Host: Alex Mears brings expertise from the world of big private equity to our world of buying small businesses. Alex has worked at both Carlyle and Blackstone, two of the marquee names in private equity, and along the way has helped upwards of 70 searchers on the side, 40 of whom have actually completed their searches and bought businesses. Alex and I get into how to evaluate quality in a business you're considering buying, sussing out the integrity of the seller, how to protect against employee surprises after you're handed the keys, and much more. We also talk about search accelerators, what they are, how they're different than conventional search fund investors, and the Bryden Group, Alex's own newly launched search accelerator. That Steve Ressler, a name you'll recognize, is his partner in. Alex's depth of business buying expertise, both large and small companies, is evident in the first minutes of the interview. So enjoy this meaty episode with Alex Mears of the Bryden Group. Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs and on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. August Felker is a two time successful searcher, first with a traditional search fund. The second time around he did a self funded search. Today, August runs Oberle Risk Strategies, an insurance firm with a dedicated practice group for searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs like you. If you've got a business under loi, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. A great no risk way to get to know August and team. They love helping searchers. They've worked with hundreds. Oberle is a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers hiring by a former searcher. Check out oberle-risk.com O B E R L E- risk.com link in the show notes. Alex Mears, thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Thanks so much Will. Glad to be here.

Host: Alex, you've recently left your position at Carlyle to launch along with your two partners, a search accelerator. Earlier in your career you were at Blackstone. So here you are with years of experience at a couple of the world's most illustrious PE firms and largest PE firms and you've chosen to pivot your career path into search. And needless to say, you bring a lot of big private equities, best practices down to the scrappy, messy world of search. And we are going to go get into those today as well as hear about Bryden Group, the new firm that you are launching with Your two partners are the gentleman, George Dutile, which is a name I don't want, I don't know. So I want to hear a little bit about George and of course Steve Ressler, which will be a very familiar name to anybody who knows anything about search. Before we get into all of this though, Alex, let's hear your bio in your own words.

[3:07] Guest: Yeah, absolutely. Up until a month and a half ago, what was fairly traditional large cap private equity I would say with one asterisk. So started 20 years ago, was it Goldman in banking, worked at Blackstone as you mentioned in their buyout fund, all pre crisis and then basically had an opportunity to go to business school and go back to Blackstone, but decided to take a little bit of a break and instead join the military and foreign service. So I was an intelligence officer with the Navy seals, spent five and a half years in Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia and then, then my wife gently reminded me it was time to, time to come home. So came back and then yeah, up until, up until just recently was at Carlisle in their US buyout fund. So it was focused on software, government services and have done business services in my background.

Host: And you and Steve Ressler, as I understand it, kind of started investing in search or getting at least Steve, and he kind of always talks about it as a partnership with you a few years ago started getting involved in search and of course Steve has done a great job of. He's really prolific in the space. He's got his great newsletter, he's on Twitter, he's involved in a lot of deals. So tell me about how you guys met and how you both kind of jointly or independently started getting involved in search those two, three, four years ago.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. So we met originally. Steve's background, his pre search career was a very successful kind of multi time govtech CEO running government software businesses. And so that was a space I knew very, very well. And candidly the list of outstanding operators is fairly short and his was always at the top. So that's actually how we originally met and then we were both just fascinated by search. So my sort of entree to it, I mean peers of mine launched searches 16 years ago. So I've been familiar with it for quite some time. But it was really five, six years ago. I started getting a lot of outreach actually from veterans who were going to business school and then were interested in either private equity or search. And so that was sort of how I got initially introduced into it. And then candidly just as, as I was able to invest more off the personal Balance sheet and things like that, got more and more heavily involved in supporting searchers and Steve sort of followed, I think, a very similar path. And so he and I, it's the classic kind of very similar values but different skill sets, which is something I talk about a lot with our searchers as they're thinking about doing a partnered search versus a solo search. Steve and I had very similar service backgrounds, very similar. The way we view the world is very similar. If we tell someone we're going to do something, we absolutely want to make sure that that gets done. But at the same time, I've had the kind of classic private equity deal transaction background, right? 20 years of doing 80 hour weeks, looked at way too many businesses over that time period, doing full due diligence, doing valuation work, et cetera. And then obviously I'm involved at the operating stage, but usually in a board capacity, sitting on the board. Whereas Steve, I always like to joke it's much harder to put it in Excel than it is in real. You know, Steve had the, had the, has the actual amazing operating experience and not only one business, but he's done this, you know, three times, very, very successfully and has, you know, sold to private equity and has been through, you know, the Vista operating playbook, which we can talk about later. So, so that was what sort of, I think really attracted us in terms of our partnering is we just felt like we could provide a lot more value to the searchers that we were working with because I could basically help them on all that upfront acquisition and, and the due diligence and everything like that sort of the private equity hat. And then Steve really has like the deeper operating chops on like. No kidding. How do you, how do you take a business from 2 million of ARR up to 10 million of ARR? I can say all day long I've done it at a board level, but it's just very different when you're in the trenches as a CEO. And so that's where he provides it. So that was the two. And then I can speak quickly on. You mentioned George Dutile initially. So George and I actually served in Afghanistan in combat together. So he was, you know, working with the same, the same SEAL team which you've probably read about in the press, as I was over there. And he then went to Wharton, this is years ago when he transitioned out, and then was at Goldman and at J.P. morgan. And so we've known each other for a very, very long time. He's really what he does incredibly well. He's on the private bank side at JP Morgan. So he literally has been through the single best training on how do you reach out to a, how do you find a small business owner, how do you reach out to them? And as he jokes, it's how do you either ask them for all their money or ask them for their business? It's a very similar, it's a very similar, very personal, very important question. And so as candidly as we thought about building a team of, to support our searchers better, you know, I think there's a lot of sort of generalist support, which is great in the sector, but what we felt like is, you know, where we could try to add disproportionate value is like, no kidding, let's get the best person in the world who's got the best training in sourcing. Let's get, you know, great training and background in on the deal side and then on the acquisition side, like, let's get, you know, no kidding, the operator who's done this many, many times has been through the, you know, the best private equity playbooks. And so that was sort of how we thought about building the team and

[8:36] Host: just going back again a couple of years. You and Steve, you were doing investing before you formalized this into Bryden Group. Talk to me about kind of the, the quantity, the types of deals. What does your investing track record in search look like to this date?

