uying a business solved an issue in the future life of today's guest and her husband.

They were both MBAs at Kellogg business school, so career would be important to both of them.

But it was going to be difficult to find great jobs for both Ivona Butcher and her husband in the same place at the same time.

Not to mention Ivona is Czech, and the couple expected to spend some years of their lives in the Czech Republic.

The chances were low that they would both find work there to match their ambitions.

Buying and building a business — together, in the Czech Republic — solved for all of this.

Ivona and I spend time on:

• Working with US-based search investors to buy a Czech-based business
• Challenges and opportunities of buying a business in a small country, where they were the first known search fund
• How to get press so that when owners Google you, you seem legit
• Renegotiating a bank loan, buying out a seller note at a huge discount
• Surviving Covid, when revenue dropped to literally zero
• Then, emerging from that existential crisis to double earnings, which are today above €2m.

Please enjoy this conversation with Ivona Butcher, co-CEO at BEIRE.