[00:00:00 - 00:04:03]

Will Smith: I think it's fair to generalize that for those self funded searchers who listen to Acquiring Minds, today's guest has achieved the dream. Linh Tran started small, too small. A commercial refrigeration business with $300,000 in SDE. On paper it was actually more like $150,000, says Linh. So a tiny fragile business, a business where one technician leaving means revenue collapses.

And from that humble acquisition, Linh built the business into one, generating two and $3 million of EBITDA, at which point he stepped aside and hired a CEO. And that business today does north of 5 million of EBITDA. Linh owns all of it. He's a long term holder, not looking to sell. We discuss why and he's an investor, so he redeploys and compounds those annual earnings.

But today's interview is about much more than those big numbers. Linh shares so much perspective with us. Leadership, investing, family and time are all key themes woven throughout Linh's life and this interview. You're really going to enjoy his story and the man himself who is easy and down to earth despite his inspiring success. Here is Linh Tran, owner of Advanced Commercial Group and co founder of Apex Fund Group.

Many of you will seek capital from search investors to help support your acquisition of a business. And today, Thursday, November 20th, we're hosting a webinar on what a good investor pitch looks like. Chelsea Wood of Acquisition Lab and Andrew Hippert of Shareholder Ventures will break down what search investors look for in acquisition entrepreneurs. How to present your background as credible to run a business even if you're changing industries. How to avoid the most common search investor red flags, the narrative frameworks that help investors say yes and many other topics.

That is today, Thursday, November 20th, noon Eastern. Link to register is right at the top of this episode's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiring Minds Co.

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. What do the following Acquiring Minds guests.

All have in common?

Doug Johns, Morli Desai, Tim Erickson, Chirag Shah, Shane Ehrsam. They all went through the Acquisition Lab, the accelerator in community for people serious.

About buying a business.

But they represent just a sliver of.

The Lab's success stories.

The number of deals across the Lab's cohorts now stands at over 120, with over $300 million in aggregate transaction value.

The Acquisition Lab was founded by Walker.

Deibel, author of Buy Then Build the book that introduced so many of you to the very idea of buying a business. The Lab offers a month long, intensive, almost daily Q and A sessions with advisors, live Deal reviews with Walker Deal team introductions and an active community of serious searchers. Check out acquisitionlab.com link in the notes or email the lab's co founder, Chelsea Wood.

Chelsea buy then build.com Linh Tran welcome to Acquiring Minds.

[00:04:03 - 00:04:05]

Linh Tran: Thanks Will Linh.

[00:04:05 - 00:04:30]

Will Smith: I have been really looking forward to this interview since we connected a few weeks ago. There is so much to your story. There are the headline numbers which by themselves are remarkable.

But there is even more richness behind those numbers. How you've built what you've built and your philosophies behind it all. Let's get right into it. Linh, some background on you to start, please.

[00:04:32 - 00:06:33]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no.

So I went to school actually to be a doctor and thought I was going to be a doctor. Ended up passing out in the ER twice right before med school. So I said, hey, let me take a year off, maybe explore the world. Did AmeriCorps for a year out in the west coast and then met some people. They said, hey, what are you doing next year?

I said, I don't know, I don't want to go back to med school. We moved to Atlanta together, honestly, just started with an investment firm, knew nothing about investments. But that was probably my first lesson in that it's, it's who you know, not exactly what you know. And I got along well with the investing group. This was in the 90s and people were like, oh, you were great at investing.

I was like, no, not really. It was the 90s, it was the dot com era. I could literally throw a dart on the dartboard and think a winner. But I think doing that really kind of gave me the background to work with a lot of entrepreneurs since the entrepreneurs were the ones with the money to invest. And I probably started my journey and saying, hey, I think I can do this too.

And so did that for a while, investing, went back to business school, ran some Internet businesses in business school, like including a textbook business, importing textbooks, you know, over from Thailand, which is a whole new funny story. And then went back to my pre MBA firm and then about 2010, got married, had my first daughter and then had my second daughter and just started noticing that I was missing all of their, their dance recitals and, and things like that. And so I said, hey, you know what, I have a pretty good life but I'm not free to do what I want with who I want, when I want. And that was when I started my, at the time I didn't know what it was called. It's, it's now called self funded search.

But at the time it was simply me saying I can't start over. I can't do a startup because I need income, because I have, I'm married with two kids in a house and so I need to buy a company that is already functioning and grow it. That was, that was my thesis.

[00:06:33 - 00:06:51]

Will Smith: So, and so this was early days of, of Capital S search, or ETA as we know it. So to be clear, you didn't, you weren't exposed to this concept at all at business school.

This was all of your, from your own imaginings, this idea that you'd buy an existing business.

[00:06:52 - 00:07:13]

Linh Tran: That's exactly right. Like in my mind I just made it up. And you know, I found out about ETA because I, I got a call from actually a former Duke basketball camp to do, said hey, you know, I heard you did eta. And I said, I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, didn't you buy a business and grow it? It's like, oh, I did do that. And so, you know, we've become, we've become friends. And yeah, that's, that's how I learned that it was called eta.

[00:07:14 - 00:07:26]

Will Smith: Well then it, it makes it a little harder for me to say, well what were the criteria of your search?

Because you probably weren't thinking about it as systematically as people do today. But indulge me in, in kind of what did you go out into the market looking for?

[00:07:26 - 00:09:12]

Linh Tran: Sure. So you know, I actually did have a kind of a list of things that I want which, which is holds true today, ironically enough. And so when I went out there, what I said was I want to buy a business.

And you know, again, I've been running, you know, small ebay businesses, import export businesses, you know, on, at Duke and on my own. And I found that really I did well when I went somewhere where nobody was there, right. Like I didn't follow trends, I went to new places. And so what I said was I want to do a business where everybody in that business does not look like me. And so what am I?

I am a, you know, post mba Asian graduate. Let me find a company that is, that doesn't look like me. And that's how I landed on a very old, primarily Caucasian driven, low technology businesses. So I wanted something that was low tech, did not have Asians in it because funny anecdote, during med school, I still, and I still need to look up this guy's name. But he told me, hey, you know, your MCATs are good and your grades are pretty good, but you're pretty average for an Asian guy.

And that, that, that, that kind of tripped me out. And I laughed so hard. He says, hey, you know, you go to med school if you want, but what would you do if you didn't do med school? And we had about a two hour conversation on business. And that's when he said, I think that's what you like.

