Host: Buying a business for the first time is hard enough, which is why most people dismiss out of hand listings in other countries unwilling to attempt the additional complexity of a cross border transaction. That is understandable, but today's Denver based guest Christy Laukes and her husband found a Canadian business they liked on acquire.com and they went for it. Now this is a virtual business, a B2B outbound sales service, so buying it did not mean they'd be managing on the ground staff in Canada. Still, the additional hurdles are numerous, while financing options for such a transaction are anything but. But Kristi pulled it off and she shares what the terms and structure look like. And after she pulled it off, Kristi was promptly rewarded with sales collapsing 50%. Terrifying. Listen for how she survived. Please enjoy this conversation with Christy Laukes, owner of Revenue Accelerator. 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. A PEO run by a Searcher for searchers if you're running a company with less than 100 employees in providing health insurance, you could secure better benefit plans at a 15 to 30% discount through a professional employer organization or PEO. Aspen HR, run by search fund veteran Mark Sinatra understands the needs of search operators and could be a great solution for you to receive HR compliance and diligence support, a powerful HR tech platform and Fortune 500 caliber benefits, all for a fraction of the cost. Check out aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly at mark aspenhr.com Christy Laux welcome to Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Thanks Will.

Host: Christy, you bought a digital business, I think it's fair to call it. It's the sort of business that I envisioned buying myself when I first got interested in buying businesses. So I'm excited to peer into your journey here. Before we do though, let's get some background on you please. Kristy sure.

Guest: So I I spent a decade roughly working in high growth tech companies, software companies, primarily cybersecurity oriented organizations. I started my career there in human resources working actually as an HR associate as as the lowest paid employee in the company. And I know that because I had to pull all the compensation reports and what so started at the at the kind of bottom, bottom rung, but working for a really great company called Ping Identity. They're now quite large and have gone public and then private again and just had an amazing growth trajectory. I then took that kind of show on the road so to speak to a few other kind of startup companies and did more sales enablement, more sales operations, lead generation, et cetera for other cybersecurity organizations. And you know, I learned, I learned a lot from that time in my life. I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

[3:51] Host: And so during all of this, we're going to of course, hear how you came to buy a business. But give us a hint. During all of this, was there an entrepreneurial itch? What? Was there any, any inkling that the path you've now chosen would, would eventually be the path that you chose at

Guest: the time, during those years at those software companies? Probably not. I would say the, the entrepreneurial itch came truthfully from my husband. Mostly. He, my husband Alex comes from a background in mostly private equity and healthcare, a convergence of the two. He ran a traditional search fund from 2018 to 2020. At the time, valuations were pretty wild. And then Covid hit, so he ended up shutting that down to move into a full time role. But he was kind of through that, that time frame. He's the one that planted the seed, I guess metaphorically, on what an entrepreneurial path might look like. So I learned a lot from him just about acquisitions searches, what it would take to, to be your own boss. That was really the, the, the kindling of the entrepreneurial interest.

Host: So you, you liked what you saw, even though all you saw was him searching, which is usually not the fun part. And he ultimately, he ultimately didn't consummate a deal. So you actually never got him to, never got to see him be excited about the business that he bought or any of that. And yet still it intrigued you?

Guest: Yeah, I think, you know, there's, there's a story here, if I can, if I can tell the quick story. Of course we, so he was working in that role, that full time role, CFO role that he took after he shut down the search fund. I was working in high growth cybersecurity, starting sales enablement and sales operations for a relatively, maybe like one step past a startup stage. And we hit this, we hit this existential wall, I guess you could say, in 2022, both of us at the same time. Speaking very candidly, I had just gone through a long kind of abnormal miscarriage and at the same time we had an immediate family member with terminal cancer. So we were faced with this loss component in our lives and then simultaneously we were both just, truthfully, we were just tired of our work. We didn't feel like we were growing much and I think we were both just bored, quite honestly. So Our solution to that at the time was, oh well, we're just going to move, we're going to relocate, we're going to try something new, we're going to get out of Denver. We can keep all these other things the same, but just displacing ourselves into a new environment might help with some of these feelings of dissatisfaction that we have.

[7:12] Host: Sure, sure.

Guest: So we embarked on this road trip across the Southeast. So we did Nashville, Charlotte and the Raleigh Durham area. And neither of us had spent a lot of time in that part of the country.

Host: You were prospecting for new homes, new

Guest: home cities, New homes, new cities. Just communities that we thought would be interesting to live in for, you know, maybe a few years and going somewhere that we both hadn't been, we thought would be a good rejuvenation into our life.

Host: Sure.

Guest: Now we both graduated from insead. They're the executive MBA program at insead. Different years, different campuses. He was in Singapore at the time, I went in France. This will all come together, I promise. We had both taken a class by a professor named Neil Bearden. And Neil had recently moved from Singapore to Chapel Hill. So, and we were in the area, right. We figured he's a pretty cool dude. So Alex reached out to him randomly to see if we could meet up and say hi. And I think what you need to know about Neil is that he's the kind of guy who can change your life in a single conversation, let alone an entire MBA course. He's this like brilliant blend of, I think he has a PhD in like neuroeconomics and psychology. He's like a total geek. And he's also this philosophical, like no bullshit existentialist. Okay. And because of all that, he has this cult following amongst the INSEAD community and even beyond that. So when we reached out we thought, you know, he probably doesn't remember us, like nor does he have the time for us peons, but let's, let's try anyway. And so sure enough, a few weeks later we're in North Carolina and we're sitting on a patio with him and his wife and his five year old daughter drinking beers. And none of us really knew how that conversation was going to go. I mean ultimately we're, we're really strangers with a single, like a single commonality. So it had the potential to be like a very awkward and probably really quick conversation. But a couple beers later, you know, we were in it, like in it talking about life and purpose and wise and loss and death and like all of these big questions that Alex and I were facing just in our personal lives. And Neil, very point blank, as he does, said, moving, it's not going to be a salve for this discontent. He recommended a book called wherever you go, there you are. I think something like that.

[10:00] Host: The meditation book.

Guest: Yeah. And he was like, well, it's pretty much the gist of the book. You don't really need to read it now. You just need to know that one line. Um, but really what he was getting at, right, was that we should pursue like we needed to pursue a deeper sense of fulfillment and really sort through what we were experiencing at the time. And you know, again, that go that went back to, I think, really facing like grief and loss and, and addressing all those dissatisfied parts of us, which included our working selves and the endeavors that we were professionally involved in. So that ultimately led us back to, I guess, a desire to own more of our lives and more of our time and to be able to channel our values into, you know, a company and, and contribute to like, human flourishing through business and then also to be challenged personally and professionally. So we stayed in Denver and we bought a business and it took, it took that entire road trip to figure that out.

Host: Basically, the, I understand the staying in Denver part, the buying a business, there are, there are many paths to entrepreneurship or many paths to self actualization, maybe that's too simplistic a term, but whatever it was that you all were striving for, that was missing. So there's still some dots to connect there, I guess. I guess buying a business was in front of your faces because your husband at that point had already done a search fund. So that was kind of one of the obvious options on the menu.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think. And I think we also. Well, I had also seen the world of startups with my work in technology, and I had seen what it took to get a company from maybe like I came in like the not maybe zero, but at one, and to get it to a 10, you know, just to grow it. I had seen the effort that that required. And pairing that with Alex's one experience, having already searched and he says he failed. I don't think he failed by any means. There was a lot in many cases. I actually think it's very, very good that we didn't acquire a business right before COVID hit, because who knows what that would have looked like. And just knowing his, he comes from, you know, a family business and he's got sort of that experience of what it takes to run a small business. So having those Parallel viewpoints led us ultimately to buying over building ourselves.