Guest: Yeah, so Steve and I together, I mean, we've backed now over 70 searchers. 40 of those are closed transactions and roughly 30 are actively searching today. And I would say our experience has been very consistent. When you look at, for example, industries, we skew probably a little bit more heavily to software and some of the higher end kind of technical services, just given my background and given Steve's background. But pretty much it's like what we've invested in back searchers is kind of a microcosm of what you would see if you picked up the Stanford study. Right. So It's, I don't know, 40, 45% software, another 30, 35% business services, tech services and then some government services and healthcare services kind of rounded out.

[9:38] Host: Great. Well, I want to hear more about Bryden Group in a little bit, but let's get into some of this expertise that you're bringing to the search space from big private equity. So one of the things that PE folks learn early on and it kind of becomes, you know, a mantra and core of the philosophy of private equity is identifying high quality businesses. And of course that probably becomes Even more important for searchers because frankly, the smaller the business like the higher likelihood it's, the quality is questionable. And you know, you hear the old axiom like the reason these are small, they're small for a reason. Small businesses are small for a reason. Maybe they've just never achieve the level of quality or scale to actually get to the next level of quality. So talk to me about what, what searchers can learn from big private equity with respect to identifying businesses that are of high quality, even if small.

Guest: So, so a few things. I mean first off, you know, just as you said, especially in small business land there, there are a lot of wonderful small businesses, but they aren't necessarily, you know, high quality. And those, those businesses, one, tend to be higher risk because they can disintegrate, especially once the owner or seller leaves. And two, they can be much harder to scale because they don't really have an overwhelmingly compelling reason to win in a competitive market. So a few of the things that we've tried to bring or that I've tried to bring from kind of large cap private equity in working with our searchers is first is really understanding at what level the competition is of the business you're looking at. And if you think about it, there are a lot of businesses that effectively compete at a local level. So think, think your classic like home services businesses, janitorial services, H Vac, almost all that competition is just at the local level, right? You are not competing with any really many if any national players, much less international. So, so that is understanding kind of that locus of competition. If you scale up a bit, you know, most software businesses, probably a majority of technical services businesses that typically you're competing at the national scale, sometimes regional, if it's a government, you know, if it's selling to government or something like that. But typically that's at a national scale. And so understanding what that is and then a business like a manufacturing business, and it's one of the reasons why I think, you know, certainly we as investors have been, we try to caution our searchers as they're looking at manufacturing businesses is all of a sudden if you are competing at an international level, the amount of work you have to do to really understand and due diligence that business is just drastically different. Right? Because you need to why is that business manufacturing widgets in, you know, somewhere in America? Why can't that be done in a low cost country, for example? So, so I think the first part of understanding the differentiation is really understanding, you know, at what level the competition is because that also informs, you know, as you're thinking about the quality of a business. There are a lot of small businesses that are, you know, perfectly wonderful and have been done, done wonderful things for their owners and, and you know, provide a nice livelihood that are just very, very difficult to scale because they are only competing with other local providers. Oftentimes those first, those first customers, for example, were kind of friends and family of an owner or the owner's just been around long enough that he's kind of accumulated some of those. And so, so making sure that you're kind of putting down, you know, the magnifying glass with which you are looking at that business is at the appropriate level is incredibly important. Now that's not to say that you should only buy something that competes nationally or regionally. In fact, that can be terrifying. Software example, we have seen this several times where they have a nice little niche in software and then all of a sudden a very well funded, venture backed software business plops into the space, which is just not what you want to do. You don't want to compete with people with very, very low cost of capital or no cost of capital. And so just understanding that, I think is one of the first things we recommend our searchers do as they think about kind of the quality of the business. The next thing really is just no kidding, like what is the value proposition of the business? And this sounds silly, but we always laugh. I mean, there are times in like private equity where we're a week into diligence on some weird technical service business or something like that, and you're still really trying to like, why does this business exist? And when I say that, I mean that literally, what are the workflows that that business actually performs for their customers and what is the value that they provide at each stage? And, and one, why can't the customer do it themselves? And two, why can't someone else do it right? Why can't they? And so that gets to kind of the third bucket, which is really understanding. And I've never seen this described well in the literature in Porter's five Forces. Any stuff which is just customer stickiness. Like the single most important thing in a business in terms of business quality is customer stickiness. And if you think about that, there are several different ways you can kind of divide up customer stickiness, but it is how likely, in short is how likely is a customer to churn away from you? And so one of those is, are there substitutes, are there competitors who can offer something similar? But also how deeply Are you ingrained into your customers, business and workflows? Think of SAP. The joke always is like, oh, it'll be a quick, easy SAP implementation. Everyone knows that switching ERP systems is one of these. It's literally open heart surgery on a business. And so you want to find businesses that have so deeply integrated into the workflows of your customer set that it is incredibly painful. I shouldn't say painful. Incredibly difficult to extract. Right, sure. The second piece of that though is it's not only that kind of what I'll call criticality, but it's also the materiality. Right. And so if you can find a business that is a tiny, tiny cost to that customer, yet is Michigan critical, those are by far the best businesses. Right?

[15:30] Host: Sure.

Guest: The problem is if you're mission critical, but you're really big and you're very, I mean, let's say you're 10% of the cost base or something or you know, for the customer, well, the first time they look to cut costs, they're going to come to you. Right. So you can, you can think of, let's think of auto parts manufacturers, right? You can have an absolutely critical part of the engine that you're selling to an auto OEM that's not necessarily good business, even if it's absolutely mission critical, if it's 20% of the cost of that engine. Because they're still going to come to you and try to beat you up on price. What you really want, you want to be. And I'll use an example of a business I looked at once, which I still laugh about.

Host: What size of business should you buy? What can you afford? How much STE or EBITDA does the business you acquire need to generate to pay off your loan, pay you the income you need and reinvest in the business? Of course the answer varies from person to person, so you need to answer this question for yourself. Chelsea Wood runs the Acquisition Lab and did a great interview on Acquiring Minds last week. The lab is a Do it with youh Buy side advisory service founded by Walker Deibel, author of Buy Then Build. Chelsea's running a live session on this question. What size of business should you buy? She's worked with over 250 searchers who've gone through the lab and this question comes up constantly. So at the live session she'll explain how to arrive at the answer. Acquiring Minds is co hosting it. So I'll be there as well playing MC and taking notes. It's Wednesday, June 22nd at 10am Pacific 1pm Eastern Register in the show notes.