That was kind of, you know, kind of game changing. But that stuck with me to saying, hey, if I'm a, quote, an average Asian guy, I need to do something where, you know, there aren't any other Asian guys in it. And so I chose, I chose the trades, right? I said, hey, I think I need to go into the trades. And, you know, I think that it's, I call them the three Rs, which you'll hear, you know, consistently through this interview.

It's recession proof, it's required services, and it's recurring. That's what I wanted.

[00:09:12 - 00:09:18]

Will Smith: Yeah, well, the difference 15 years makes, Linh, I don't think anybody would say that to you today.

[00:09:19 - 00:09:43]

Linh Tran: That's it, you know, it's, you know, for all the, your listeners out there, I still have imposter syndrome today. It's like a lot of it's luck.

A lot of it is just kind of getting out there and just grinding, but in a smart way, right? Like just not, you know, grinding, you know, for hours on end for. With nothing but just. I always feel like there's a little bit of imposter syndrome there, saying I shouldn't be doing as well as I am, but somehow, you know, keeps on working.

[00:09:43 - 00:10:10]

Will Smith: What about the hesitation that so many people have that precisely, you know, parachuting into a business where the culture is so different than where so many searchers come from is exactly where things can fall apart.

That's something that everybody tries to overcome and, and it's a, it's a, it's a flaw to this whole search project, not a strength. You, you leaned into it, you sought it out. That's so counterintuitive.

[00:10:10 - 00:10:27]

Linh Tran: Yeah, it is. Not only did I seek it out, but I think I might have mentioned this to you in one of our earlier conversations that my first company that I acquired, nobody knew I acquired it for a year and a half.

I came in there as the IT guy and so, you know, again, say more.

[00:10:27 - 00:10:28]

Will Smith: Say more.

[00:10:28 - 00:10:28]

Linh Tran: You, You.

[00:10:28 - 00:10:30]

Will Smith: What do you mean as the IT guy?

[00:10:30 - 00:11:14]

Linh Tran: Literally think of a company that's you know, average age is probably over 50 or 60 Caucasian males.

I came in one day, and I think somebody said, hey, are you here to fix my computer? Are you the IT guy? And I said, yep. And I decided that that was what I was going to be. I thought that was going to be for maybe a week or two.

And it turned out to be about a year and a half that that happened. And so, and the, the way that happened was because the person that I purchased the company from stayed on, right? He had a. A year employment contract. I said, well, you know, let's.

Let's see where this goes. You know, I, I hear there's a. What, what's that show? Undercover Boss. Everyone says, oh, you Undercover Boston?

I'm like, I. I never saw the show, but I guess that's what I did.

[00:11:14 - 00:11:25]

Will Smith: I, I haven't seen the show either. But what did you. What were you doing for that year, year and a half, other. Once you finished fixing people's computers, how could you, you know, tell people what to do or did you tell people what to do?

[00:11:25 - 00:14:27]

Linh Tran: Yeah, so great question. I did not fix their computers. I basically outsourced that at night, oh, your computer's broken. I'll fix it by tomorrow. I'd have to give it to somebody else.

But what that allowed me to do, Will, is to get to know the people, right? And I think that's kind of a lesson that is. Treats me well today is they didn't see me as the person coming in there wrecking their lives. This, you know, because that's honestly what a lot of employees think when you have a searcher come in, it's like, oh, this. You know, once they figured out who I was, they would call me the Wall street guy or the B school kid, right?

It's like they don't know my business. And I think that allowed me to go in there and say, hey, I don't know your business. Tell me what you would, you know, what you would change, you know, and, you know, you really kind of go in there and you ask questions, right? Like, you know, our dispatch board was post IT notes on the wall. And I'd say, you know, I'd say that the classic searcher would say, oh, you got post IT notes on the wall.

We need to make this crazy CRM system where we can put dispatches in and do all this. But I knew that was going to be disruptive, so I just asked the admin at the time, hey, what happens if the door opens and these post IT notes blow away, what would you do? And so I remember the next day I came in, she said, ling, you were absolutely right. I put tape on them now, so now they're not going to blow away, right? So that was like version 1.0, then 1.2, right?

So then it came from tape on the post, it notes to, you know, magnets on a steel board, to taking a picture of that so that she could go on vacation, right? Because I'd say, hey, well, what are you going to do when you go on vacation? Well, just take a picture of it and send it to me every morning and I'll. I'll move the board around and, you know, things like that would happen. And so, you know, the point of that story is that I enabled people who were there to come up with their own ideas on how to fix the problem.

And I would guide them, right? I would guide them and say, hey, you know, maybe instead of a picture, here's something called Excel, you know, that we can put on a Dropbox, right? And so you just kind of help them grow into their own, you know, their own kind of problem set and solution set. And, you know, it was great. I think the only time that it was figured out was I remember one of my managers, we were going out somewhere and, you know, he said, hey, you know, the, you know, our CEO, our owner, he's, you know, he never really listens to us, but ever since she came on board, like, he's a lot more receptive to the ideas like this one.

And then another guy said, wait a minute, that wasn't his idea. That was Linh's idea. He told me about that. Oh, no, that wasn't my idea. That was your idea.

No, no, that was your idea. And so someone said, hey, do you, do you own the company? Like, do you like, what's going on here, right? And so by that time, there was a year and a half, and it's like I invested with the owner and we're still partners today. Actually, he's one of my best friends and father figure to me.

And, you know, he's. He's one of those guys who, you know, didn't have a formal education, but it's one of the smartest business people I know. And so, yeah, and, and I, and I still give that advice to people today is, I know you want to get the old owner out of there quickly, but there's so much tribal knowledge stored in there that if you can keep that person engaged and extract as much information as you can, that's only going to benefit you, right?

[00:14:28 - 00:15:26]

Will Smith: That was. There's so much there, Linh.

But just to follow up with a few things. First of all, on the way that you were guiding people to kind of embrace technology, you know, step by step by step, little by little, it sounds like you approached it that way not because that's your, you know, quote, leadership style, but because they saw you as a peer, so you couldn't really mandate. That was the only way that you were going to make changes. Because. Because from their perspective, you were just the IT guy, so you couldn't tell them what to do.

Kind of interesting. And I guess over the 12 and 18 months that you were working kind of shoulder to shoulder with them and, you know, not scared to be in the trenches. In fact, in the very. In the trenches very much with them, you were earning trust. But there, there is the obvious question of, like, you had been undercover and so when this reveal happened that, oh, actually Linh is owner or part owner of this business, do you think that there was a cost and trust to that?

And, and, and, and follow up to that, would you advocate searchers do a similar thing about the being the underco?