[12:56] Host: So do you, do you then make that the decision? Do you come back from, from your, from your road trip to North Carolina and your, your world shifting conversation with Neil. By the way, what's, what's this gentleman's name for the audience today? Bearden.

Guest: Bearden, yes. Go follow him on LinkedIn and you won't be disappointed.

Host: Okay. So was it like high tailing it back to, to Denver, couldn't wait to get there and open biz by sell sort of thing? Or was there, did it, did the plan evolve? You had hours in the car to, to digest this conversation, so.

Guest: Yeah, well, first of all we came home and we bought a puppy. That was the first thing we did. And um, that was not part of the plan. But you know. Yeah, I mean, I think, look, it was a series of conversations continuing to, to mull over the decision to play out scenarios, to really talk through. Who do we want to be in the world? What do we want to put out there, what do we want to accomplish? What does that mean for family, for life, for lifestyle, you know, and then starting to look at where the market really was in terms of business acquisitions. As I mentioned before, when Alex was searching back in 2018, it was a totally different time and place than it was in 2022 post pandemic and you know, valuations had changed and it was just a different world. Right. So really trying to step back into let's understand what's out there and understand what the market's doing and, and decide if we can take that leap.

Host: 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 Oberly 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, Oberly 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. Oberly is a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. Check out oberly-risk.com O B E R L E- risk.com link in the show notes. It's very clear that this is a collective decision. The experience of going across the country talking to Neil coming back obviously was something that you and your husband were doing together. But overall I'm just getting a sense that this is, this project, this search Is, is going to be a we thing. So be explicit here. Did you and your husband decide to go buy a business together or one was going to do it and the other was going to be supportive or what?

[15:55] Guest: Yeah, it's funny to reflect back on how that's evolved. Yes, it was a we thing for sure. And I think we didn't go in with a very specific plan of, okay, you're gonna run this or I'm gonna run this or. We just wanted to see how the cards sort of fell. I would say my husband was primarily probably going to step into the operating role of whatever company we bought with me supporting, but that didn't. Didn't have to happen. It was probably what we were leaning towards. I also was doing some consulting work just as a income after I did quit that corporate job. So I also had. I had things going on that supplemented kind of our entrepreneurial acquisition that I could flex a little bit more through than Alex did. So he was probably going to go into that operating role. Yeah, I think that was. We never really talked about that, but it was sort of the assumption.

Host: Okay, that. That you both would quit in. Both work in the business.

Guest: Yes, but to what extent depended on the situation.

Host: Interesting. Okay.

Guest: Yes.

Host: Well, spoiler it. The way it unfolded was, was different than that, which is why I'm talking to you, I guess, and not Alex. So, so tell us about your search once you've decided on this path. What did it look like when you started, when you actually got out there?

Guest: So initially we were looking for, I guess, boring, like unsexy businesses like power washing and tire recycling and like completely different than the world that I had come from. And mostly what we were looking for was retiring owners with some sort of legacy business, good cash flow. We were looking for, you know, opportunity to modernize, grow the business. Our search, you know, we were mostly looking around, like a 1 million EBITDA marker. There was some flex there for sure. The industry didn't matter so much to us as the quality of the business, which is why we were kind of casting a wide net within this like, unsexy business world.

[18:33] Host: Well, I have to say, Chrissy, that actually sounds like the search criteria, the most kind of traditional search criteria that there are, which is fine. 1 million SDE if you can get it. Quote, boring or traditional business and industry agnostic, probably kind of blue collary, probably kind of a sweaty, dirty business. You mentioned tire recycling, you mentioned power washing, but not as stand ins. Those were actual deals that you looked at. So after these two deals Fall apart. What is that burn you feel burned by? Kind of traditional business land, blue collar business land. And that's why did you then eventually turn your attention to acquire.com and tell people what acquire.com is, please?

Guest: Yes, yes. I wouldn't say we were burned on those types of businesses. I think it was just we had hit our head against the wall a couple times consecutively. And so I thought, well, let me just try a different approach. Like, let's just see what happens if we go a different route. And I decided that because I knew sales, I knew the sales world and I knew the tech world, maybe I could find something a bit more in my wheelhouse that we could get across the finish line. And so I did start searching mo actually mostly on acquire.com which is a platform for entrepreneurs to go and list their businesses for sale. It's a. Andrew over@acquire.com is amazing. I'll shout out to him. It's. It's a great platform. You do still have to sift through. Yeah. You know, there's still stuff like fluff out there that you have to kind of get to the good stuff. But I ended up finding Revenue Accelerator, which is a B2B outbound sales agency specializing in kind of cold email and phone outreach for clients. And I found this. And I thought, okay, well, like, I know that world, I've lived in that world, so maybe I'll reach out and get more information. So I did.

Host: And the. And prior, you had been using Biz by Sell, right?

Guest: Yeah, we. We sort of took a blended approach to our search where we were looking for. We were on all the platforms. Right. We've got like Transworld, Biz by Sell, which is a combination of everything, individual sites. We had been talking to our network and brokers and just sort of like spreading the word back out, mostly by way of Alex's search network that he had built here in Denver. So we weren't just looking in one spot, but certainly like Biz, Buy Sell and some of those other marketplaces for the more traditional companies were high on the list.

[21:29] Host: And to be clear about how acquire.com is different from this, buy sell, acquire.com, first of all, it's a young business. It's a few years old. It's a startup itself and it lists businesses that are digital, virtual, kind of online in nature. So you're not going to find a plumbing business on there, as I correct. You know.

Guest: Yeah, a lot of E commerce, a lot of SaaS.

Host: A lot of E commerce SaaS. Exactly. And Andrew Gazdecki, the name that you mentioned, that's the founder of acquire.com and Andrew is very visible on social media and, and is known as a, as a great guy. And so yeah, plug there. I think he'll come back around. As you get into the story of actually now buying this business, you said it was called Revenue Accelerator.

Guest: Mm, yes.

Host: Or I have that in my notes. I'm not sure you said it, but Revenue Accelerator. Okay, so you said you reached out. But before, before we hear about the back and forth or the actual deal process, tell us a little bit more about specifically what the business does. Exactly what the business does, yes.

Guest: So I mean, spoiler alert, I bought the business. So I'm going to probably say this from like my sales pitch perspective, but so Revenue Accelerator is we're an outbound sales agency. So really we are running the end to end process of cold outreach. So we are sourcing data contacts for prospect lists, we're writing copy and messaging for email campaigns, we're launching those campaigns, we're monitoring deliverability, setting up the whole IT infrastructure back backend that you need for like cold outbound. And then we're booking meetings for our, our clients with interested buyers. So we, we manage the full end to end really. We're kind of an outsourced sales team for B2B clients.

Host: And for cold specifically, mostly email. I heard you say phone as well.

Guest: Yeah, we do, we do some phones sprinkled in there. But I, you know, most people are quite frankly still living in their inboxes and screening phone calls, which I know I do. So, so yeah, primarily email.

Host: And when you say B2B, give us an example of, of a client.

Guest: Yeah, so we, I mean truly are industry agnostic on the B2B side. We work with business services like fractional CFO companies. We work with technology platforms. We've got a logistics and like transportation client right now. We've worked in the manufacturing space. We actually, we really can apply the concepts of cold outbound to I would say most industries.

[24:25] Host: So a fractional CFO individual or firm would approach you and say I want you to reach out to small business owners to, and pitch our services. And you would do, and then you would put together, you would do a managed offering. So you would not only send the emails, which requires tech, it requires some infrastructure to do that at scale. But you're also in many cases going to help them actually write the copy and you know, the entire, the entire thing really end to end. And, and then you are, when you get responses from these emails. How, what's the very last step where you actually book calls for them? And does that require manual? Like if people respond to the emails, then does your team respond back or do the responses go to the CFO's firm or what, what are the mechanics of that?