Guest: They literally made tiny little rubber plugs, right? I mean this is like the. And they were like, you know, a $2 each. And basically what those little rubber plugs did though is that they were all perfectly formed and perfectly customised to be installed onto. Think like a John Deere tractor engine going through an assembly line. So you're talking, I don't know, a $15,000 piece that it's attached to, right? This thing costs a dollar or $2, yet if it's not placed correctly or if the rubber cracks or the plastic crack plug, the whole engine's ruined. Right? That is what you want to buy. You want to buy that little plug, right? That is absolutely mission critical. But like that, that your customer could look for cost cutting for every day for 10 years and they are never going to get down to the line item of arguing over whether your dollar plug should cost $1 or $2.

[18:03] Host: Right.

Guest: And so if you think about it kind of on that matrix, right? Like kind of the mission criticality to your customer, but then also call it cost materiality. Right. How significant is the cost to the customer? It's a great way to think about it. It's why candidly, software has been such an outstanding business model for so long because again, even though software, we think of it as expensive, but versus what the value it's providing and how difficult it is to rip out, it's actually a very, very small portion of most businesses overall spend if you actually look at their full cost base.

Host: Yeah. You know Alex, as I hear these stories or these examples, you know, I'm nodding along like that. Yeah, that sounds like an amazing business. But most of the folks probably listening to this podcast are not going to be have access to those deals just for a variety of reasons. So let's, let's step it back up to like a home services business. And I actually have heard the language that you used from other private equity before, like why do these business, do these businesses have a right to exist? You know, it's, it sounds a little coarser than you mean it, but it's kind of like what if this business went away tomorrow, you know, kind of would it be missed sort of thing. And you know, probably no home service business checks that box. And yet tons and tons of search. In fact, home services in particular is very hot right now. So square that circle for me. So why, you know, that plumbing company or that tree services business, these are not businesses that have any of that moat that you're any of those moats that you're talking about and yet searchers are successfully going out there and acquiring them all day, all day long. Yeah, talk to me, talk me through that.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. And again, when, when, you know, when we're talking about business quality, it's not to say that you can't make money with a lot of these other businesses. It's more if you are trying to buy one business that minimizes your downside and has a lot of, of growth opportunity. Just keep these in mind as you're thinking because I think, I think it even does apply at a local level. So I mean we can take, take something as simple as like cleaning services, right? I mean there are, candidly, you actually don't see a ton purchased in search. I mean you occasionally do. And the reason is the barriers to entry for cleaning services are just exceptionally low. Right. And so if you think about it, even if you have long term contracts, even if it's not residential, but think like commercial cleaning where you're going in and cleaning an office or something like that and you have an annual contract and things like that, the challenge even on a business like that is that, and again you can make money on it. But it's one, it's really hard to scale and two, there's always going to be kind of a margin cap on you because it's always easy for someone else to come in and offer that exact same service. And guess what, all they're going to do, let's say if you're basically charging your labor, plus I'm making it up 40%, they'll just come in and charge their labor plus 30%. And so that always puts pressure on your ability to price and it also puts pressure on Churn and some of those other things. Now take a more specialized cleaning service though, right? I mean let's, I'll use an extreme example. These are businesses that exist out there. There are cleaning services for industrial meat packing plants, right? So I don't know if you know this but like basically when the, the pigs or the cows go through essentially the slaughterhouse, they basically get shut down at night and outside third party cleaners come in and have to clean everything. So in that case, I mean it's a cleaning business but there are huge kind of regulatory concerns, right? So you have to be fully approved and it's incredibly important. And then back to our sort of discussion on the like criticality and materiality. Like if, if, if that cleaning company messes up, cleaning up that equipment, then that whole production line could be shut for A day, which is just, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's incredibly important. But honestly, even the cleaning itself is not that expensive. It's not, you know, by the time you look at what it, what it costs to process a cow or you know, cattle or, or a pig. And so that would be an example of if you can buy a cleaning services business that has more of that flavor. Right. There's something from a regulatory perspective that, or that has that kind of. They are a little bit more value add in terms of like what the value prop to the customer and critical. That's just what I would say. Right. It's not to say like never buy, never buy cleaning service. I'm not saying that. But if you can find along that spectrum, if you can find those businesses that have a little bit more of something special like that, I think you're just gonna end up in a much better place.

[22:41] Host: Yeah. More defensible. And also you're typically charging a premium for that as well. So it's kind of, it's stronger on two fronts. It's a stronger moat because it's not as, it's not as commoditized as service. And you're probably, your margins are higher and your revenue per employee is higher. Fair.

Guest: Absolutely. Yep.

Host: Okay. Well, and now one question, follow up question on that though is, you know, one, one thing that often searchers think about is, is credibility with a seller. So often searchers are coming into an industry where they have no experience and getting the searcher to trust that they'll be able to learn the industry, that they'll be able to earn credibility with the employees that they're going to be inheriting is all part of the dance that you do with a seller. It would seem to me that that dance becomes even more complicated if you're buying, you're buying a business with ever more specialization. Is that, is that true? Like if I, if I'm trying to buy the, you know, the, the livestock processing cleaning business and I don't know anything about cleaning, let alone, you know, the livestock business, my pitch to the seller is just the hurdle is that much higher. Talk to me about that.

Guest: I agree. I mean, I think there certainly is certainly for the more, the more technical the business, obviously just the expectation would be that the searcher would have more technical background. I mean, one thing to that though, just more generally that we, and when we work with our searchers, that I think is very helpful is searchers should use their backgrounds to their advantage. Right. So one is like, okay, the types of businesses that they look at and we're huge advocates of kind of like industry focused search just for this reason. If a searcher has something in their background like they worked at, I mean, as using a real example, you know, they worked for one of the truck manufacturers. Well, all of a sudden, you know, pre business school, all of a sudden they have a lot more credibility in talking with anyone in kind of the auto truck ecosystem just because they've got a brand that they can reference. Right. So that would be one. The other thing is, I mean, and you know, certainly on all, but you know, about a quarter of the deals that we've worked on are with veterans using, you know, not using, but taking advantage of that background. Right. Is if an owner was, you know, in the military or was, you know, in the service, being able to kind of like show commonality with the owners is incredibly important. And candidly that counts for so much more than having the absolutely perfected email campaign down. Right. Is like actually being able to leverage your own background to explain why you are a good home for that person's, for that seller's life work up until that point.