[00:15:28 - 00:16:59]

Linh Tran: So, to be clear, I never lied. No one ever asked me, right? And I always told myself, when someone asks me, I will say it, but no one asked me. They just assumed that I was the IT guy.

And so I would say never to go in and lie, but I would definitely say that, you know, my advice is always to go in there and say, this is a partnership, right? Like, you know, if was coming in there and Will, you're at the company, Will, I. I know nothing about this company. Like, be very, very, very humble, right? You're the reason, Will, why this company has done x EBITDA for 10 years. My goal is not to change that.

My goal is to help put the supporting staff around you that you want, that you need, right? Like, what are the things that you wish you could do, Will, if you had the time, right? What are the things that you like to do, right? And, you know, that's kind of what I like. I do.

And I would say that once people found out that I was the owner, there was a little bit of tension, right? Like, I would get the classic, oh, you're the owner. You do what you want, right? Like, and I would say, and I still say to this day, that's a lazy answer, right? I'm not going to do what I want because I'm the owner.

I'm going to do something because I believe in it. But if you don't believe that I'm correct. You need to speak up. This is your company too. Right.

And so it's, it's the ability to have kind of what I call just tension, but respectful tension. Right. And that we don't have to, you know, all like each other, but we have to professionally want to work together. Yeah. But honestly, I think everybody at my company, they typically like each other because when you have that professional, you know, kind of camaraderie, the personal side's a lot easier to go through as well.

[00:17:00 - 00:17:00]

Will Smith: Sure, sure.

[00:17:00 - 00:17:03]

Linh Tran: It probably self selects if I'm to be honest.

[00:17:04 - 00:18:11]

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And so after it became clear that you were actually the owner, did things change anymore?

[00:18:12 - 00:18:28]

Linh Tran: Yeah, I don't think things changed. I think by that time they knew who I was. They knew that, hey, if this guy wasn't going to force things down our throats, that he's not going to do it now. And I did.

Yeah, right. And I, and I always use data. I mean, I remember they, you know, they always have these quote sheets that I had.

[00:18:28 - 00:18:28]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:18:28 - 00:18:45]

Linh Tran: My quote that they had was without the data.

I appreciate your opinion. Right. And so it's, they knew, hey, you got to come to the link with data and if you can do something and you could test it and fail fast and fail cheap. That was another one of my quotes was fail fast, fail cheap. He's not going to bother you.

[00:18:45 - 00:18:45]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:18:45 - 00:18:57]

Linh Tran: No one ever got fired from our companies for making a mistake. They were only, you know, let go if they doubled down and wouldn't admit to the mistake and just wouldn't, wouldn't change with the times. Right.

[00:18:57 - 00:19:04]

Will Smith: So Lang, I'm getting the picture of somebody who's a pretty effective leader.

Had you been in leadership roles before this experience.

[00:19:06 - 00:19:57]

Linh Tran: No, not really. No, not really. I think I just, you know, it's just one of those things where probably a big kind of life changing moment for me was, you know, I got a tumor in the early 2000s and, you know, nothing kind of gets you prepared for that, right? Especially, you know, in your young twenties thinking you're going to die. And so I just remember thinking to myself, hey, if I make it through this, you know, then I'm going to be a good person and I'm going to try to act in a way where, you know, if I'm on my deathbed, two things happened, right?

Is I want people to say, hey, he was a good guy. And two is I didn't want to say. And I don't think I would have said. I would never say. I wish I'd worked more, right.

So on my deathbed. So those kind of two things came out of it. So I think my leadership style is, I think, just a natural. Treat people how I wanted to be treated.

[00:19:57 - 00:19:57]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:19:57 - 00:20:04]

Linh Tran: Like the things that I hated about corporate, I made a very strong effort to make sure that I wasn't, quote, corporate. Right?

[00:20:04 - 00:20:05]

Will Smith: Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:05 - 00:20:17]

Linh Tran: And that's, that's obviously a lot to unpack, right? Because it's like corporate means be nice, but corporate doesn't mean, you know, lose money and, you know, irritate your clients.

Right? Like that doesn't, you know, Exactly.

[00:20:17 - 00:20:54]

Will Smith: And just to press on you a little bit, Linh, I think that leadership is something that's easy to, you know, kind of write down and explain what is good in the abstract, but to actually do it and to be a good guy, because of course, just being a pushover is terrible leadership. So it's, it's threading the needle of being a good guy, good, kind, but strong person and, and having comfortable tension, as you put it, you put it a different way. But having respectful, Respectful tension.

That's right. Like that, that is, that is art. And I, I think quite, quite elusive to many people. So you probably have some natural ability there.

[00:20:54 - 00:21:54]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, and I think it's.

And I think you can learn about it, right. Like a lot of my managers aren't like that. And I have to tell them, you know, you have, you can be kind, you can. Even when you're letting people go, you can let them go with dignity. Right?

Like, you know, it's, it. There's ways to. And a perfect example of this is I remember I had a manager who came on board who said, you know, hey, I'm going to work here. And I Said, oh, man, we've been trying to land you for years. You know, you didn't talk to a single person at the company and now you're here.

What, what happened? He goes, oh, I interviewed everybody who used to work for you and I said, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Just went on LinkedIn, I just saw who was former worker and I said, how was Linh to work with? They said, you know what, I never, I didn't always agree with Linh, but I always knew where I stood with him and I never thought that he was stabbing me in the back.

And we parted on good terms and I'm like, that's perfect. That's exactly what I want. We don't have to, you know, it doesn't have to be a good match here because I am pretty hard with my metrics, I would have to say. But another quote that people say is, don't mistake Linh's kindness for weakness because you know he will cut you if you don't do your job right.

[00:21:54 - 00:21:55]

Will Smith: So.

[00:21:55 - 00:22:10]

Linh Tran: But I think it's a, that's a dichotomy that you can, you can work on. Right. And hopefully I've done better through the years. But yeah, like you said, I think it's a, it's a learned skill that you can learn a lot. And so if you're not naturally that way, I think it's something that you can, you can become.

[00:22:13 - 00:22:24]

Will Smith: Linh. Let's return to the plot here. So tell us more about this first acquisition. We get that we're getting the picture of a very small business. Can you give us some bullet points, number of employees, revenue, etc.

[00:22:24 - 00:22:24]

Linh Tran: Sure.

[00:22:24 - 00:22:25]

Will Smith: What the business does.

[00:22:25 - 00:23:38]

Linh Tran: Yeah. So the first company was a commercial refrigeration company. Just repairing walk in coolers, doing warehouses for primarily food distributors at the time, restaurants, a lot of supermarkets.