Guest: Primarily our sales development team manages the back and forth responses with our clients prospects and we train our team on how to handle those responses and answer questions. And then assuming we can get that individual on the other side of the email, you know, interested enough to take a call with our clients, we then book that meeting directly onto their calendars. We kind of, you know, have the whole infrastructure set up to do that and then they take it and continue it down their sales funnel. So our, our service really kind of starts at the very beginning of just getting all of this stood up. And it really is an effort, especially for the companies we work with, which is like primarily around, call it like 2 to 5 million in annual revenue. So they've got enough of, you know, they've got a product market fit, they know that they could get revenue in the door. But standing up an entire outbound function is really costly. You've got to buy all the tech, you've got to have the people, you've now got to have this IT infrastructure because Big Brother is out there watching every email that comes across, you know, the servers. And so that's a very expensive function actually to start. So, so having that full process and then the handoff to continue your sales process, like it's a really big lift that we're able to come in and help clients with.

Host: And so everything that you just described is that something that a larger organization would build themselves. I mean, assuming, you know, they, they do decide to build it internally rather than outsourcing it to a firm like yours. Is that something that basically any firm that eventually wants to have some sort of regular outbound process would need to build?

[27:19] Guest: In short, yes. The way you build it, I would argue doesn't always need to be 100% in house. We also work with clients that we're a supplement to their internal team. So we work alongside their internal outbound sales teams and just amplify the efforts into maybe a specific market or industry or you know, however they want to slice and dice their total market, we can come in and run parallel. So I would say we've like, it's been interesting for me to see how the outsource model can very much complement the in house model. And I, I've mostly seen companies build in house, that's usually the first step that people think they need to take. But I've also been, I mean, now being CEO and like running this business, I'm, I've seen how efficient and effective the agency play can be too. So I think it doesn't need to be all one or the other, depending on where you are in your business.

Host: So going back to the infrastructure piece and the tech piece from my days in this world, which are now, five years ago, names like SaaS, tools like outreach and sales loft were big, big names. And those are basically SAS tools that, that allow you the, the organization to send out emails, these cold emails. But I guess they're, they would resist this characterization, but I guess they're quote, dumb tools. I mean, they're mostly, they're mostly the ability to send the emails, put people on cadences, set up templates and so on. So are you guys kind of like use, are you kind of a built on top of outreach? You're actually, you know, you'll run, you have like an outreach or sales loft underneath and you're running on that, or you have, you effectively built your own internal equivalent to a sales loft or an outreach.

Guest: So there's been an interesting transformation on with those platforms too, just with the deliverability components of Cold Outbound that have changed really fairly recently. So I think, you know, an outreach or sales loft, those can be good. If you're not doing a ton of volume, you can still get away with, you know, managing your whole kind of process within that system. But the difference between us and one of those types of platforms is we're, we're doing a lot more scale and we're making sure that every piece of the, of the outbound engine is firing as it should be, which takes a lot more rigor and attention than what an outreach IO or sales loft can do. So, you know, the best example I can give you is maybe on the deliverability component. If you're launching thousands of, if you're sending thousands of emails from your primary domain to prospects and using certain words that sound a little spammy, you're not varying your copy enough. You're not, you're not acting more like a human, and you're sounding more and more like a spam engine, you're going to get flagged into spam. Like, you're not going to even make it into inboxes. So what we do is we set up on behalf of our clients, subdomains. Not even subdomains, they're actually completely separate domains. That point Back to the primary domain. We launch everything on those domains so that we don't degrade the integrity and the health of the primary domain. And within those domains that we set up, we're rotating emails, we're watching to see if certain email addresses get slotted into spam for some reason, because things just change randomly. That's the kind of work that an out, like an outreach won't give you that level of detail.

[31:35] Host: Mm. So you all have had, there's real tech here. I mean, you've had to build some, some real kind of pipes or at least processes to make all this work.

Guest: Yes, it is a, it is a, an engine with many different parts that we've trialed and tested and truthfully still have to trial and test. Because like I said, things, things shift pretty rapidly in this space. But we've got the tech and the infrastructure at all points, from data to launch to domain deliverability. Yeah, exactly. We've got everything we need across the entire process.

Host: Well, Christy, I don't want to get too far away from your story, so we're going to return to that in a second. But you just used the S word, spam.

Guest: What did I say?

Host: No, not that S word, spam. And so, so I guess two questions here. One is, let's just hear. I know you. You know you're going to be talking your book, you bought this business. So. But address the objection that is in the audience, the listener's mind, or in your prospect's mind. Hey, isn't this just a glorified version of the S word first second, when you were cons. Well, ask that and then I'll ask my follow up. Address that and I'll ask my follow up, please.

Guest: Okay, Okay. I like, I like the S word. So, so truth. So if I were to be very, very candid, when I even looked at Revenue Accelerator, I asked myself the same exact question, like, is this just a spam engine? And how do I feel about that? You know, going back to the, the values conversation, like, what do I want to put out into the world and do I feel good about? At the time it was like, do I feel good about just blasting emails out into the ether in the hopes that somebody, it lands, right? And like, am I just contributing to noise or am I doing something meaningful? So I had to sit with that same question. And I have been continuously humbled by the outbound world. And what I, what my conclusions are at this point stage are if you want to grow as a business, especially at that, like call it 2 to $5 million mark where you've got to achieve economies of scale, but you may not have the resources to do it internally. Outbound is one of the ways you need to try and expand your company. I would never tell someone as a business owner or having my experience in sales that I do that it is the only tried and true way. It's just that you do have to have that engine running in the background of trying to gain new business that maybe is outside of your circles that you have access to. So knowing that, knowing that this is important for especially the companies that we, that we work with, I do think that we are a piece of their growth. And we've seen that with our clients. And we get, I mean one of our clients, we booked a ridiculous like set of logos for them with Ikea, Carnival Cruise Lines, Bass Pro Shops. This is all in the last like three months. Huge enterprises that they're now just this little company doing work with these giants. And that's like awesome to see companies grow in that way. I don't feel that it is just a spam engine. I think with intention, with rigor and discipline in the process, it can be a really effective way to, to grow your business. What I also think you learn on the flip side, and this is where I've been a little bit humbled, is you also learn what doesn't work as a business owner and we, you know, as revenue accelerator, like we have quote, failed for some of our clients. We haven't been able to get traction. We haven't been able to find that market fit and amplify it. But we have been able to say, hey, this is everything we've done. Here's where we think there are some issues that you need to go focus on. It's not trying to displace blame or anything like that. But sometimes we have clients with really true message market or product market fits. And we see that when we try and reach out and we get feedback from by with those responses. And so I do also think that the insights that we can provide there again with intention, with, with that level of discretion that we apply it can also like we're trying to help people understand like this is how you should be structuring your go to market outbound or not. This is what you need to focus on. This is the message that works. This one doesn't. Don't use it. Yeah, like. Or at least not right now.

[37:01] Host: Yeah.

Guest: So. So I think with all of that being said, I don't feel like it's just a Spam blast. Because there's that the insights and the true growth that we've seen our clients have.

Host: Well, Kristi, that was a great answer.

Guest: Oh, great. It wasn't bullshit either. It's true. It's funny. We had one client, if I can just really fast. We had one client, they were with us for like five months, call it. And I think we truthfully, we booked one meeting for them and they left so happy because they were like, we're rebranding. We realized that our website isn't right. Like they had all these insights from a failed engagement with us and they, they've got a quote, a testimonial quote up on our website. And like, so that's the kind of stuff that I also hope is valuable and not that, like it's not real fail for you, but it's not a great pitch. But, but I do think that there's some real like true value that comes from.