[25:15] Host: I imagine this is an area where search and PE really diverge because I know so little about pe, but when a PE firm is acquiring a company, you're not necessarily able to, or trying to create that sort of emotional resonance with the seller. It's probably usually more financial. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is such a feature of search.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. I mean even in private equity, a buyer will try to differentiate themselves based on how well they're going to take care of the business, even in that. But absolutely, financial considerations often prevail, I'll put it that way with most searchers, especially for higher quality businesses. Generally those businesses are attractive to private equity, even to micro cap private equity. And so the value prop that the searcher is providing is just what you're saying. It's like, hey, this is a different model. I may be taking institutional dollars to fund it, but I will be stepping into the role as the CEO and kind of managing your baby that you have created and grown for all these years. And so again, when we're working with searchers, that's something we're, you know, be proud of that like that is, that is the value prop. Right. Because generally if, especially in a proprietary deal, you know that that has to be, you have to have that kind of personal resonance to have the transaction work. Yeah.

Host: Speaking more about sellers, Alex, seller integrity Obviously, is, is paramount. And one of the things that we hear over and over in search is the opacity of everything. And, you know, the classic, like, it's, you can't diligence all of the risk away. You can't diligence every little fact. And in fact, there's just a lot. You're just going to have to kind of go based on the trust that you feel in the seller. So it really, that's kind of the gap between what you really wish you knew and what you don't know. And bridging that gap basically falls squarely on how much do I trust this seller. So talk to me about seller integrity, because I know it's something you thought

[27:29] Guest: a lot about and this may seem surprising to you, but I often ask this if a searcher's found a deal and comes back and they're expecting me to be digging in on the year five in the model and why the numbers are. And usually my first question is candidly, what's your assessment of the seller's integrity and why? I mean, that's how important this is. And it goes to just what you're saying, which is the nature of a transaction, is that there is such information asymmetry. You can spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on diligence. There will always be information asymmetry between what the existing owner and seller knows and what you know, no matter how much work you do, as you pointed out. And so that's why. And you can, and there are a lot of very important ways to corroborate what the seller is saying in due diligence. And even the way you structure the sale and purchase agreement, you know, and a lot of those provisions. But at the end of the day, a lot of it, you know, even in large cap, a lot of it just comes down to, like, is this person trustworthy? And is what they're saying, like, can you, can you put faith in a lot of what they're putting forward? And so, you know, in terms of, like, actually practically, what does that mean? Yeah, it's very easy to say that at a high level. So one of the things that we always do and we recommend our searchers do, and we certainly do in deals that we're, we're backing, is go do a cheap background check quickly to make sure, hey, are there lawsuits? Are there? Is there? Is there? You know, I always laugh that a business seller, if you can understand how they've treated customers, how they've treated employees or former employees, how they've Treated former business partners or equity investors, that's incredibly important because if they have not treated those people ethically, I can promise you, when they are selling a business, you are in for trouble. It's just full stop. And I've seen this over and over and over again. And that is worth turns of ebitda, right? I mean, it is so massively impactful in terms of the outcome and candidly, in terms of minimizing your downside, right? Because that's really a lot of what this is too, is making sure, is make sure you're not buying a lemon, right? And you're not stepping into something where in two years you have to give the business back to the debt holders. So one is doing that background investigation as you get further indulgence, talking to customers, employees with that lens. I mean, obviously you're focused on kind of the quality of the business and everything like that, but also just really trying to get a sense for like, okay, you know, when he or she says this generally, like, is that what happens is that consistent is what is said consistent with what is done, which is kind of a very simplistic measure of integrity. I think the next thing, and this is always tricky in a sale process is, is what is told to you up front, how much of that falls apart in diligence and how much is confirmed. And this is always tricky and especially if there's an intermediary because the business is for sale. And so I've never in 20 years in private equity looked at a SIM where revenue was not up and to the right, the hockey stick. So you have to take that into account. Of course, I'm not saying we'll call it mild seller exuberance in terms of the projections, but on kind of core features of the business is what was described. Is that what you actually find in the numbers in the conversations with customers. And if there's a significant discrepancy, that should be a red flag. That's not a yellow flag. That's not a. Oh, let's readjust like that, to me, is a red flag, right? Because especially with these small businesses that are so owner driven, if you're, you know, let's say there are 100 rocks and you're able to look under three of them and there's like really ugly things under each of those three rocks. Well, guess what? All those other rocks that you weren't able to look under until you own the business, like, there's probably ugly stuff under those as well. And so I always say, like, like put Disproportionate importance on things like that, in diligence, like even, even discrepancies or. And again, not to say, of course, like, I've never done diligence on a business where it turned out exactly what was described in the materials, but on important issues, really focus on that.

[31:51] Host: And I know I'm not asking for a quantification, but just in Your experience of 20 years in private equity, to what extent is seller integrity seen? Or I should say a lack of seller integrity? I mean, how common is this problem that a seller doesn't meet the threshold of honesty that we need?

Guest: Not a majority of the time, but candidly, you will often know if this is someone of high integrity. And then it just impacts even how I build a model or how I support a searcher. Building a model is if you really have absolute high confidence in someone's like, hey, this literally what he or she says is real and is true, I'm willing to pay more for that business, full stop. Right? So it's hard to put a number on it, but it's, there's, you know, I mean, I am a huge advocate of search. I absolutely love it. I think one of the things as search has exploded is that sometimes there

Host: can be,

Guest: you know, sometimes a lack of focus on like the downside. Right? And it happens a lot. I mean, seen examples of like, you know, just blatant, like regulatory violations that effectively threaten the entire business going forward. And guess what? In those cases, the searcher was kind of like, yeah, this guy's kind of not on the up and up, but I'm getting it for super cheap and this is what I'm doing. And as it turns out, like, in those situations, like life's too short, generally the searcher's only doing one deal. Like, you only have to buy one business, right? And there, as far as, like, there are millions of small businesses in this country. There are only thousands of great ones. Like, just go find a great one. Right? It's not. It's not. And part of being great is having a seller who you can trust in terms of what they say when they sell the business.

[33:41] Host: Interesting that it feels like finding a business with really high integrity and high quality is worth an extra turn. Whereas buying a business at a discount for like a less, less of a turn on. On revenue, where there might be some questions around seller integrity is actually not worth it.

Guest: It.

Host: So you can't, you're saying don't even if you can get it as a, at a discount. So like, there's no number that compensates for lack of integrity. It's just walk away.

Guest: It's, it's binary as far as I'm concerned. It's a little. Why like I always, sometimes people are like, oh, I want to do like a distressed deal and I can buy it for two and a half times ebitda. Like the math is such in search where you're paying anywhere from four to eight times ebitda, the math is such that as long as you buy a good business and are able to do well, it will handle it. That is a great outcome. There is no reason to take on the massive upside risk of a seller who is clearly not a good person. And there's probably a lot of issues there at the business just for the sake of a turn or two of ebitda. It just doesn't make sense. And again, I think that's true in private equity. It's even more true in these businesses because one of the fundamental flaws in these businesses is that they are so owner driven. Right. I mean, I would argue a majority of small businesses in America can't or shouldn't be sold because they're effectively just, you know, they're effectively jobs of the owner. Right. It's. And, and those personal relationships and everything else don't transfer. And so when you have a business that's, that's so not institutionalized, which I think describes pretty much every search business there is that that matters even more in terms of your assessment of the valuation and your willingness to step into the CEO role and ownership role of that business like that.