Basically anybody with cold storage needs. Right. So call it cold storage. It was doing at the time, on paper, I would say it was probably doing about 300,000. But at the time I didn't really know what I was doing.

So I didn't do the SD correctly. It was probably half that, if not less than half that. Once you replace kind of the key people who were, you know, potentially going to leave and weren't priced into that equation. Mainly the, the owner, his wife, his nephew, his daughter, his, you know, kind of, kind of go down the line. Right.

Lots of people all in the business, all the business. Not everybody was getting paid market rate. And so that's something that was a very tough lesson for me to learn. Right. Is you know, when you, when you're working for the, the patriarch of the family, that patriarch sometimes sets your, your salary and you have no, no say in it and you just want to be there because it's a family business.

[00:23:38 - 00:23:39]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:23:39 - 00:25:16]

Linh Tran: So it's a family business, probably top line revenue, doing between 2 and $3 million. So you call that 5 to 10% EBIT margins. Great business had I think under 10 employees at the time.

And I'm trying to think if anybody is still here. I would say that the now ex son in law is still with us. He's great. The, the former owner is still with us and that's it. Okay.

So that company has grown to around 100 people I would say. So I ran that company until about five or six years ago. And I left it with the SDE was probably around two or three million dollars when I left it five or six years ago. And I say around two or three million dollars because we use that as a platform to invest in other companies. So that was a commercial refrigeration company.

Then we bolted on services like electrical, plumbing, light construction, things like that. And so since I never intended to sell it, I never ran it to make it look good for a sale, if that makes sense. Right. We, we spent as much everything that was coming in, we put right back into growth. And so I think that's why we were able to grow from you know, 100 to 300,000 in, in profit to 3 million fairly quickly.

And then today I've got professional management running it and they've grown it. I think the average growth in the last five years was 20 something percent a year. So they've grown it pretty well as well.

[00:25:16 - 00:25:23]

Will Smith: So if you look at the SDE of it, if you look at the SDE of the business today, I heard you say 2 to 3 million. That was five years ago.

[00:25:23 - 00:25:24]

Linh Tran: Oh right, yeah.

[00:25:24 - 00:25:26]

Will Smith: So today it's significantly more than that.

[00:25:26 - 00:25:39]

Linh Tran: It's something but you know, it's, it's, it's intertwined with dozens of companies and so I'd have to like split it out. Right. Because if this company is not doing as well, then we shift resources over to it and things like that.

Right. So.

[00:25:39 - 00:25:39]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:25:39 - 00:25:44]

Linh Tran: But if I was preparing it to sell, then yes, I would obviously have a, a different number to tell you.

[00:25:44 - 00:25:48]

Will Smith: Which is probably between 5 and 10.

That's a big range, but.

[00:25:48 - 00:26:01]

Linh Tran: Oh yeah, I mean easily there. That's, and that's just with kind of like the, I guess you call it a platform. That was the kind of the first One. Right.

So since then, and I'm assuming we'll get into it, since then I've, you know, invested and acquired in, you know, another dozen companies. So.

[00:26:01 - 00:26:21]

Will Smith: Yeah, yeah. So I just want to underline this in case the audience wasn't listening closely. So your, your quote, platform acquisition, which was a tiny little business that you bought and we are going to return to the early days, is now doing, if you disentangled it from everything else, easily over 5 million of SDE.

[00:26:21 - 00:26:26]

Linh Tran: Oh yeah, easily. We could get it there for sure. You know, on a, on a sale it would definitely be over that.

[00:26:27 - 00:27:00]

Will Smith: Yeah, on a sale it would definitely be over that. So that by itself is quite incredible as a self funded searcher.

Call it 15 years later. But of course you've, you've been compounding this in, in all of those earnings. You've been reinvesting and reinvesting in other businesses. You're now an investor in searchers. So there's a lot more there.

You know, you Linh, I, I was kind of chuckling to myself as I prepared for this. You have the, the hallmark of a wealthy person, which is they don't really know how much money they have. When you don't know how much money you have or make.

[00:27:00 - 00:27:01]

Linh Tran: Right.

[00:27:01 - 00:27:04]

Will Smith: That's a sign of real, of real wealth.

[00:27:04 - 00:27:46]

Linh Tran: Yeah, yeah. And you know, honestly, like it's, it's something where, you know, if I'm, to be honest, I'm a little protective of it. Right. Because it's, it's, it's. And I think Jared kind of hit on this.

When. On his interview a few weeks ago. It's just like it kind of happens without you knowing. And yeah, like you said. Oh yeah, your business does, you know, 5 billion in EBITDA.

Sure. But you know, you've got 12 sources of income and it adds up and it's like, hey, I don't understand how you have that. But then you have all this other stuff that you buy. Like, how did you afford all that stuff? Did you finance it?

Nope. Well then how did you. Well, maybe I have more money than, you know, than I think. Right. So, but, but, but it's not about the money, Will.

It's the money. Money to me is a scoreboard of how well you're doing. Right?

[00:27:46 - 00:27:47]

Will Smith: Yes.

[00:27:47 - 00:29:17]

Linh Tran: You know, if the money goes up.

And I think back to that first purchase that I made and I was just railing on the owner with all this ar, AP and cash flow analysis and he said finally, he's like, look, do you want the business or not? I don't know the answer to any of your questions. I've never read a balance sheet, I've never read an income statement. I just know my bank account grows every year and I'm like fair, right? And so, you know, and so, so, so that's the way I look at it, right, is it's, it's something where it grows and you know, you, you kind of grow this pile of money that makes more money.

And I think that makes me feel better compared to, you know, you alluded to it, right? Like some searchers would say, oh that, that doesn't seem impressive or it's not great. But it's like, no, you can make tens of millions of dollars slow and steady, right? You don't have to have this massive exit to, to do that. I could, if I did a massive exit on a few of our companies, I'm sure that I would have a pile of cash.

But you know, I've seen my friends sell and the day after the sell, maybe a month after the cell, they're not happy, right. And so I look at it and I say, you know, we say that we're kid limited, right? Meaning that I've got two daughters. The reason why I haven't sold is what, what am I going to do with a bigger pile of money Will, right? Like if, if my goal is to, to help people grow their businesses, to help self funded searchers and to help people kind of, you know, quote, get that corporate chip off their shoulder, you don't really need to have that exit.

It's always in the back of my mind. So just a sidebar there.

[00:29:17 - 00:29:51]

Will Smith: Well, and the other thing is, even if you were exit minded every year that goes by assuming your businesses are growing, which they are, or that, or that platform business, assuming that platform business is growing, which it is, you're just increasing the, the exit value. Of course multiples move and shift over time and go up and down. So maybe in a down market, you know, it's not as clean as what I'm saying, but in theory the value of the asset is going up every year anyway.

