounter while seeking and operating a business. We talk extensively about women in search along with how she's seen the model grow over her career, alternative models in search, constructing a...

My guest is Rich Jordan. Rich bought a home service plumbing business only a few short weeks ago in Pennsylvania. If you're on Twitter, you might already be familiar with Rich as he has been tweeting about his time running the business and has been so much fun to follow. If you're not already following him you're missing out. During the episode we talk about Rich's first few days in the business g...

My guest, Mark Sinatra, raised a traditional search fund with a partner in 2006 after graduated from Wharton and a year and a half later acquired an HR company called Staff One HR. I'll let him tell the full story but there were significant ups and downs running the company including moving the company from Southern Oklahoma to Dallas, managing staff turnover of roughly 85% during that move, and l...

A.J. Gordon runs Gordon Aluminum in Schofield, WI, a company that was founded by his grandfather, passed to A.J.'s father, and eventually to A.J. himself. The company has a fascinating story told in great detail that includes machines breaking down, closing business lines, multiple recessions, and a lightning strike that set fire to their offices and burned their computers and data, forcing them t...

I interview many folks with unique backgrounds and Jared is among the most unique. Jared worked at NASA, then McKinsey, got his MBA at Harvard, then alternated between working at McKinsey and Teach for America, ran for governor of Arkansas, and last year became the CEO of Assist Services. Assist is a Portland based transportation company for underprivileged children to help them get to and from sc...

My guest today is Collin Hathaway. Collin runs a small micro private equity fund in Seattle, WA called Skylight Capital and has developed a strong core competence in plumbing, HVAC, roofing, and other home services businesses. He also has one of the most interesting stories I've heard of getting into micro private equity. During the episode we talk about his path to Skylight, why he focuses on hom...

My two guests for this episode are Ryan Lechner and Nico Gimenez who have raised a traditional search fund together as partners called Bonsai Group and are a few months into their search. I've had searchers with partners on the podcast before, Sam Rosati being a great example, but I haven't had them on the podcast before together. What made this episode particularly fun is Ryan and Nico are lifelo...

My guest is Brian Vanderheyden who ran a search from Chicago starting in 2015 and 2 years later in 2017 acquired a company called Richmond Alarm Company in Richmond, VA. Richmond Alarm was founded 73 years ago and Brian acquired the business from the founder's two sons who had taken over the business from the father. During the episode we talk about Richmond Alarm's history and their in-office mus...

My guest today is Scott Picker. Scott was born and raised in Oregon and went to college at Washington State University where he majored in agriculture education and horticulture, before starting Aspen Creek Landscaping in Sherwood, Oregon. Over the last 20 years, Scott has built a 55 employee landscape construction and maintenance company focused on high end residential and local wineries. During...

Most of the investors I've had on the podcast aren't interested in consumer businesses, which is precisely why I wanted to talk to a consumer focused investor. Enter Ben Rudman. Ben is the founder of Charis Consumer Partners, a consumer focused independent sponsor, and has a passion for consumer businesses that is hard to resist. In this conversation, we review his time developing his expertise in...

My guest today, Mason Myers, has spent the last 10 years building an incredible investment vehicle called Greybull Stewardship. With Greybull, Mason has acquired 11 portfolio companies with an evergreen fund structure with opportunities for LPs to add or withdraw capital only every four years. This structure gives Greybull a very long time horizon to offer the right owners a great home for their b...

My guest today, Joel Blake, has a fascinated story about how he became an owner of a manufacturing sales company called Marketing Technologies. Before acquiring, Joel first worked for the company as an employee before he and another partner took over the business from the two retiring owners. Joel calls this model entrepreneurship through apprenticeship and it's a major topic of our discussion. Jo...

I've done a few search fund focused episodes, for instance last week's episode focused on life during a search. In this episode exploring search funds, Betsy Brandt joins me to talk her preparation in launching her search fund, Forest Park Capital. I wanted to hear more about how a search fund is planned, the benefits of an MBA program, how capital is raised, and so on. Betsy was kind enough to sh...

I continue exploring search funds and with this episode I talk with a searcher who is in the middle of the process and thus is experiencing it's ups and downs live. My guest, Jules Brenner, runs a self-funded search called Manufacturing Succession and as the name implies is focused on acquiring a manufacturing company. Jules has an interesting background with engineering and start-ups and talks ab...

Trish Higgins was the guest on my very first podcast episode and was kind enough to share her time with me when I had no downloads, no show, and no website. Funny enough, that first episode is still my most downloaded episode to date. A lot has happened since then and I'm very excited to have Trish on the show for a second episode. In this episode, we cover Trish's recent move to the operating sid...

I'm continuing to focus on specific themes within small company investing and this episode focuses on owner outreach during a search. My guests for this episode are JR De Agostini and Max Artz from Peterson Partners who ran their own search and are now running the search investment fund at Peterson. Our conversation covers how to craft your message to owners, filter through owners who aren't actua...

I've wanted to record a few episodes that focus on specific themes, industries, and strategies around acquiring small companies and this episode is the first in a few to come. My guest today is an anonymous Twitter account named Defensive Capital who I've gotten to know over the past few months. True to the account's name, he works in supply chain in the defense industry and our conversation focus...

My guest Ali Aydar has a fascinating background. Today he's the CEO of Sporcle, an online trivia business, but earlier he worked in various venture backed companies playing the finite game and decided to play the infinite game at Sporcle instead. He is the first business owner on the podcast and we talk about operating a business through tough times, the advantages of having permanent capital in a...

My guests today come from the recently created ESOP holding company called Empowered Ventures which today owns TVF, a textiles company in Indianapolis. Chris Fredericks is the President of TVF and Empowered Ventures and will be joined by Spencer Springer full time once Spencer's MBA program with Northwestern is wrapped up. During this episode we talk about pros and cons operating an ESOP and using...

My guest on this episode is a person who writes anonymously on Twitter under the pseudonym Clearing Fog. We connected a few months ago on Twitter and in this episode we talk about his career in investment banking and private equity, why he writes anonymously and his thoughts on writing publicly, and what he's thinking about next. I don't come across many people in traditional finance careers who h...

My guest today is Greg Geronemus. Greg and his partner David Rosner founded a search fund named Footbridge Partners after their time at Harvard Business School and acquired a tour operating company called smarTours. Four years later they sold smarTours to a private equity firm and raised a fund to invest in other searchers. Greg and David take a more concentrated approach and aim to invest in 8-10...

This is my second episode hearing from investors on how they are adapting their companies, this time with Justin Turner from Traction Capital Partners. For more background on Justin and Traction, I recommend listening to our earlier episode, episode 4 , with Justin and their associate Peter Bell. In this episode, Justin talks about how his two portfolio companies have performed and what he's think...

I recorded this episode with Mikel Berger from Little Engine Ventures and another with Justin Turner from Traction Capital Partners to hear from investors on what's going on in their companies today. I asked Mikel what he's seeing in his portfolio companies, community, and what he's been advising his companies to do. I hope this helps you when looking at your own businesses and sheds some light on...