Host: Alex, some of the, the things that, that might have been hidden by that seller who lacks integrity. Let's get into those. Although these could be surprises that even a seller with, with really strong integrity, you know, you're not fully equipped for and then, and then you find yourself dealing with once you've taken ownership. So key employees is, is a classic. What can you talk to me about what, what, what you've learned from big private equity about the key employee question?

Guest: Yep, absolutely. And I have seen this over and over and over again across many, many deals. So the employee question and oftentimes what you'll see if you put your seller hat on. They understandably don't want to introduce a prospective buyer to a bunch of their employees, right. Until they know it's an absolute done deal. Totally understandable. Right. They don't want to rumors getting started, they don't want to have to explain it, etc. That said, in situations where a searcher was not permitted to speak to any of the employees until a deal was effectively signed. Almost universally ends up, there's some issue. Right. And typically we've seen everything from employees who were promised large raises, but of course, it's not documented. And so you're stepping into a very different cost basis than you're expecting. Employees who basically said they're leaving, they're done, and are critical. So what I always recommend in diligence is it's really, really important to actually, as you're doing business, diligence and everything else is actually map. And this goes back to really understanding what's the workflow, what's the value prop of the business is actually map. What does each person in that business do? What's their value prop? Where are their relationships? Because oftentimes what you'll find, I mean, I'll tell you a classic one is, hey, there's one, there's one bd, you know, business development or salesperson, and they have relationships with the top three customers. Right. And literally it's all a personal relationship. Right. And so you, again, it's not to say you can't buy that business, but you better know going in to that deal, that, that, that that salesperson is on board and is eager to continue, because if they leave and they walk out the door and they take those customers with them, I mean, that's just devastating to you out of the gate, Right? Sure. And so the more you can get in front of that. So part of that is talking to the employees. It's really understanding each of the roles and really trying to unpack. Where do those customer relationships reside? Is it with the owner? Is it with the salesperson? Is it with the technical. The operations person is incredibly important.

[38:13] Host: Alex, is there, is there a sweet spot where you can ask for. Where you can ask for those negotiations? Because as you said, sellers are going to resist. So it's going to be a delicate part of the negotiation. And we can be sympathetic to that. We understand that. And so certainly there'd be many points in the acquisition process that would be too early to ask for that. So when is the sweet spot of not too late for you and not too early for the seller?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I always say before signing, so there's often that period where you've effectively agreed on all the terms at that point, and then you basically say, hey, before I sign this agreement, I need to meet X, Y and Z, and I need to do so in an unchaperoned manner. Right. Like, it's fine if you're on the call to introduce us or in person to introduce us, but then I'd like to sit down with the person and have the conversation. And typically we've found with sellers like they're fine with that. Like once they know that, hey, no kidding. I almost put it as like, think of it as more like a confirmatory diligence item.

[39:09] Host: Right.

Guest: Rather than kind of a regular due diligence item. Generally sellers can get comfortable with that. Same with customer calls. Oftentimes those get pushed till the very end and it's a confirmatory thing. Hey, we need to just double check to make sure that everything that was told to us is accurate. Assuming everything was accurate, these are the terms and we're done. Right.

Host: And do you let the seller know in advance of insisting on this? Heads up. I'm going to want this before I sign.

Guest: Yes, absolutely. And again, this sort of goes back to like just approach on deals. I tend to be much more like be as upfront and candid and managed in, in terms of the communication with the seller so that there are absolutely no surprises. Right? Yeah, like if they're, I hate retrading. Like there should never be a reason why you have to cut value unless, unless candidly. Unless something like fundamentally doesn't check out. Of course that's, you can open up for, for renegotiation, but making sure the seller is aware from day one, hey, these are the steps I'm going to take and this is what I'm going to need before I sign to be completely candid. And look, I think it tells you something. If a seller upfront tells you you're not going to be allowed to talk to a single employee. You're not going to be allowed to talk to a single customer before you sign. That's a, that's a really useful data point to have on day two, you know, before you spend, you know, tens of thousands, if not more on diligence advisors and your time and everything else else. Great. What about

Host: some of the other surprises that, that, that you might encounter?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, so, so, so one of them that, that we have seen a few times is think like just like regulatory compliance issues and, and not ones that just could create historical liability for you because obviously if it's an asset purchase, you're generally going to be somewhat protected. Typically with a purchase and sale agreement, you'll negotiate the reps and warranties to protect yourself somewhat. But think of ones where what they were doing historically actually impacts like the P and L of the business. Right. Like Meaning like your actual profitability. So let me give you a real example, one where let's say you're providing some sort of an in home service care right, to patients. There is a contractual level that you need to be providing, you know, a certain number of people qualified to a certain level, right. Guess what? Those higher qualifications cost more. And so what you'll sometimes see is, especially in a year or two before sale, you know, you'll sometimes see, we'll call it, you know, greening the workforce, right, like where they will, you know, bring in cheaper, lower qualified individuals to service. And like, you might sometimes be able to get away with that in the short term, but you're going to show higher profit, right? You're obviously violating the terms of the contract and potentially even violating law if it's, if it's a, if it's a regulatory question as well. And so those are the really hard ones, right? Because now you're not only dealing like when you step into that, not only are you dealing with kind of like historical, we'll call them liabilities, but literally by going and hiring the proper level of care that you need to be providing, that's going to hit your profits pretty hard and potentially pretty hard, right? In many cases, these businesses, absolutely. Your highest cost item on your P and L is that skilled labor. Those are the really, really hard ones. And so that just again speaks to indulgence, really making sure if that describes, and there are, I've looked at probably 10 different variants of this business, really making sure that they are absolutely complying with their existing contracts, they're complying with the regulatory regime is. It may sound kind of like boring and like who wants to do compliance due diligence, but it can actually be massively impactful in terms of just your margins and profitability going forward. Because as soon as you find that, obviously you have to fix it, right? And those are the ones that can be much harder to recover from an escrow or something like that. However you've structured it in your purchase

[43:12] Host: agreement, I have heard a lot of people say that your financial due diligence, you're really going to outsource that to a third party, a third party due diligence provider. And if you disagree with that, please, please speak. But on the compliance due diligence stuff, is that something that, how does a searcher handle that? If they don't know, you know, if they simply don't know what all the regulations are in any industry they're acquiring into?