So the longer you hold it, if you do ever decide one morning you wake up and say, you know what, I do want to exit, you just are exiting, going to be exiting for that much more.

[00:29:51 - 00:30:27]

Linh Tran: Yeah, exactly. Or if you want to grow it, right? So like, you know that $5 million company, that's two cities and we've got, you know, nationwide presence with all of our customers and they ask us all the time, hey, will you open up into different cities. And the answer has been no because quite frankly, I like my lifestyle.

I don't miss any of my kids stuff. I, you know, I'm, I'm home for dinner and I mean, so call it a lifestyle business, call it what you want, but I'm like, I'm pretty happy. Right. And so growing it is going to require that I probably make some sort of sacrifice that I'm just not willing to make today. Yeah.

But you know, your point is taken.

[00:30:27 - 00:30:31]

Will Smith: Right, like, and how old are you lingering?

[00:30:31 - 00:30:33]

Linh Tran: I, I'm 48. 48.

[00:30:34 - 00:31:16]

Will Smith: What I see, Linh, is the picture of kind of the self funded searcher fantasy.

And I use that word. I know it's kind of pumping your tires and so maybe there's a better word. But you know, you bought a very small business and you probably own it outright. You're going to tell us how you structured that. I don't know if there was an SBA loan or not, but it was so small, maybe not, didn't need it and you have just compounded it and own the whole thing.

Over 15 years, you've taken a long term view, as you said, you haven't breathlessly tried to move toward an exit. Even today you don't really want, you don't want to exit.

It has been a lifestyle business.

You've worked hard, but your whole why getting into it was to be able to give yourself more freedom, actually.

[00:31:16 - 00:31:16]

Linh Tran: That's right.

[00:31:16 - 00:31:27]

Will Smith: So, so it's so interesting because your, your financial success hasn't really come at the cost of your family life. In fact, they've really worked in tandem. The whole point was to give you more time with your daughters.

[00:31:28 - 00:31:29]

Linh Tran: Right, Right.

[00:31:29 - 00:31:41]

Will Smith: Usually we would think of somebody of your success, your financial success, that their family life has really suffered and yet you're the picture of balance.

And you, and it doesn't seem like you've had to sacrifice financially either to achieve that balance.

[00:31:41 - 00:31:45]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no. And you know that's, that's the end story. Right. There was definitely some bumps along the way.

Right.

[00:31:45 - 00:31:46]

Will Smith: Where.

[00:31:46 - 00:34:06]

Linh Tran: Well, you know, it's, it's, it, yeah, it started off as, yeah, it's all about the family. But there was a period where my, you know, I admit my wife was like, yeah, you're a terrible father and a husband. You're not around.

I mean, you're around, but you're not around because you're always on your laptop, you're always talking on the phone. Because I'm telling you, when you run a company, it, the success is, is very addictive. Right. And so, you know, I always tell the story where, you know, success is not like this. It's more of a, you know, peaks and valleys.

And you know, I would say that it's the rule of threes. We're going from 100,000 in SDE to 300,000. Took as much work as 300 to 900, which took as much work from 900 to 3 million in SDE. And you know, so, so on and so forth. And I think what I learned through that was that which ironically helped me with my success even more is that you want to make sure that you're talking to all the stakeholders in your family, right?

Your wife and your kids and everything. And I didn't do that early on. And so I was like, hey, I'm making a bunch of money. We have like, you know, you know, cars, boats, planes, like, you know, this is, hey, I'm, I'm the man here. And quite frankly, kids don't care, right?

Like they spell like, you know, I heard a quote from one of my great friends who, who lost, you know, lost their daughter unfortunately young, and they said, kids spell love T, I M, E time. And so probably three or four years into my journey, which, you know, don't get me wrong, you have to spend three to five years really as a hard nosed operator to be successful. But after I did that, you know, I started saying, okay, how do I make a million dollars working 40 hours? Make 2 million working 20 hours, work. Make 3 million working 10 hours to now, you know, I don't really work daily on any of my businesses.

And so I think a lot of that has to do with. And it's funny. I'll tell you a quick story. I know you like the stories. I had a friend who had a son and he came in one day and said, hey, I've planned out all of our family vacations every year for the next 18 years.

And I'm like, wow, like he was just born. How did you do that? And it fit all on one page, right? And it was hilarious. The page was, you know, zero to six months old, limited mobility, limited.

Limited mental capacity.

[00:34:06 - 00:34:07]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:34:07 - 00:34:08]

Linh Tran: Six to 12.

[00:34:08 - 00:34:09]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:34:09 - 00:35:29]

Linh Tran: Maximum ability, limited mental ability.

And he had, you know, things set, like vacation set for those checkpoints and it all fit on a page. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm already through half of that page for my own kids. And so I said, I've got to make time. And so I had another one of my friends, both of them were in my EO groups Which by the way, EO YPO are great groups to support you if you're a self funded searcher, you're not alone as a sidebar there. But you know, my friend took my calendar, said hey, I'll, I'll help you do your vacations.

And he just started marking all my vacations into my calendar before I scheduled meetings. And he's like done right. And it's like nobody knows where you're at. If you try to take a meeting and it's blank, they're going to, you're going to fill up that time. So I just filled it up for you for your, your vacation.

So that one kind of thing was transformational for me because A, I booked all my vacations for the year a year in advance and that was every six weeks. We took a vacation every six weeks. But what it also did will was make me realize that if, if I'm going to go on vacation, how do I get myself out of the business for a day? How do I get myself out of the business for a weekend out of a week? And once you start making those, those kind of, if you start asking those questions and answering them, it doesn't matter if it's a day, a week or a month or two months or three months.

You know, you start forming processes and procedures where you don't have to be there at all. And so.

[00:35:29 - 00:35:29]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[00:35:29 - 00:35:30]

Linh Tran: Yeah.

[00:35:32 - 00:36:15]

Will Smith: And so Linh, to be clear, you.

Got into search you or you bought a business for yourself because you felt that you weren't getting enough family time and wanted the free. You wanted more freedom. But then you get into the business, you buy the business, you get into the business. We're going to hear some more about these early days and you're working incredibly hard and in fact, so you're working harder and your family sees you less and your wife has to say, dude, you're, you're actually not present even when you're present. So, so, so you, you actually regressed a little bit once you became a business owner.