Host: You know what it reminds me of again? My own, my own involvement in this side of the world, this part of the world. Cold email is, falls under the bucket in organizations of sales. But it's really marketing, actually. It's, it's, it's closer to marketing than it is to sales because it's top of, it's totally top of funnel. And so anyway, but, and so what you just described there, where you're kind of at the front lines of the marketing effort for your clients and so you can deliver news back from the front lines, data back from what you've seen. It's something akin to what you'll see like very early stage, or maybe not so early stage businesses do where they dump some money into Google PPC and just with the expectation that they'll lose the money just to try various messages and try various landing pages and see basically, basically try funnels, messaging and click funnels from ad to landing page all the way down to the CTA and see what works and what fails. And that quote, failure data is just as valuable as the what works data. I mean it's a process of elimination to land on the messaging and so on. That works so similar.

[39:30] Guest: I feel like, yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, we've even in sales conversations, I've told people, like, I want to, I want to succeed for you as fast as I possibly can. Like, we all want that, but I, we also, with the infrastructure and the process, like, we can also fail faster than you can. So if you're also willing to spend money to fail faster than maybe other areas that you've tried like and simultaneously I think find success. They're not mutually exclusive necessarily. Yeah, I, I do think that's, I think that's valuable. I really do. And I think it's often overlooked in the sales and marketing. We just want leads, we just want meetings. Just get me in front of people. That's important. But man, those intangibles are also really important.

Host: Well, the follow up question to all of this, Christy, is one of the very appealing things about a power washing business or a tire recycling business and so many of the businesses that my guests buy and that people who are in ETA are drawn to is the longevity and the relative, the relative stasis of, of these industries and businesses and, and you and, and so being in tech or anything online scares people off often because it is so dynamic, it changes so quickly and particularly it sounds like in, in your little corner of the online world. So was that not something that concerned you as you evaluated this business? And then we're going to, we are going to hear about the deal because there's, there's so much to learn from the deal that you put together. Did that not concern you as a risk?

Guest: Oh, it was certainly a risk, 100%. That was one of the big risks was just the ever changing nature of both the tech industry and the outbound sales function. Right. And by outbound sales, right, I'm including like it's the cold, it's the cold, outreach cold, email cold, whatever. I, I, I had been, I had lived through that shift in technology. I was there when the we hired our first sales development representatives at Ping Identity and I was there when Covid happened and all of the SDR1 costs were cut and then 2 email changed com like overnight because we were all sitting at our home desks trying to get a hold of each other. And so like I saw that whole shift happen in real time and I knew that going into this deal that I was going to have to help the company adapt as things were, were changing and as they will change in the future. What I'm not worried about is Outbound dying. There is a lot of noise. If you're on LinkedIn and you like follow certain hashtags or you follow certain people, there is so much chatter. Outbound's dead, cold calling's dead. Blah, blah. Yeah, sure it's not true. Where do you spend most of your time every day?

[42:46] Host: Me personally? Are you, are you asking?

Guest: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Host: If you don't give me the right

Guest: answer, I'll say the right answer.

Host: Yes. Unhappily. In my inbox, I guess.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's, we're online like we're on email, we're on LinkedIn, we're doing these things. And so and it because of the displaced nature of our work now where everyone's working from everywhere, it is the way that we communicate. And so as long as that exists, we will use, we will use these platforms to drive business. Now the way in which we do that changes potentially and there's, you know, you've got AI coming on board and you've got all the not even coming on board well established at this point. There's so many factors that are changing but as long as we're all on our computers and as long as we all want to grow our businesses outbound in some way, shape or form will exist. Yeah, we just have to change as it changes.

Host: Yeah. That comfort that you have with being able to adapt to the changes that are going to be necessary probably speaks to the fact that you have experience in this world. So this, this is the part where you coming from this world and being really, you know, having experience in it, being a buyer of such technology and a practitioner or a user of the very technology that you're now selling. I assume maybe you weren't a direct user, but close. Yeah, yeah. Probably gave you comfort in a way that many of the listeners wouldn't have comfort in, in going after business like this. Maybe not. I mean we all, we all, we certainly all understand cold outreach and we all are in our inboxes all day. Well, let's hear about the, the negotiation in the deal. So can you give us some, some numbers, some bullet points around this business?

Guest: I sure can. So first and foremost this was a cross border deal which brought some fun and frustrating learnings with it. But in terms of, so in terms of the deal itself, we bought the business for 2.75 million Canadian, which like these are a little bit rough numbers. Call it 2 million USD.

[45:06] Host: Okay.

Guest: The looking back, you know like 2022 revenue for Revenue Accelerator was you know, 1.4 Canadian or like 1 million USD. So your multiples a little change depending on what currency you're using there. And I, you know, this is painting broad strokes. The seller discretionary earnings. This was a little lower than what I had originally said in terms of what Alex and I were looking for. But again we had just pivoted so much at this point that we still felt it was a really strong deal. So SDE, I think like 2021, 2022 was like call it 750,000 Canadian, which is like again, roughly 550,000. Call it USD. And at the time, this, ladies and

Host: gentlemen, is why we like digital businesses. Look at those margins.

Guest: Yeah, 63% gross margin, average.

Host: Great.

Guest: Yes.

Host: Carry on.

Guest: So those were the, you know, those were the, I guess, primary numbers that we cared about. Obviously going into this. I can talk a little about the, the deal structure if that's helpful too.

Host: It's going to be very helpful. But one, just one follow up there, Christy.

Guest: The.

Host: What was the age of the business and. Yeah, kind of the age and history of the business and then how many employees and where are they? Paint a picture of that because that's also really different than traditional blue collar business.

Guest: Yes. So the age was. But call it between six and seven years old at the time. Started by the seller, he founded and grew the company, which is awesome to get it to, you know, from zero to a million. At the time of acquisition, I think there were maybe 14, 15 employees across, you know, way back to the remote nature of our world today across the globe. So the team is Canada, US Spain, Ireland, India and the Philippines.

Host: And are these folks all on Some sort of W2 or are they basically all. They're obviously. It certainly wasn't a W2 because it was Canadian. But are they all just kind of contractors that are pretty flexy?

Guest: Yeah, long term contractors, though much of the team has been with the company for gosh, you know, three plus years even as, as contractors. So we don't have high turnover even though they're not, you know, I don't know what the Canadian equivalent of W2 is, but whatever. W2, but very long standing tenure and full time. Full time.

[48:01] Host: They're full time.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Long term contractors. Interesting. Okay. Okay, great. And what, what of the founder? I assume it's a youngish person.

Guest: It is young. It is, it is. Yeah. He would love it if I said he was a youngish person. Yes. Youngish.

Host: Youngish.

Guest: Yeah. He. Yeah. So his name is Gabriel. We're friends. He's great guy. He is. He has young children and this was not going to be his last rodeo. Maybe that's the best way to put it.

Host: He. Yeah.

Guest: What else do you want to know about him?

Host: Just why, why did he want to sell? Because one of the things that we like so much about traditional and blue collar businesses is so often they're legacy businesses where the seller owner has a very good reason to sell, I. E. Retirement. And this as I've started getting into the, the investor side of the table is actually a much more important criterion than I Then I realized the a real good incentive to sell because otherwise you say if, if it's such a hot. Because that, that basically neutralizes the question of well, if it's such a good business, why is this person selling it?

