s his 40th birthday approached, today's guest started to feel the now-or-never pull of entrepreneurship.

So Jonathan Taylor left a 15-year tech career to journey into business ownership.

Jonathan closed on a distribution business a year and a half ago.

Like many distribution businesses, AEK Technology has concentration — but not on the customer side. Many of the products it sells come from a single supplier.

‍Jonathan and I unpack this risk and how he's mitigated it.

Note how common this is in distribution businesses. The acquisitions of my last two interviews with entrepreneurs who bought distribution businesses — Phil Koller and Shaun Stimpson — also had supplier concentration.

Also listen for the segment on over-equitization.

‍Jonathan elected to raise more investor capital than necessary to put his project on firmer footing, and he gave up some ownership to do so.

There is wisdom in this, self-funded searchers. It's tempting to own as much of the pie as possible, which typically means more leverage and/or less cash post-acquisition on both your business's balance sheet and on your personal balance sheet.

But as you know, the reverse — less leverage and more cash reserves — is more likely to set you up for success.

And speaking of success, Jonathan has grown revenue 40% and EBITDA 30% in the year and a half that he's owned his business.

Here he is, Jonathan Taylor, owner of AEK Technology.