Okay. And then, and then you kind of figured it out that you were, the whole point of why you were here in the first place, you were missing because you were missing family time. And, and now, and now you're extremely focused on that stuff.

[00:36:15 - 00:36:35]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, it's, it's one of those things where I call it my non negotiables and people are like, oh, that's so hard to do your non negotiable right. And it's like, no, it's not.

Because when you're Non negotiable is I'm not going to miss my kids stuff. You just don't miss it. Or you know, if my wife says hey, don't be on your phone, like I literally will throw my phone somewhere else. Like I, you know.

[00:36:35 - 00:36:35]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[00:36:35 - 00:36:41]

Linh Tran: I make it so that I cannot do it. You know, I procedurize my family time for lack of a better term. Right.

[00:36:41 - 00:36:42]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[00:36:42 - 00:36:42]

Linh Tran: Yeah.

So.

[00:36:42 - 00:37:17]

Will Smith: Well, well Linh, let's, but let's learn about.

Because I've also now heard you say that you do need to pay with a few years of your life as a hard nose operator. So some of this stuff while you're, while your wife or life told you that you were spending too much time on your business, you weren't present, it sounds like it was maybe also necessary at least in the early years. So, so talk to us about those early years, Those inflection points.

From 300 to 900 in Ste. From 900 to a million to 3 million, etc. What can we learn from your years there? I know it's a lot of time, but try to condense a few lessons.

[00:37:17 - 00:37:57]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no.

So you know, I'll say kind of what I did wrong and then kind of how I've adjusted it through the years. Right. So. But yes, you have to be in the weeds, right. Like I was running payroll, I was running arap.

And I think that you have to do that for several reasons is a, you've got to learn the kind of the building blocks of your business. But at the same time you earn that respect, right. Of that person who's running that apartment. It's, you know, when that person says hey, you know you can never make AR less than, you know, you can never make it on time. It's like, no, I ran it, it was on time.

Right. Here's what I did. Right. And so I think it builds you some credibility. But I was working from probably 4:30 in the morning till 10 at night.

I mean it was brutal hours, right?

[00:37:57 - 00:37:58]

Will Smith: Wow.

[00:37:58 - 00:39:27]

Linh Tran: Not because I felt like I had to, it's just, I mean Will, it's addictive, right? It's like everything I did and I touched went into my pocket, right. If I changed procedure, I still remember my people would say, oh well that only really saves us 50 bucks.

And I would say, well that saves us 50 bucks every day for the rest of this company's life. Right. And so you just always started trying to find how do I save that 50 bucks a day? How do I start saving that 500 bucks a week, right? And you start, you know, optimizing everything, right?

Which, you know, quite frankly, I over optimized in the early years, but I felt like that, that gave me just a good way of looking at a business. Now how would I change that today? I don't know if this is a good time to, to tell this story, but you know, I, you know, I know that, you know, we have 40 hour work weeks and we don't allow it to go over. Right? Because I know that, you know, if you go over 40 hour workweek, you will push your family aside.

And our technicians have one of the highest divorce rates in the industry or of any industry. And so one day I was just looking at the math on our metrics. I said, hey, some of our guys are working 70 to 100 hours a week. Why are we doing that? Right?

Oh, they like overtime. Well, why don't we just hire people so that the average person works only 40? And when I did that, I'll tell you, we probably lost 20 or 30% of our staff because they liked that overtime. And I was like, no. Like I'm not willing to, you know, go to these company picnics and have the wife tell me that I'm terrible because I make her husband work 70 to 100 hours a week.

And I can't just say he wants to. Right?

[00:39:27 - 00:39:28]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[00:39:28 - 00:40:06]

Linh Tran: So we had to make that, that thing that says, hey, no, you can only work 40. And it's become kind of a laughing culture thing where it's like, if you can't do your work in 40, are you the right person for the job?

Right? Like, get it done at 40 and get out. Right? And so, you know, that was one thing we did. And I know that that was the right decision because probably two or three months after we implemented that policy, we had a huge emergency and we were trying to look for people to cover it.

And I'm thinking, oh, this will be easy. Everybody wants hours. They were working 70 to 100 hours. Now they're at 40 out of, at the time we were probably 50 to 80 people. How many people do you think agreed to work extra hours that week?

[00:40:07 - 00:40:09]

Will Smith: Nobody. Because they'd all left.

[00:40:09 - 00:40:10]

Linh Tran: Well, well, not only.

[00:40:10 - 00:40:14]

Will Smith: Oh, no. Oh, oh, everybody did because they were, they felt so much gratitude for what you done.

[00:40:14 - 00:42:21]

Linh Tran: So you were right the first time. Nobody wanted to work because in two months they had already adjusted their life. Right. And I remember one guy telling me, you know what, I've got two bass boats, a lake house, all this stuff. I thought I was doing great.

But you know, my kids hate me and my wife doesn't know I am. And so, you know, I went to all their ball games and I just, you know, I don't need to work more than 40 hours a week. You know, I was lying to myself. So thanks for doing that. Right.

That really feels good to hear people saying that they're reconnecting with their spouses and their kids and you know, and again, that's going to self select, right? For that type of person who, who doesn't want to work, you know, 70 to 100 hours a week. Right. And it's, you know, and it's great. It has so many kind of downwind effects, right.

One of the biggest things in our industry that people hate is something called on call, right. Where you're on call at night and you know, you can get called at any time because there's an emergency, right. It's kind of like being an ER doc. And because we switched it to these 40 hour work weeks, people were actually rested and could go on call when it was their on call day or their on call week. Right.

And so it's, the quality of our work got better. The, the quality of our technicians were better because we were attracting everybody who was like, hey, you know, advanced commercial, you don't have to be on call for like a week at a time. It's only a day at a time. And you have this three team backup. And everybody is so self selecting in that if someone needs help, they just post a note out to our Slack channel, hey, I need help.

And people rush to your aid because they know if they don't rush to your aid and it's their turn and they need help, it's very quick. You know, you can really easily see people who don't help because when they ask for help, it's crickets. Nobody comes to their aid. And so when nobody comes to their aid, guess what happens? They burn out and then they quit.

Right. And so it's kind of like this nice self selecting thing where, you know, doing things like the 40 hour work week, you know, guess what? Making our bottom line look great because now I don't have to pay overtime. But even though they're only working 40 hours a week, I'm still charging overtime to the clients, right. If it's, you know, after hours, it's still an after hours charge, right.

Because I've got to charge a premium for my guys who are working at night, right? So makes everybody happier.

[00:42:23 - 00:43:43]

Will Smith: Running payroll, paying your bills, closing your books and producing financials. These are critical tasks every business owner must do or oversee. But spending time on them distracts you from the leadership in growth work you want to do.