Guest: Got it. Great. So Gabriel was not of the same mindset as the retire the retiring people that we have been talking to previously. For sure, he. I don't know if I'd call him a serial entrepreneur, but he has this. He likes starting, he likes building, he likes the. The beginning stages of of companies in a way that quite frankly I are not mine my favorite. So he did that with revenue accelerator. He built it, he found he solved a lot of problems trying to grow it. He I think was intellectually and professionally challenged by that endeavor. And by the time, you know, call it seven years rolled around, he was tired and one wanted to do something else. And I think what he did was awesome. Having this company go from I'm going to speak in USD but zero to a million in USD with COVID thrown into the middle of that is extremely remarkable. And now he's ready for whatever comes next. So it wasn't any disgruntled. Disgruntled with the business. It wasn't, it wasn't any of that. It was just ready for change. And I think when you're a founder, I mean it's hard man. Like that is. That is grunt work to go from zero to a million.

Host: Yeah. And I also think that it's more common in digital style businesses.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: That a founder seller is gonna not have held the business for 30 years like a. The owner seller of a plumbing business might have.

Guest: Correct.

Host: And so. So it doesn't. It's not the same yellow flag as it might be.

[51:01] Guest: No, not at all.

Host: A traditional business.

Guest: Not at all.

Host: Okay. So deal terms, deal structure. How the heck did you buy Canadian business?

Guest: This was a journey. So in terms of the deal structure, we did a combination of a private loan, a seller note and an equity raise. So because this was a cross border deal, we were unable to capitalize on an SBA loan completely. Not an option. So I mean if you want to, if you want to talk about things going wrong in a deal and having to pivot quickly, this was certainly an area of learning for us. On the lender side. What we found was even outside of an SBA scenario, your typical bank, the T. It was a typical bank that we were working with that did small business loans. They came in at the last 11th hour and said we can't do this deal for various reasons that to this day I still am not entirely sure. We then had to pivot very quickly to a private lender that Acquire.com had partnered with, actually. So we ended up going through acquire.com to this lender to get the deal done. But I would, I would say looking back, the financing piece of this as a cross border deal was surprisingly more difficult than we thought it was going to be.

Host: And by that you mean just finding somebody who is willing to finance it or the logistics of moving a big slug of cash across a border and doing all the currency conversion?

Guest: I think a little.

Host: All of it. Okay.

Guest: I think all of the above. Yeah. I think it was, it was multiple factors because, you know, the financials, as you mentioned before, like financials looked great.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Like there really was no question. And everything checked out in our quality of earnings, everything checked out in our due diligence. Like there was no issue there. I think it was just, it was the nature of it being cross border that people were hesitant on. And so what I wish I would have done was I wish I would have had more or we had, I guess, kind of shopped it out a little bit more. I think we thought that it would be as simple as just a, quote, normal us, North American, whatever, I guess just US deal. And it just ended up not being that simple. There were a lot of questions asked. So that would be like just one thing. If you're doing a cross border deal, just make sure that you've got your bases covered and you understand your options and you're having a lot of conversations with lenders about the deal.

[54:00] Host: Well, this is one of those, Kristie, where I feel like you and your husband's naivete was, was an asset because you probably just wouldn't have even attempted it if you had known what you were getting into. And in fact, I feel like a lot of people are that way. It's like, oh, it's, it's in Canada or oh, it's not in the US for the Americans, the American buyers. It's like, I'm not even going to try. Just too complicated, easy enough to just move on to the next deal. Also huge, hugely important. It disqualifies the use of the SBA loan, which is of course instrumental for so many listeners and buyers.

Guest: Yes.

Host: So, so

Guest: it.

Host: Can you be more specific or maybe any like explicit examples of things you learned that the audience can skip over, but use your opinion and skip over and buying a business in Canada.

Guest: Yeah. So you're going to need to hire two sets of attorneys.

Host: What does it look like? Thank you. Sorry to interrupt, but what does it look like exactly? Who are all the players? What does your deal team look like when you're buying something? Cross border.

Guest: Yes. So we, so I'll start out by saying Alex is, my husband is dangerous enough to have done some of the initial quality of earnings work. So by the time we hired our team, we, we did have a pretty good understanding of what things looked like. So I'll maybe start there. And that was just. Alex is awesome in that sense and he's brilliant and could just really quickly do like an initial check. Once we had that check done on the quality of earnings, we did hire a formal, A firm to do like a formal Q of E, especially with all the currency conversions and whatnot. We're like, all right, like we really look at this. We did hire, we had our attorney here in Denver that we've worked with before that we enlisted right away to start getting, you know, going on the APA and the seller note and, and all of that. And then we also had to hire a Canadian law firm to make sure that all of the international components and requirements were accounted for in that apa. And then they also had to bring in a tax specialist to help us with the cross border tax issues, I guess you could call them, that we had to contend with. So it was a bigger team than we normally would have had for just a US Based acquisition. Simultaneously, we were working really closely with the sellers attorneys as well. So we had like a lot of lawyers on one call trying to navigate all of these different stipulations and making sure that regulations were being abided by and hitting requirements and all of that. So it was a pretty big team for the size of the acquisition. But I would not change that because I feel like we had the experts around us to get everything checked off the list.

[57:15] Host: And your lawyer there in Denver, new cross border stuff, because this strikes me as something that, you know, a firm would specialize in. It would be their niche, cross border deals or even niche within a niche, specifically Canadian deals. And just like, you know, wanting to work with a lender who's done a small business acquisition before or an attorney who's done a small business acquisition before, you know, it's its own beast. And so you want people who have seen this, seen this before. And, and I would, I would think, you know, doing a cross border thing is probably so complex. Maybe not maybe, but maybe it's so complex if You've never done it, but for people who, you know, attorneys who do it all year long, it's pretty straightforward. And so anyway, what do you say to that?

Guest: Yeah, so we had, I mean, we talked to a lot of different law firms and attorneys on kind of before deciding what our team was going to look like. We, we knew our attorney here in Denver. He does small business stuff. He's, he knows how to get deals done. So we felt really comfortable. Shout out Jim. We felt really comfortable with him. And then we just needed him to kind of coordinate and collaborate with the Canadians council to make sure that, that they informed us of how things work in Canada and what we need to accommodate for and all of that. So I did feel like separately, they both were great at the small business acquisition side of it. We just had to have that, like the communication across the teams to make sure that all the T's were crossed and I's were dotted where it did get complicated. I mean, my, like I blew a few fuses in my brain trying to understand. It was on the tax stuff. That was huge.

Host: Well, I'm not going to ask you a follow up on the tax.

Guest: Please don't ask me about the taxes because it doesn't sound, I don't know if I can tell you what we had to do anymore. All right.

Host: Okay. And so, and then what of the financing piece? So you just said that you had a bank. Bank pulls out at the last minute. You find a lender who's associated with, or a financing business company vendor associated with acquire.com. maybe you don't want to name them. So. But it was not an SBA situation. So you're basically doing this deal without an SBA, but with the intention that you eventually will because, spoiler, you now do have an SBA loan on this business. So. Working on it. Oh, you're working on it. Okay.

Guest: No, it's, yeah, there's been some fun learnings there too.

Host: So please walk us through all that.

Guest: Okay. So we went with the, we went with the private lender that we found through acquire.com. it was less than what we were expecting to get out of the, the debt portion of this deal. So to that end, we had negotiated a seller note simultaneously that covered like call it 20% of the cost of the deal. And then we had an equity raise. So the equity raise became more important once that lender pulled out and we had to pivot a little bit. So we had to raise more equity to make up for what we weren't getting out of the debt piece. I'll pause there.

[1:00:41] Host: So can you say how much equity?

Guest: Yes. So we raised. So kind of the way the numbers broke down was the debt was 800,000 USD. The seller note ended up being like roughly 415,000 USD, call it. And then we raised roughly a million in USD in our equity. Yes.