Guest: It's just what you said it is, it is outsource it. Right. And so we have, there, there are specialist consultants and it's one of those, it's kind of the classic searcher dilemma because it looks like a reasonable amount of money and diligence and you're like, ah, it's compliance. Is that really that important? It, you know, depends on the business model, but in many cases it is. And so we just have, I mean, there are vendors we know and they are 100% locked onto. Okay. We've seen every variant of, you know, I'll put it nicely, not abuse, but misuse in this sector. And so they're able to very quickly hone in and say, hey, just so you know, they're effectively over billing or under billing or whatever the issue is. It's really hard for a searcher if they don't have a background in that space to know what those are. And so that is one area that we strongly recommend bringing an outside party to assist with. And again, they're used to it.

Host: So really this question is actually doesn't need to be, this issue, doesn't need to be overcomplicated. It's simply the decision of spending the money on the due diligence which you're going to outsource. So you don't need to really educate yourself too deeply on the regulations of the industry during the acquisition process.

Guest: Exactly. And understanding, candidly, like how material is this to the business. Right. Because I've seen it where people thought it was not a material issue and then it actually became very, very big. And so it's having, I would say the searcher having the judgment to say, hey, actually this, I think this is pretty important for the business and basically raising their hand and say, hey, I need outside help. Right. And there's. Yeah, I mean nothing wrong with that. It's, that's the right answer. It's just, it's just having that, that judgment to do that. Though.

[45:20] Host: Let's pivot into Bryden a little bit. We've already talked about your two business partners somewhat. But, but talk to me about the evolution of you and Steve doing, I guess, kind of one off investments and helping searchers. For the last few years you've worked with 70, you've gotten 40 across the finish line. So what took you from doing it the way you'd been doing it kind of on a one off basis to formalizing this into Bryden? And actually, why don't you first tell us what Bryden is and then answer my question.

Guest: All right, great. So yeah, so the Brighting group, you know, we do invest, we will take minority stakes in traditional searchers in a small number especially if they are kind of, we feel like we can be particularly valuable in their search. So if they're searching in software or government services or something where we think we can add disproportionate value. But what we also wanted to do was create what we're calling an entrepreneur in residence program. And basically with that program we will fund 90% of, of our entrepreneur in residence's search, you know, both at the, at the search phase and then at the deal phase and, and basically just provide a lot more support to those. So we'll pick five a year. They come through as an entrepreneur in residence or EIR cohort, they go through training and, and the reason for that is, you know, as we sort of stepping back, as we thought about hey, is this, is this something that we want to, we want to do? Is this something beyond just personal investing and kind of it's a passion project, is there something that we really want to build here? And I think our view was that yes, but it absolutely like the offering had to be much better for searchers, right? Like we didn't want to just go be another kind of like moderately value add person who takes 10 to 20% stakes and traditional searches. You know, it just personally that was not kind of what, what compelled us. So that was the first thing is like it had to just be a better offer for searchers or better deal for searchers. And then the second thing from our perspective is we really wanted to be much more value add for our searchers. And when we candidly, when we sat down and looked at what that meant, it just meant it's just really hard and people do it. But going and writing small checks into 40 searchers. And it's just our view is we would much rather put all our eggs in one basket and then watch the basket and really help. The basket is just kind of where we personally came down, right? And there's no, there's no right or wrong on this at all. But as we thought about like what, what do we want to actually do, you know, if we are going to do, do this full time, that was it. It was like, hey, how do we do it? And so, and so look, I mean a few of the things in terms of that first bucket of trying to make it better, one of one of the groups that we saw that I had a lot of conversations or we had a lot of conversations with were people a Few years out of business school. So think like the classic, like, McKinsey, Engagement Manager. They took a search class in business school, graduated for whatever reason, family reason, whatever reason, decided to take the offer from a McKinsey or a Goldman or something like that, and then two or three years in, realized that there may be more to life and are then very interested in search and Kennedy, the problem. And again, this is not a universal problem, but the problem there is that it's really hard for those searchers to then step back and do a traditional search paying themselves 115k a year. Right? Like, it's just. That's just not, you know, it's a pretty significant cut. And so what we want to do, what we try to create is like, okay, here it's a system where we'll pay between 150 to 200 or we support salaries, as it should say at the search level, between 150,000 and $200,000 a year. And so those are usually, you know, still significant pay cuts, but they're. They help take the edge off, right. For certain people. And then the other piece for us was really minimizing the downside, right. Is we never want to view search in our backing searchers as kind of like option value, right? Like, hey, they find a great deal, then great, that's good for us and we get to invest. And if they don't, well, that's too bad. Right? Let's move on to the next. I think we very much want to be like, no, we like have real skin in the game with our searchers and really minimize that downside. Right. So we want, you know, we want our searchers to. We want every one of those five entrepreneurs in residents and obviously the other traditional searchers we're backing. Like, we all want them to have really nice outcomes, right. And I'll take a really nice outcome for all of them over some massive home run on one if two or three fail. And so we just tried to design the program that way. So. And we could talk a little bit more about kind of the support and things like that that we're providing. But it's trying to take some of those, like, best practices and an approach from private equity and just making our searchers lives better, easier, and, you know, leading to better outcomes.

[50:04] Host: And to be clear with everybody, this is based on the traditional search fund model. So the financial terms and so on are going to, are going to reflect that. Going to look like that.

Guest: Yeah, so the equity will. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So the salary is higher, but then the equity split will be the symbol, traditional terms, you know, up to 25%.

Host: Yeah. And would you call bride and group an accelerator? I mean, would you, would you kind of lump it in with this, this, this, this burgeoning category of search accelerators?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that that is, that is fair. I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that we're, that is different is we are trying to like combine. It's more like a hybrid of private equity and search. I, I would say, which, which is, I think is, is, is different. But yeah, I mean, it is, you know, it is an accelerator in the sense of the percentage that we're backing and providing a lot more support.

Host: Okay. And so this category of accelerators are similarly all based on the traditional search fund models. So these are options. If you are somebody considering a traditional search fund, you would maybe go, I guess, the traditional haha route of raising money from kind of the, the pool of traditional search fund investors, or you would look to a Brighton group or one of the other small handful of accelerators out there and kind of work exclusively with the accelerator. Are those kind of the options? Do I understand it correctly?

