Think Like an Owner

My guest on this episode is Jason Jackson. Jason searched and acquired Unified Dental Care, a collection of dental practices in the Detroit Metro in April 2017. Jason is quick to share all the mistakes he made through his search and his time as CEO. But you can tell he's an incredibly resilient person with tons of entrepreneurial energy. Jason and I talk about the challenges of turning around a ba...

My guest in this episode is Mike Botkin. You might remember Mike from episode 48 where he described acquiring B&B landscaping in Orlando, Florida with his investor equity raised entirely from Twitter. Well, he's acquired a bigger one and has raised a holding company called Benchmark Group to buy and build a vertically integrated lawn care and landscaping business in central Florida. In addition to...

My guest in this episode is Matt Moldenhauer. Matt is the president of Bellwether Forest Products, an integrated wood supply company owned by a family office called Elmore Companies, where Matt is also a partner. Matt became president after Bellwether was acquired in 2016 and has grown the business from 13 employees to over 60 today with plenty of ups and downs along the way.  In this episode, we...

My guest in this episode is Heather Endresen, co-director of Search Fund Lending at Live Oak Bank. Her name probably sounds familiar as Live Oak is a sponsor of this podcast. Given the strong interest from our audience, I decided to bring Heather on the show to share the ins and outs of the SBA program as it's highly relevant to the subject matter of Think Like an Owner. During our episode, we dis...

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 ho...

My guests in this episode are Paul Yancich and Daniel Eisen, who founded Arcadea Group, a permanent capital holding company that has raised $320 million to invest over ultra-long periods of time in typically independent, founder-controlled software companies with strong growth in duration potential. Prior to founding Arcadea, Daniel and Paul had careers in private equity, growth equity, and buyout...

My guest on this episode is Badge Stone. Badge started his search journey with a Stone Pump & Trench that was on the verge of bankruptcy when he acquired it. After turning it around, he acquired another company called Perimeter Security. He sold both and made investing in searchers his full-time role through his firm, WSC & Company, alongside two other partners. Badge has invested in over a hundre...

My guests on this episode are Andrew Soon and Michael Novielli, co-founders of Due West Education. Due West counsels and helps Chinese students apply to top American universities and study abroad programs. I visited China in college on a school trip and it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. Since then I've been looking for interesting businesses abroad to study and invite on...

This is a special episode of Think Like an Owner. In this episode, Tim Ludwig turns the microphone around to interview me on where my interest in small companies came from, starting and building Think Like an Owner, memorable moments from running the podcast, my answers to my own closing questions, and much more.   We also discuss a new media company I'm incredibly excited to announce called The O...

 My guest on this episode is Reg Zeller. Reg worked in corporate engineering roles for many years before deciding to leave and do his own thing. His own thing ended up being rolling up foundry businesses through his holding company CaneKast, with five companies acquired so far. These companies are very hard to acquire and operate and Reg spends a lot of time sharing why most buyers can't acquire f...

My guest on this episode is Mia Jackson. Prior to searching and acquiring her health care supply business, Vital Care Industries, Mia worked in consulting, engineering and supply chains, a friend's start-up for a time, and received her MBA and Masters of Science in Engineering Management from Northwestern. She brought a ton of great experience into her search business and we talk about how impactf...

My guest on this episode is Craig Fuller. Craig is the founder of FreightWaves, a data and media business focused on freight and supply chains. FreightWaves is a VC backed company with $19 million in revenue with editorial content, a data product, job board, video content, and multiple podcasts. Prior to FreightWaves, Craig had no background in media but has built quite a playbook for media busine...

My guest on this episode is John Rood. John started an education business with his wife that began as a SAT and other tests prep business and eventually found its niche in MCAT testing. Together they grew the business adding tutors and a management team before selling to private equity. John has also invested in a few search funds and is contemplating a search himself in the education space.   Dur...