Host: So a million dollars in equity. So this is a highly equitized acquisition. 50. Fully 50%, basically. So roughly call it $2 million, the USD value. And that. Yeah, it was a Canadian price, but USD 2 million. So half of it, Fully half of it was equity. Okay.

Guest: More or less. Yeah.

Host: And so what are the implications of that? Because that does not happen very often with my guests. It means that you own less of the business, presumably a lot less than it would be in the, in a, you know, a 1010, 9, 101080 SBA deal. On the other hand, of course, a lot of equity also means less debt, means a lot more room. So it's much more comfortable in terms of meeting your debt payments. How did you think about it?

Guest: You know, that's a good question. So what, you know, what ended up happening too just on the ownership piece is like Alex and I both, we also pitched in more on even like the equity side once that loan fell through. So we had to give more of our money in the form of equity. So on the ownership piece, that wasn't as big, that wasn't like a concern, I guess, for us because we, we did end up putting in decent.

Host: A lot of your own money of that million. You guys put in a lot of it.

Guest: We, we put in a piece of it. We, we still, we were still, we were probably like 200,000 of it.

Host: Okay.

Guest: Towards the end to make up for that loan. That changed.

Host: Okay.

Guest: You know, truthfully, what it came down to is a couple of things. One, this is how we could get the deal done.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Like, this is how it was gonna have to be structured.

Host: Yep.

Guest: So I think, you know, I don't want to say we were boxed into that, but it was, it was the path that we saw to get the deal done. Two, you know, of that equity raise, it's, it's friends and family. Like we, this was self fund, like self funded, self search, self raised, whatever you want to call it. Again, I don't know what the right terms are here. Equitized. So but, you know, these are friends and family. And so we also wanted to provide people who are invested in us personally the opportunity to capitalize on the business opportunity. And our hope is that I Mean, the pressure's on me to give. Give them a return. And we've got amazing friends and family that were excited about that opportunity and supportive and wanted to pitch in. So there's also, I guess, for us, an element of, kind of a personal element on that equity side that was sort of driving the reason for why we structured it this way.

[1:03:54] Host: So you kind of liked the friends and family presence in your deal because you felt like assuming you deliver, no pressure. Christie, you liked. You were kind of sharing the wealth with your family and, you know, and. And they're invested in your success. I mean, it's. It's kind of really good alignment because it's not just economic alignment, but sort of emotional relational alignment, too.

Guest: Yes, that. Yes. Yeah, that's. Yes. Better words than I had.

Host: Better. Okay, well, just. Just clarifying. Okay. Okay. And so. And then we're. I'm watching the clock here, Christine. I want to make sure. Because there's still more to your story that I want to get to. Yeah, but you. Once you buy the business, do you have a plan to leave everything as is? I tease the. The SBA loan possibility. So. So what was the vision and what is it? What does it look like now?

Guest: Yeah, so we, again, really interesting learnings on the SBA side. We were not able to refinance it as quickly as we wanted to because of SBA rules and the way they categorize acquisition, like new business acquisitions versus refinancing versus, like, there's. Without getting technical. We. We ran into some blockers when we initially tried to go get it refinanced kind of out the gate. So we're pausing on the refinance until we have just. We just need a little bit more kind of history. History. Yeah, we need more financials. We need just for everybody to feel comfortable and that. That's fine. Eventually we will. It's. It's on the docket. But I would say patience is key on that.

Host: Okay, but. But the plan had been that you were going to assemble this capital stack to buy the business out of Canada and then immediately. So not going to happen. But the plan was immediately then to refinance it into an SB, a traditional SBA style 10, 1080 or 5. 1085 or whatever. Well, I guess there wouldn't be a seller note then, because you'd be your own seller. So it would just be. Yeah, it would just be the SBA debt and your equity. And so if. If that plan had come to pass, the idea was that you were going to immediately pay back many of your investors or make them whole or mostly whole.

[1:06:31] Guest: Yeah, yeah. The, the payback would certainly change. You know, at this point, it's looking like it's, it's definitely going to be a longer payback period just because of. That's where we are. Yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, again, like, having people that support us both personally and professionally and that are willing, like, they understand that and they.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: You know, we talk with them all the time about this, that I think that maybe there's some breathing room there, which is. Yeah. Nice. But, yeah, you know, the SBA thing was interesting. We, we did try and go to the sba. They wanted tax returns. Then we had to wait and then it was like questions of, well, do we have enough financial history? And so it's not been as clear cut.

Host: Yeah. And just so I, I'm assuming, or I'm kind of, what I'm hearing is to do a SBA 7 a loan, there needs to be. The business that's being acquired needs to have some financial history, and yours has none because you just formed this entity within the last, whatever year it was to Import Revenue Accelerator. So there's just not enough history. It's a brand new, relatively very, very young business and.

Guest: Correct. Okay, that's 100% correct.

Host: Okay. And sorry, when did you close?

Guest: We closed last August, early August 2023.

Host: Okay. Well, I guess the takeaway for the audience is there, there's a way to buy a business, a Canadian business.

Guest: Yes.

Host: If you're, if you're American, is for, of course, my American listeners, that is. But this idea that you can quickly, you know, kind of assemble a capitalist stack that, you know, 90 days later is just going to become a traditional SBA loan. Probably not going to happen, but you're still holding out hope. So maybe with some financial history in another year or two or three, you will be able to kind of do that scheme for lack of a. That plan. But in the meantime, you did find a source of financing that I assume is probably high. Yes. So one of your reasons for.

Guest: Buffer that in. Buffer that in to your. Yes. And that was. That was not what we wanted, but we could still get the deal done and the financials still made sense just based on the margins that we were working with, which is great. Yeah. But I would say that that was, you know, factoring into future cash flow, a ridiculous interest rate over a shorter term. We had to really build that in and see if it would work. So I like, if you're modeling this out I would plan on the term being shorter and the interest rate being higher and just you have to be able to make that work. Most likely. Most likely. Unless you've got a sweet deal somewhere.

[1:09:33] Host: Well, this would also be where it pencils because. Yeah, high margins in the business and because there's a lot of equity in the deal. Yeah, those. That sure helps that math. Okay. All right, Chrissy, let's return to the story. I want to just make sure we hit on. So circle us back now to you and your husband as partners in this project. Is he there full time or what does that look like today? And. And who. Whose project is this now?

Guest: Yeah. So I will start by saying this deal would not have gotten done without Alex. He was the deal maker and my guiding light in all of this. So I'm speaking now as like the CEO of Revenue Accelerator. But truly he was, he did so much of this and I wouldn't be here without his support and his brain, quite frankly. So I'll start by saying that the second piece of it is Alex knew. He knew the deal making piece of this equation. I knew the op. The business operations piece of this equation. So as soon as the deal was done, I don't want to say he stepped out because he's still done a lot of back end financial and kind of legal work that I didn't have time to do because I stepped straight into running the business. So he took a big step back as soon as we closed and I took the step into the CEO role for really from I guess the remainder of 2023, call it, he was still semi involved in the business trying to help where, you know, I needed him on, on certain pieces. But he's slowly transitioned out and it's primarily me running the day to day with kind of some consulting hours from my husband here and there. And that's worked great.

Host: And did that evolution just happen naturally or was it because it was just like he decided that this business wasn't for him or he didn't have a lot of value to add on a full time basis. Like when he, when you need him, he's there, but that's only a few hours a month sort of thing.