[51:29] Guest: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, in our case, we're writing 90% of the equity, so we've intentionally left 10% for the searcher. If they want to, you know, if they had a great mentor, a former boss, or if they think there's someone who they think could be disproportionately valuable in their search or if they can, you know, would want to fill a board seat or something like that, we try to leave that open. But yeah, I mean, obviously the vast majority, exactly, the vast majority of the equity is coming from us.

Host: And the, in this world of Excel, I mean, we're seeing more and more accelerators. Why? What is the trend there? Is that just kind of correlated to the growth in search itself, or is there something behind the scenes that search investors understand? You kind of touched on in a second ago where you, you and Steve were talking about like, philosophically, what do you want to do here? Do you want to just continue to do one off stuff, or do you want to formalize and maybe do something bigger, more concerted? What, what is the, can you, can you extrapolate from your and Steve's experience to, to this kind of phenomenon of search fund accelerators and the increasing number of them?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, I think, and I don't want to speak for anyone else's motivations, but I know most of them and I think I can Say this, I think a desire to be more deeply involved and more helpful and recognizing that that just means it's going to be a smaller number of people that you can realistically service until without hiring a group of 10 analysts, at which point your value add is relatively diluted. And so I think that is a big feature, right. Just candidly like on the investor side, kind of just a recognition of hey, like I want to personally be more involved and be more helpful and try to do that I think is certainly a driver of it. I think on the, you know, you know, on the, on the searcher side I think there is something nice and again there's, as someone who has invested literally in all three flavors, I like all, you know, self funded, traditional and kind of accelerator, you know, there's no right answer. I think it's a very, very personal question, but I think there is a lot of, I mean we've seen a lot an amazing response from people who have either great operating backgrounds, you know, consulting banks and like that, but they just, you know, they've never done a full transaction before and they recognize that like it's hard and that one decision is going to impact the next five years of their life, you know, positively or negatively. And so trying to do, trying to, you know, partner with someone who's going to be providing more support I think is attractive. And so I think, I think there's probably, you know, the push and the pull on both those sides, which is why, which is partially what's driving the growth in accelerators.

[54:11] Host: And let's do a quick comparison. So Pacific Lake is, is a fund that you often hear about associated with traditional search funds. I just use them as a kind of a stand in for a traditional big name and for a big name that you hear a lot in traditional search funds, not to pick on them, but compare the experience of a traditional searcher who would kind of go with a Pacific, go with a Pacific Lake to, to want to one of your entrepreneurs in residence. Like what is, what is there? How is it going to feel different? How is it going to be different? That experience.

Guest: Yeah. And again I won't, I mean the Pac Lake guys regret I'm not going to speak so I would say specifically to them but just generally if you, if you think of that kind of, of intermediate, if you think of the spectrum, just a traditional search so to get kicked off, I mean they're going out and finding anywhere from 10 to 20 plus investors. Right. And so there's an element of just that fundraise which some searchers like and some searchers don't. Right. Again, there's no right or wrong answer. And then from that they'll build an investor base in that traditional and then they'll get kind of recommendations or some best practices or typically templates and stuff like that from, from some, from some of those investors. Right. And then as they're going along it's more self directed. They're building the CRM system from scratch, they're doing all their sourcing from scratch, et cetera. And as they find an opportunity, they take it back to that group of called 15 investors. And those investors kind of give a thumbs up or thumbs down or sometimes in the middle, which is the worst possible answer. Right. But they are, you know, it is a much more kind of individual sport, if you will. Right. And those traditional investors certainly provide support, but it's more of an individual sport what we're trying to do. And again, there's no right or wrong answer. It's just a different model is basically from day one, I mean, beyond raising that extra 10%. Right. Which is, hey, is there someone else you want in the cap table? Yes or no? If no, okay, then here's someone else who can come in. Right. It's, it's pretty, pretty simple on that front. But then, but no kidding from the search perspective, I mean one of the things that we saw that was, that was a little bit, you know, sad or frustrating for our searchers is having to, you know, it often takes six months for them to really get that sourcing engine up and running. And so instead what we have is like, hey, we literally have an outsourced team that we work with that does a bunch of that, like data scraping, like kind of that, you know, cleaning up the Excel, finding the phone numbers, normalizing all that stuff. And so that literally from day one, if you step in as an EIR with Bryden, it's like, okay, here's your CRM system. Like don't go shop HubSpot and Salesforce and everything. It's like, here's your CRM system. Like what industry are you going to be searching in? Okay, like these are, you know, this is what we recommend. This is how you go build a list and then, oh, by the way, this is like your outsourced team to help you, you know, from day one, who has done this many, many times and can, can help you too. And so it's just, I think from, from our perspective, like we want our searchers to be searching for 24 months. Right? Well, Ideally much less than that, but at least 24 months or you know, and so part of that is just making sure they've got that support. And then candidly on the, on the deal side, and this is something else that we see that can be hard is that with a lot of different investors, oftentimes the searcher is not going to get like a clear thumbs up or thumbs down. Right. And so they can spend a lot of time, you know, and effort on a deal and ultimately they come back in their, and their, and their investors are like, you know, maybe, maybe not, you know, whereas like for us it's like, hey, we're sitting down with the searcher on every opportunity we're looking at and like, yes, let's run hard at this or let's not or this is such a good business that you should pay more for it. That's the one where we see a lot, right? It's really hard in the traditional model to pay up for a really nice business. And so it's like, hey, we think this is an absolutely outstanding software business. Yes, you should pay a little bit more for it, right? Like it is absolutely worth that. And so that's a big difference. And then last I think, I mean just on the sourcing side, you know, all three of us, the founders, like we have great relationships. I mean we see a lot of proprietary deal flow today and being able to like take that and give that to our searchers, I think is something different than what happens necessarily in the traditional model. Like we will literally be going out and if someone is searching in govtech, like okay, These are our 20 contacts and as soon as we get new deal flow coming in, we pass that along. And so it just helps, it helps searchers get up the learning curve faster who are doing our EIR program and hopefully gets them a lot more kind of quality at bats and ultimately better outcomes.

[58:51] Host: Going back to this increasing number of accelerators we're seeing, one of the things that I've often heard from searchers is that yeah, there's this months long process of building their own deal engine, basically deal flow engine. And then once they find a deal, they're off to the races with their acquisition but then their engine kind of just goes to waste. They've spent all this time building this engine and so the idea of an accelerator is like there's this perpetual engine there that you can step right into and you guys, since you're working with numerous searchers at all times, never turn the engine off. And yeah, so that seems like A great kind of deal, a way to scale deal flow in an accelerator model that the loan searcher is not going to be able to do.