My guest on this episode is Peter Bell. Peter and Justin Turner were guests on my fourth ever podcast episode and were very early supporters of the show. Their firm, along with two other partners, is Traction Capital Partners in Tacoma, WA. Traction is an independent sponsor which now owns 3 companies with a potential 4th on the way in the next few weeks. Peter joined in late 2018 and set to work...

My guest on this episode is Brent Beshore, the founder and CEO of a lower middle market private equity firm called Permanent Equity. Permanent Equity acquires family-owned companies and has 11 in their portfolio today. They have also raised two 27 year funds, a $50 million fund in 2017 and a $248 million fund in 2019. Permanent Equity is probably the most experienced, systematized, and well-known...

My guest on this episode is Peter Kang, who co-founded a digital branding and design company focused on direct to consumer e-commerce called Barrel. For long-time listeners of the podcast, the name Barrel may sound familiar. Barrel was one of the original sponsors of Think Like an Owner as we became a weekly podcast. Today Barrel is no longer a sponsor and thereby doesn't pose a conflict of intere...

My guest on this episode is Dave Waters. Dave is the founder and CEO of Alluvial Capital, a value based hedge fund focused on the smallest public companies with market caps of $5-100 million, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dave is fascinating to me because he has dedicated his career to investing in similar sized companies as other podcast guests of this show, but through the public markets....

My guest on this episode is Nick Fedele who recently acquired a 30 employee sheet metal construction business called Metal Alliance Inc near Philadelphia. Nick has a background in public accounting before taking on a management consulting role and eventually becoming a CFO. After 2 years as a CFO, he felt ready to seek out and acquire a business for himself.   Nick and I talk about the ownership t...

My guest on this episode is Tony Cappaert. Tony started his career at Microsoft before co-founding a CRM software business for real estate agents called Contactually. The company was acquired by Compass in 2019 where Tony serves as Head of Lead Generation. As you'll see though, Tony is a busy man. He also founded a cabin rental and management company called Blue Maple and is raising a fund to inve...

My guest on this episode is Manny Saxena. Manny grew up in India and decided he wanted to become a CEO. To prepare for the role, he attended Kellogg's MBA program and built leadership experience at Sears and Persado. Finally, he partnered with Broadtree Partners to acquire two commercial sweeping companies called Contract Sweeping Services and Statewide Construction Sweeping in Northern California...

My third and final guest in this real estate miniseries is Chris Powers. Chris is the founder and GP of Fort Capital, a real estate private equity firm in Fort Worth, TX focused on industrial real estate. He's also a fellow podcast host with his show called The Fort Podcast, which is excellent and I highly recommend listening and subscribing to.   While it was a shorter episode, Chris and I covere...

This is the second episode in a three part miniseries on real estate, which kicked off last week with Nick Huber, and is resuming with this episode focusing on residential real estate with Moses Kagan. Moses is the founder and GP of Adaptive Realty, a real estate private equity firm which acquires and remodels multi-unit residential real estate in the Los Angeles area. Moses is very thoughtful and...

Today's episode is the first in a three-part miniseries on real estate. Even though Think Like an Owner is a small company focused podcast, many small company owners also own real estate and I thought a short miniseries would be an interesting way to bring that conversation onto the podcast.   This first episode features Nick Huber, who owns self storage facilities through his company Bolt Storage...

My guests on this episode are Eric Factor and Austin King who together raised a long-term holding company called Era Services with the mission to acquire, operate, and grow industrial service companies. Their first acquisition completed earlier this year is a company called CraneTech which installs and maintains overhead cranes fixed inside factory buildings. Eric and Austin have a connection to a...

My guest on this episode is Sam Rosati. Sam was an early supporter of the podcast and was featured on Episode 11, which I highly recommend listening to prior to this one. In that earlier episode, Sam shares his background and how he and his brother Joey together acquired a company called Alpha Dumpsters. In this episode, Sam shares that they've since sold Alpha Dumpsters and have started an SMB co...