So let system 6 do it for you. Owned and led by a former Searcher, Chris Williams, System 6 is a leading outsourced finance team for for hundreds of SMBs, including over 50 searcher acquired businesses. Chris, Tim and the System 6 team understand firsthand the challenges, the opportunities of jumping into a business as its new owner. So whether you own your business already or have one under LOI, talk to System 6 about how they can give you time back and improve your financial operations. Mention acquiring minds and they'll provide a free review of your books and financial ops, a $500 value.

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And what about the growth of sales? Linh so this is, this culture stuff is probably, is probably the most important stuff that you were, how you were transforming this organization.

[00:43:44 - 00:43:44]

Linh Tran: But.

[00:43:46 - 00:43:50]

Will Smith: Talk to us about the top line and how it was moving so, so dramatically.

[00:43:50 - 00:47:35]

Linh Tran: So my industry is and again H vac, refrigeration, the trades, I think that's probably not where the searchers who are listening to this need to go right now because I think they're overvalued right now, right? Like I get offered double digit returns on EBITDA for, for our businesses and it's just I was buying them for two to four times earnings maybe. So I think they're overvalued but I think the reason why they were so good with sales is it was easy to sell Will like and I'll tell you, you know, our customers are like, you know Publix, Walmart, you know, Whole Foods, Kroger's like, you know, Costco, BJ's like you know, large big boxes. And I, I remember going to one customer, I think it was Walmart and I said hey, you know, let me do like this, you know what, what do you expect from me? He's like oh I expect you to show up.

And I'm writing it down. I'm like oh you mean show up like within two hours, within a day? He's like, no, like, just like show up like, like what do you mean? He goes like shop at all right? And I'm like thinking to myself, well this is a very odd industry where the baseline is to show up.

So my bar was very low. And so for to answer your question about sales, I never focused on sales. I focused on just delivering a really good service, right? And at Our price, right. So when I took over the company, we were charging $60 an hour.

Now we're charging, you know, call it 150 an hour. And everyone's saying, oh, my gosh, we can't afford to charge three times as much as everyone else. Well, why not? And that's another good thing, Right. Will is like, I'm not from this industry, so I never thought to say, oh, that's too much.

I just thought to say, my customers are losing $150,000 per pallet of meat that go. That thaws out if we don't fix it. And so if I go in there and I charge them 10,000 to fix it versus versus 5,000 to fix it, they're not going to care because they're going to lose 150 if. If I don't fix it. Yeah.

And so for me, value, kind of value based pricing. The value based pricing, exactly. And, you know, we had a meeting with one of our large grocery store chains and, you know, they couldn't believe it. We had saved them, you know, 30 or 40% in refrigerant usage. And they're like, how did you do that?

Like, you guys are so expensive. And it's like, you know, you know, it's value, right. It's like, I'm hiring the best people. We're not on contract. You call me when you need me and you fire me when you don't think I'm doing a good job.

That incentivizes me to do a good job for you. Right. Whereas if I'm on a contract, and of course, you know, they're like, well, we'd like you to be on a contract. So we did one, but we're like, this contract, you can leave me, I can leave you within 30 days. It's not like, you know, it's not binding.

Because I think a binding contract doesn't really do what we need to do. And honestly, because of that, Will, like our sales, you know, we've got a line out the door. We cannot service everybody who wants to. Who wants to work with us. And we don't want to.

Right. Like, we want to keep our margins high and we want to keep our quality high. And in my industry, you know, we just don't have the technical workforce to, you know, to. To really kind of grow that any faster, you know, and if you want a cautionary tale with AI as a sidebar, here, we were like, hey, let's use AI and let's do, you know, AI to help our technicians grow and do all this stuff. Well, we tried it out and we do about, I'd say 10 to 20,000 jobs a year depending on how you structure our businesses.

Like, but in the refrigeration side, we probably do 10,000. Call it. We started using AI to help us do work faster. Right? To help the technicians kind of like diagnose faster, to help us quote faster.

Well, we lost a million dollars on three jobs out of 10,000 because the AI was wrong. And so that's a cautionary tale to say, hey, you know, growth for the sake of growing. We were like, why did we do this? Oh, because you wanted to grow. Why did we want to grow?

I don't know. Because you said we wanted to grow, right? It's so.

[00:47:35 - 00:48:31]

Will Smith: Well, Linh, this also makes me feel like your long term horizon or your indefinite hold horizon is playing a role here. You're not thinking about the exit.

You're not think. I mean, you did want to grow, but like at the same time you don't. When you step back, you don't need to grow breathlessly, arbitrarily because. Right. Because it's not at the end.

Similar thing with contracts. You know, so many people listening to this podcast, searchers who get into a business if they're project based or on call, they try to shunt their customers into a contract of some kind because that revenue is perceived as higher quality. That revenue can be sold for more when they go to exit. But if you're not obsessed with exiting, right, Then it gives you the, the, the latitude to be like, no, we don't need to do that because, you know, because I'm not looking to sell and I'm not looking to, to kind of put lipstick on, on, on the pig of my, of my revenue. Not to call it your revenue pig, but you're not trying to, you know, you're not trying to dress it up.

[00:48:31 - 00:49:55]

Linh Tran: You know, it is 100 and that, and that's a huge thing that I see from friends who are selling, right. Is that you hear these horror stories with these roll ups where as soon as the private equity takes over, like it's, it kind of falls apart and they're not making as much money. But that's okay because the multiple expansion, you know, grew. So that was okay. That's just not how I roll with you with our companies.

Right. And it's, you know, we have to make money, we have to make good margins. Because another quote of, you know, my friend who you know about the company from is, you know, if we're Going to make double the revenue and the same amount of money. Like we've just worked twice as hard for nothing, right. And so we're very protective about our margins and we know what, what drives the ball on our industry.

And so, you know, that company is probably the smallest company that we run. You know, we're talking about it today because it was my first, but you know, it's the smallest because we know that that's never going to be a billion dollar business. Right. But I would say, let's say that that was the only business I ran. Well, like I would say if you can't live off three to five million dollars a year, you may want to think about your lifestyle choices, right?

I mean it's like, you know, it's, that's still really good living, right? And you could save a lot of that. You can, can save most of that. That's what I've done, right, is I've saved most of it to grow other businesses. Right.

To make other streams of income. Right. And it's, it's one of those things where I grew up with an immigrant family where, you know, I saw firsthand my mom and dad working so hard. And working hard doesn't necessarily equate to success. Right.