Guest: Exactly. So. Exactly. That exhaust has value. Right. To the searcher. But then also, I mean, the other big thing and it's not talked about often in search, is that most brokers or lower middle market bankers won't show opportunities to searchers, right? Whether traditional or self funded, they hear searcher and they think, okay, they don't have committed capital. And so we're just not going to show them the deal. We just don't know if they're going to be able to close at the end, rightly or wrongly. And so I think that is another advantage for us with Bryden is one, we have those relationships with bankers and brokers, but we can say we are committed capital, you know, that if we like this deal, this deal is, you know, we're going to get this deal done. And so it kind of provides the best of both worlds, right? Because to brokers and bankers they can, okay, great, there's committed capital here and to sellers, but then also there is that, there is the unique flavor of like, but it's not just private equity, right? There's like, you know, we have an entrepreneur and that entrepreneur is literally going to take over that business and step into the CEO role and take care of that, you know, and take care of that business and, you know, marshal the business through the next phase of growth. And so in some ways, it really is kind of the best of both worlds from a sourcing perspective, having that kind of private equity and search flavor to it in our experience.

[1:00:57] Host: And so just to be absolutely clear with the audience, so a traditional search fund searcher has investors lined up that they will take their opportunities to, but. And at that point the investors will say yay or nay, or as you said, worst possible case, maybe, but they can't claim to have truly committed capital for a particular deal. And, and that's, that's, that's the normal experience, the conventional experience for traditional search funder. And so with you guys, you, your searchers, your entrepreneurs and residents can go to sellers and say, you know, if we decide we like this deal, we can, we can stroke a check, whatever, next week.

Guest: Exactly. Yep, 100%.

Host: Great, you touched on it. And I've seen Steve Ressler talk in another podcast about it. Thesis, the thesis of your searchers and your entrepreneurs in residents. So to work with Bryden, should I have an industry focus or even more strongly, an industry thesis? Do you want to do. Are you open to working with people who have neither?

Guest: The answer is yes, we are open to both. I think from our own experience, from the research that's been done, thesis driven searches can only just work better, right? They end up with better outcomes, they end up with higher deal close rates and they end up with beyond that higher IRRs post close and we can talk about the reasons for that. So when we were kind of creating Brighton, that was. And looking at kind of like the causes of sources of success and failure in search of that was. That was such a recurring theme that we wanted to make sure that our eirs are aligned with that. And that's not to say that they have to come in with an industry thesis. I mean we're encouraging them. If they do, that's great, right? If someone has spent a bunch of time in healthcare services and they see an opportunity to do a roll up or they see an opportunity to do a single acquisition, but it's in a niche, great, we'll fully support that. If not, that's fine. But we want to sit down and come up with several of those sub industries where they're going to spend disproportionate time and it makes sense, right? I always laughed at knowledge and relationships compound. But they tend to compound by industry. It tends to be more narrowly constrained in terms of where that adds up. Now that said, I mean look, given our backgrounds in software and things like that, it's a pretty broad range of industries that we're backing searchers in. But we do think there is just a lot more value in spending disproportionate time around industry search or industry thesis search versus just a complete scattershot.

[1:03:37] Host: Alex, a personal question for you. Do you think are you somebody that envisioned himself at some point in his career doing something entrepreneurial? Inevitably or not necessarily, it really was. This was opportunistic. That has a negative valence to it. But I just mean this opportunity came along and it. And that's what excited you and that's why you find yourself as an entrepreneur

Guest: now I think more the latter more just like this was such a unique opportunity and feeling like we could actually go build something really special and valuable for searchers and obviously valuable beyond that was incredibly appealing to me. It's not like I wouldn't have left for anything else. There was not another thing. It wasn't kind of hey, I want to go be an entrepreneur and do something. It was more like no, this is just. I think it's a tremendous opportunity and can we like, we've been, you know, it's been wonderful getting to work with the searchers that we've gotten to work with and other investors and kind of the community. And so getting to do that full time and actually be 100% dedicated to that and supporting it, it was just something pretty special for, for us.

Host: Can people still come to you and Steve and George with deals that they already have if they're not part of Bryden?

Guest: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So we'll, we'll.

Host: So you'll continue to invest?

Guest: Continue to invest. And candidly, we, we do a lot of, even if it's not a question of investing, if it's just a question of like people being like, hey, I'd love a second set of eyes on this deal. Like we, we do that a lot. Right. I think some of my, I think candidly my personal proudest moments were probably sitting down with searchers and being like, ah, this is one where you should probably just move on, you know, and help, helping, helping people avoid a landmine, you know, situation where they could have gotten pretty, pretty ugly. So always happy. And I think, as you know, I mean, Steve has done a tremendous job, you know, with that in the community and we still want to. Right. Like, you know, whether it's, whether it's investing or just advice or if we can be helpful or introductions to other investors, please, please do reach out.

Host: And even as a self funded, I could, I could.

Guest: Absolutely, absolutely. Great.

Host: And where can we find, how can we connect with you, Alex, and tell us the socials and URL for Bryden as well.

Guest: Yeah. So our website, Bryden.com it's B R Y D O N and there's a lot more information there on the Entrepreneur in Residence program and the application and everything. And then you can reach out to me. It's Alexander Mears M E a r s brighton.com and I'm on Twitter Levered Knowledge. No E at the end is, is. Is my Twitter handle. And yeah, please, please do reach out if you're interested in learning more or just, just to connect on search more broadly.

[1:06:26] Host: And this the first cohort, you have five slots. How many are full and when is the deadline to like give us the timeline on that if anybody's interested.

Guest: Yep. So June, June 15th is the deadline for the applications and we've not officially made any offers. We're not planning to until that, until after that June 15 deadline just to give everyone time to, to get applications in.

Host: And the application is a form on the website and then we receive a call from you and goes from there sort of thing.

Guest: Yep, exactly. The interview process and then a few assessment tests. Unfortunately, having gone through selection at that certain Navy SEAL team we have, we're working with the same person who designed that to help on the testing on this one. But it'll be fun. And search was helping learn a lot, lot in the in the process.

Host: Great. Alex, thanks so much for, for sharing. I mean, we could have gone on a lot longer here and I'm sure I, I'll want to have you back on and certainly to hear about how that first cohort is done. So lots to talk about in the in the years ahead. Congratulations on a a big career move for you and the launch of Bryden. Thanks a lot for coming on.

Guest: Alex, thanks so much.

Host: Will really appreciate Sam.