Guest: Yeah. So the details of what happened is we have this vision of kind of building a portfolio of small businesses that we own in the long run. So as soon as we closed and we kind of got things like stable and me operating and all of that, he actually continued the search for another business that he could step in to as an operator. Again, heartbreak got really close, really great conversations. Loi, due diligence, all of that stuff with almost like an ATM business, but slightly different. I won't go into the details because it's kind of confusing. And that fizzled. Just died a slow, painful, ambiguous death. And so he decided. We decided. But he. He had an opportunity kind of fall into his lap to be the CFO for a local orthopedic group. Group, which kind of plays on his healthcare background. And just, you know, there's some learnings here. I think we have, you know, we're building a family. We're expecting an August.

[1:13:00] Host: Congratulations.

Guest: I have. Yeah, like, I have. I have maybe more risk on the revenue accelerator, entrepreneurial side. Pairing that with a stable job right now that Alex can have is actually great for us. And kind of going back to like, my, like corporate America versus entrepreneurship. I don't think that one is right or wrong or good or bad. It's just what makes the most sense. Like, I loved my corporate time, and right now it makes sense for Alex to have a corporate job. And it doesn't mean the, like, full dream of entrepreneurship that we have is dead. It just means right now, in this moment, you know, we've got to make things work for our situation. And that's what he's doing. So. So he stepped into that. He's really enjoying it.

Host: What a team.

Guest: Really, you know, it's. It took a lot of conversations though, because kind of going back to that, like, who do we want to be in the world? What do we want to put out there? We were so committed to. We are committed. I shouldn't say past tense. Like, we are committed to building the life we want. Entrepreneurship is our preferred and primary path, but we also have to be smart about it and understand what's our risk tolerance based on these other factors going on in our lives. And so, you know, it's not 100% what we would have liked, I guess, but it was a good situation and it's what we had to do and it's working great.

Host: So, Chrissy, you might be my first pregnant guest.

Guest: Really?

Host: Well, you're my third woman. No, I'm exaggerating, but you're probably barriers here. Probably had less than in 10. I might be forgetting some people, but probably not. So how are you thinking about maternity leave? So you're due in August and are you. So not only are you having to transition this business, although August 2023 is. Yeah. So baby's due one year.

Guest: Babies do almost a year to the day from when we closed on this

[1:15:03] Host: deal, man, there's a, a metaphor symbol in there somewhere.

Guest: There's something there.

Host: So, so you're not only transitioning this business, you're also thinking to yourself, how is this business going to keep running when I'm on maternity leave? What are your thoughts there?

Guest: Well, my thoughts waver between, oh, and everything's going to be fine. Basically just bounce pingpong between those two. And this has been, this is, I'm navigating new waters here, right? Like, this is my first child. I, I'm a new CEO, I'm a new business. Like, all of these things are new. So in terms of how I'm thinking about it, one, we have an awesome team at Revenue accelerator and they will be completely fine without me. I. 100%. Like I said, a lot of them are long tenured, they're smart, they know what to do. Probably I don't even need to be in half the meetings that I'm in because they've just got it under control. And that was one thing that I, yeah, I really, I saw that in the business even when we were kind of in the diligence phase and initial month or two, extremely impressed by the team. So I do feel really, that's such an asset.

Host: I'm glad you surfaced that because I didn't get it earlier, that's, that's so valuable.

Guest: Amazing people, truly. So those, those are the moments. I'm like, okay, everything's gonna be fine. But you know, I, like, honestly, I'm. It's all new and it's scary to step out of a business that now I feel so invested in to take care of a baby, which I have no idea how to do. And like all of that is like, oh my gosh, you know, how is this gonna look and feel? And it's completely new territory. And quite honestly, I, I don't know what to expect there. So there's a little bit of honest ambiguity that I just have to be okay with.

Host: And working, being the boss, being the owner, you, you don't have to, you know, go to your employer with your hand out and say, well, you know, what maternity leave can I have or is being offered? You get to decide that sounds like you're not deciding that in advance. You're going to play it by ear and see how things go a little.

Guest: Yeah, I, I will, I will. Unless there are major issues and healing that needs to happen, I will likely not be out for the standard three months of maternity leave that most people take. I will, you know, I have to find the balance of taking care of myself and adapting to a completely new life as, as a mom, with easing myself back into the business and being available for big, you know, issues and conversations and all of that and helping out, but I don't know a hundred percent what that looks like. And I'm gonna flex with it and just sort of see how it plays out. For all I know, it's gonna, I'm gonna be six weeks out and then, like, itching to send an email and like, yeah, get in there, you know, Or I'm gonna be like, I can only have, I only have time for like, two meetings today, and I got all this other stuff to do, so we'll see. Yeah, I have some thoughts, I have some preferences, but you never really know how it's gonna all play out.

[1:18:30] Host: Well, Christy, the ambiguity, you're, you're doing really well with it. You seem, I'm serious. You seem really like you're just absorbing the ambiguity. Well, it doesn't seem. Which is, which is, you know, how somebody should approach lots of changes going on.

Guest: What you don't see is the, like, 2am pregnancy, insomnia, like, freakouts. Like, what, what am I going to do?

Host: Oh, so I'm catching a good moment. I'm glad we're not having the interview at 2am yeah, let's.

Guest: Don't, don't have this conversation at 2am When I'm not sleeping and freaking out.

Host: Okay. Well, speaking of freakouts, before I let you go, I, I, I do want to hear about some of the transition bad points, because it, it wasn't. You've had some moments. Tell us about those moments. So that the low point that this hasn't been unicorns and rainbows.

Guest: Yes. Yes. So the, the lowest point cumulatively is that in the first. Really. So August to December, call it. So the first five months or four months whatever of owning the business, we lost 55% of our clients. Yep. That's my phase two. And that was a very strong moment of contention for me. The reason we lost 55% of our clients primarily had nothing to do with the transition, but some of them did have to do with the transition. And we expected, we expected some turnover. Just kind of natural new owner. It's a break in time that people, can they reevaluate. Do I still want to do this? So we expected some churn. I did not expect 55% of our clients.

Host: 55%. And does that loosely map to also 55% of revenue?

Guest: Mostly, yes.

Host: Oh, gosh. Okay.

Guest: Yes. So that was a real low point, realizing that we were losing a lot of clients in a very small timeframe, and especially for a company that, you know, we had analyzed client retention and it was, you know, there's always turnover in this business. That's fine. But it was relatively sticky. So it. It came as a surprise to have that many people leave. So we then had to, you know, I had to turn my focus immediately, not on growth, but on stabilization. And so trying to win back that revenue in terms of new client acquisition, just to maintain what we were doing in terms of revenue. So that was not expected and very stressful. We were able. We actually were able to replace all of those clients and then grow on top of it. So by. By February of this. Of 2024, we had replaced and then stacked on top. So I'm really proud of that because that was really hard and scary in the moment.

[1:21:49] Host: Good for you. Wow, thanks.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Well, and I have to ask all congratulations, Chrissy. But, but I. But I also have to say, if you were able to. Out of absolute terror, admittedly, but if you were. If you were able to grow the business by basically 100%. Right. So if it drops 55%, call it 50% for easy math, and you get back to where you were, that means you. You doubled from where it had fallen. So if you were able to double the business in what, three months. Ish.

Guest: Call it four. Let's get. Let's. Yeah, extend it out a little bit.

Host: Four months. The obvious question is, well, if you do more of that for another four months and four months and four months, can we keep doubling or can. Can we keep, you know, at least, you know, the same amount, whatever that quantity of 50 represented. Can you do that again and again and again? Or was this just like a one and done? You couldn't, you couldn't just keep repeating that.

