Key Points From the Interview
t's mosquito spraying week here at Acquiring Minds.
Coincidentally, two guests I wanted to interview both bought resales in the Mosquito Joe franchise system, and at around the same time.
Today's guest is Jesse Sunquist.
If you've been listening to Acquiring Minds for a while, you'll remember Jesse from this time last year.
I had had him on to expand on a thoughtful essay he'd published online about being 1 year into his full-time search, but still not having found a business to buy.
One of the things he talked about then, and we hit on again today, is how his search criteria needed to evolve.
With a wife & 2 kids (now 3), he wasn't going to move for his search, and in a market without a lot of deal flow, he realized he needed to relax his SDE criteria and be open to smaller businesses in the $300k SDE range.
That did the trick.
Jesse found & closed on this Mosquito Joe resale a few months later.
Today Jesse and I revisit his challenging search and talk about what life is like today, as owner-operator of a small blue collar business within a franchise network.
Ever thoughtful, Jesse brings tons of observations & reflections.
A theme to listen for in today's episode, and Thursday's with my other guest who bought a Mosquito Joe franchise, is how both of them have designs on growing their businesses by buying more territories — something that being in a franchise system makes relatively smooth.
A.J. Wasserstein at Yale's School of Management calls this strategy programmatic acquisition.
Very soon after Jesse's acquisition, he experiended firsthand the potential in the strategy.
OK, and on Thursday you'll hear from Neil Finneran, who also bought a Mosquito Joe franchise resale some months ago.
Neil is a former hedge fund guy, a former CFO, so as you can imagine he too has lots of reflections about his new professional path.
OK, please enjoy this conversation with Jesse Sunquist, owner of a Mosquito Joe territory in New Jersey.