Guest: I think that we have a. So it's a nuanced answer. If economic conditions were not changing probably the way they are right now, I think that we could play that out over and over again. I also had a lot of people, like, from my network that were interested in what we were doing with me as a new owner. So I did pull in some new client acquisitions from that. Yep. Just general interest and network and all of that. I think now what we're seeing, I mean, we're still on a growth path, but people are just holding their dollars a little bit closer. And so. But we're just losing on to budget constraints more or less. So I would love to Say we could repeat that over and over and I do think we can keep growing at a good clip. I don't know if it's going to be quite at the same percentage rate, but, but the opportunity is definitely there.

Host: When you lost half your business in the first few months, did you, I mean, how bad did it get emotionally? You just talked about being up at 2am because of this impending pregnancy. Well, what's. Which, which nights were more sleepless? The ones you're having now or the, the ones back then?

Guest: I don't know. They're equivalent.

[1:24:00] Host: Okay, I guess let me reframe. Christy, like so you and I talked in the pre call about how business acquisition is painted. Rosalie, It's a very kind of, you know, lots of great stories out there, including from this podcast, but that the reality is often not quite so rosy.

Guest: Yeah, I think that Alex and I both, we, well, we both knew and I, he had a very acute understanding and I had a good understanding of that Coming into this was going to be a lot of work and it wasn't going to be sunshine and rainbows and there were going to be things that went wrong and I was braced for the effort which helped with stress management. I would say, yeah, I wasn't prepared to have, I don't think I scrambled, but I wasn't prepared to have to work that hard to replace half of our business that quickly. Yeah, that was a surprise. And then the other piece that I would say kept me up at night, so to speak, and probably literally was just trying realizing the investments I had to make in the business very quickly because and this is not a knock on the seller, so don't take it that way. He just, he wasn't as invested personally. He was ready to sell, he was ready to leave. And so there were just gaps in, in the business that we needed to fill, that needed to be reinvested in and we needed to spend money. And, and so I don't think I expected to have to come in and spend as much both in terms of personnel, process, tech, all of that. So when you're losing, when you're losing your clients and you're realizing this is massively underfunded or under resourced on in these four places. That's a scary place to be.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: And so navigating that, that was the hardest part was the whole context of the situation. Now fortunately, I have Alex, who I'm the emotional one in the relationship and he's like steady, logical, like consistent guy and so I needed his voice to help, help Me focus on the long term and not just what was in front of me immediately right out the gate as a new CEO. So I don't know if that answers your question. It does, but yes.

Host: Good job husband. Alex. Good job husband.

Guest: Go Alex.

Host: Go Alex. Christy, anything else?

Guest: I think the only other thing, and this sort of piggybacks on even mentioning the difference between Alex and I as individuals and the balance in our partnership is I got emotionally attached quickly to every deal that we looked that we got close on, I should say, right. The ones we were really invested in, I would get really emotionally attached. And Alex was way better probably because he had had more repetition in this. He was much better at just being objective in the search. Now part of that's also personality. Like I'm the one who like I walk into an open house, right? If I'm like. And I'm like, oh, this could be beautiful and like I see the vision and I like can see myself, you know, like living there and painting this room. That like that's my, that's the way my brain works. So that certainly played out. And I think that for me though, in some ways that was a really good thing and drove me in my urgency and persistence of wanting to buy revenue accelerator and pushing through some of those like real cross border hangups and moments where it's like, oh my gosh, now we gotta find new funding really fast, we gotta raise more over here. And like those moments of reckoning, I guess having that emotional attachment was important for me and I think that. I don't know that I think people are really scared of getting attached. Do you see that in like your conversations or. It's.

[1:28:11] Host: It's really interesting. I would. Two reactions to that, Christie. First is there's a sweet spot because you don't want to fall in love with a deal that could be a bad deal. And because your emotions got the better of you, you find yourself buying a bad business. The only thing worse than not buying a business is buying a bad business. Right? So that is a peril, an emotional peril. On the other hand, because getting a deal across the finish line is so difficult and protracted and particularly when you're, when there's this other layer of doing it cross border it was just really bound to be very fraught as indeed it was. And so you also, on the other hand you do need your excitement and enthusiasm to on focus fuel you during those moments where it's like ah, effort. We should just walk, you know, so, so it's. It kind of like you can. It can like, like many emotions. You can. It can work against you or work for you. And knowing how and when to deploy it is important. The other thing I would say is that probably, like, I mean, to repeat what you said, Alex probably is personality. It's probably a personality thing and an experience thing that he knows not to get too attached to deals. But what's so. It's so interesting is that you see it as an asset, which. And you. And you've explained it well because mostly on the podcast, we just talk about it as apparel. That you don't want to fall in love with the business because you don't want to buy that bad business and so on. And so. And yet even still a lot of people are like you, where they get excited and they do get attached. And even though they've heard 100 podcast episodes where. And they. It's been drilled into them. They shouldn't fall in love with a business and that you need to keep objectivity. They're devastated when. When the deal falls apart anyway. Even though, you know, they. They knew better than that. It's just really hard to control your emotions as a human.

[1:30:10] Guest: Yeah.

Host: So anyway, those are my two reactions. I forgot what your question was to

Guest: me, but it's just kind of curious. Yeah. Because I think Alex is all. Alex is and was always very cautious of getting attached. And I, I. That's part of the reason why we're married is we're like really good counterbalance here.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: But just finding that. Finding what I appreciated about getting emotionally involved and, and the, the fuel that that provided.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Paired with the discipline to walk away. Because we did walk away from a lot of deals. Yeah. And I'm glad we walked away from each of those. So, like, finding that balance, I would say, like, that's where I found the sweet spot. As opposed to just trying to be like, pure objective in this whole entrepreneurship thing. Cause it's. It's just not that simple.

Host: Well, that's the word. Right. Balance. That is the word is. And it does sound like you guys have this great pairing of, um. And, you know, forgive me. I hope I don't get canceled. But like, it also just. It's perfectly gendered. Yeah.

Guest: You know, 100%.

Host: The male is the rational one and the female is the emotional one.

Guest: 100%.

Host: Okay.

Guest: So we know that it's fact. It's fine.

Host: Yeah. And most people don't have that. You know, most people are just have one or the other. And, and going back to the, The. The. Your emotion and enthusiasm being an asset. I also do think that something isn't talked about a lot on the podcast, but here and there is this X factor. So rather there's, there is, it's very hard to quantify. Maybe it's unquantifiable, but there is value in, in getting excited and being, being excited for the business you buy. You like Ra. It's, it just, it shouldn't all be just this quantitative analysis. There should be an X factor that's like that, you know, that just has you motivated. I mean, that's why you're doing this. You know that you're doing it, you're, you're doing it to do something that feels good in your life and to take your life in a direction. So it should, it should, it should, it should make you get out of bed. Yeah. So, so I don't think that that, so I think that that's a really important feature of your deal that should, should be in most people's deals.

Guest: Just, just, just lean into your feelings. All you, all, all the guys are that are. Listen. Yeah. Lean into your feelings.

Host: Yeah. Also to, also telling that this is the first conversation I'm having like this on the podcast when my guest, my guest happens to be, happens to be a woman. But yes, but hey, I'm an, I'm an emotional guy. So I, I, I like, I, I do think that my species could benefit from a little bit more emotion. We men. Interesting digression. What else, Christy? What else?

[1:33:05] Guest: No, I don't, Yeah, I mean, we can talk about the meaning of life and existence and all of that too,

Host: but how can people reach you, Christy, if they have questions, I would probably.

Guest: LinkedIn is the best. I'm active on there. Shoot me a message. Just say that you heard me here because I also get a lot of messages there, but that's, that's probably the easiest.

Host: All right, well, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for coming on. Christie. Congratulations on an acquisition, a cross border acquisition and new addition to the family in August. And just all the many things you got going on in your life. And hello to Alex, who's, who's, what's the expression? His ears are buzzing or whatever. All right, thanks a lot.