So you got to work smart.

[00:49:56 - 00:50:03]

Will Smith: And to be clear, when we hear you say 3 to 5 million, we are talking about earnings, we are not talking about revenue. So. Yeah, yeah, right, correct, correct, correct.

[00:50:03 - 00:50:05]

Linh Tran: You can buy a lot of stuff with that.

[00:50:05 - 00:50:37]

Will Smith: Yeah, no, I mean it's a remarkable amount of money. Of course, the, your point about it being overvalued today, the industry being overvalued today, certainly a larger business. But if I were to go out and try to buy a business with 150 or a reported 300,000 of SDE, but actually more like 20150 as your business was, I could probably still get that for 3x, right. If I bought as if I was willing to buy as small as you did. Those are still out.

[00:50:38 - 00:52:25]

Linh Tran: Those are still out there. And to be clear, I'm not saying that they're overpriced, like overpriced as in like you shouldn't do it. I'm saying it's overpriced. For a self funded searcher, right. When they're overpriced, it's usually because it's part of a large roll up strategy where, you know, classically you'll buy say 10 $1 million EBITDA companies for, call it 4 times earnings.

So $4 million per company, 10 companies that's $40 million to buy 10 million in EBITDA. Right. But whatever happens, this is actually a real case. I won't. I'll leave numbers out.

But each one of those companies actually dropped about 30%. So that $10 million joint company only made about 700 or $7 million total. So about 700,000 average each, which you're like, oh, my gosh, that's. That's terrible. That's a 30% loss.

Well, because it was $7 million instead of 1:1, it was actually able to sell for closer to seven times earnings. So that was a $49 million sale. That's a win, right? 40. You bought it for 40.

You sold it for 49. That's a win. But then when they asked me about it, they said, hey, why don't you lead the next one? I said, nah, you guys didn't win. Why?

Well, because I saw hundreds of employees getting displaced during this time. Well, how did you see it? Well, because we hired a bunch of them, Right. They said they would never work for a company like yours ever again. Right.

Ever. Right. And so I don't want to be like that. Right. Like, I don't, you know, like, will we ever sell?

I'm not going to say never, but it would have to be something where my team wanted to do it. Like, I'm not going to do this sell in the dark, right. Where my team doesn't know about it. Right. It's going to be, you know, my team is making money.

I think Jared said the same thing, right? Where he was able to give his key employees a million dollars each. Like, that would be my dream. Right? Is if I decide to, like, move somewhere and sell it to a larger company that all my employees know about it and are on board with it and have jobs and, you know, walk away with a good windfall.

Right. So that would be my goal.

[00:52:25 - 00:52:53]

Will Smith: We're working extremely hard to grow the business through the various strata that you outlined. Call it 300 to 900 of SDE to 3 million of SDE. You start realizing or hearing from your family that you're not giving enough attention to your personal life, which, again, was the whole reason for this exercise.

Right? What? But were you already in a place.

That you could extract yourself from the business?

How did you tell us about kind of finally getting yourself out of the business?

[00:52:53 - 00:52:54]

Linh Tran: Yeah, sure.

[00:52:54 - 00:53:04]

Will Smith: And doing that thing where, what was it? A million for 40 hours? 2 million for 20 hours? As you spend less time, you are actually earning more.

That sounded like a pretty magical dynamic. How did you swing that?

[00:53:04 - 00:53:54]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, and it's. And I, and I attribute that to one of my friends and I surround myself with more successful people than me. Where he owns, he's majority owner in over 300 businesses.

And I said, how do you manage all that? And he's like, I can't, it's too much. Right. Like, I have the right people. And that was a mind shift for me was you have to have the right people.

And so for me, it was, it was extracting myself because of a family, but because I wanted to do more stuff. Right. And what did that look like? That looked like being okay with people doing the work 80% as well as I. Right.

That was the number one thing I had to learn, which was my bar is 80%. If you can do it 80% as well as I can, I will take that as a win. Right. Because I think that's what a lot of searchers and new business owners just can't let go. Like, I'm the only one who can do this.

[00:53:54 - 00:53:54]

Will Smith: Yeah, right.

[00:53:54 - 00:54:06]

Linh Tran: Like, I have a friend who runs a $20 million company. Oh, sorry, I gotta, you know, we're out surfing one day, he's like, I gotta go back in. I gotta make payroll. I'm like, you still run payroll?

He goes, yeah, I'm the only one who can run payroll. I'm like, you're the only one who can run payroll.

[00:54:06 - 00:54:06]

Will Smith: Right.

[00:54:06 - 00:55:20]

Linh Tran: Almost an entire earth. Right, Right.

Well, but I'm the only one who knows what everybody gets paid. I'm like, but do you really know what they get paid or do you just kind of know what they get paid? Right. And so I would say, okay, well, so you're worried that someone's going to overpay someone. All right, so put boundaries in place.

Right? Say this person usually makes between, you know, five to six thousand dollars a week. And if, if anything's above that, you know, it has to kick out as an exception. And, you know, I started doing kind of process and procedure type things. Right.

And so that's how I extracted myself was. I just procedurized everything where whoever was doing that, I call it button pushing, they could teach someone else how to push that button. And, you know, that's a key, that's a key factor. You know, we talked about how I've got a big staff in the Philippines, you know, the virtual assistants, you know, who helped me with that. But I'm a big believer in that.

All my US based staff, you know, I do not want pushing buttons. I want you to either hire someone to push that button, or I want you to create buttons to push, or I want you to create people who create those buttons. And it's as simple as that. Right? And so, you know, it's all about reducing cycle time, right?

Reducing cycle time on, getting the job done on, getting paid on, you know, everything. It's kind of like a manufacturing Six Sigma view on it.

[00:55:20 - 00:56:28]

Will Smith: And so, yeah, what, what I think you said there, that was, I mean, I, I do think that building systems and, and kind of architecting something where there's this amazing system like you, like you talked about is the ideal, easier said than done. To me, of everything you just said there, that's kind of the most profound thing that people should really take away is the 80% point. Because as owners or business builders, we're perfectionists, you know, and actually Dan Martell, the guy who, kind of an influencer who came, who wrote a book about hiring people essentially, and executive Assistant specifically, has this somewhat Cheesy line that 80% done is 100% awesome.

So it's, it's, it's about, it's, it's about understanding that nobody is ever going to do it as, as perfectly as you will because you're the owner. But rather than, rather than holding on too tightly, accept that reality. And, and your threshold should be 80. 80% as opposed to 100. That's right.

I think that. And it's very hard, it's still very hard to, to accept that even, even once you've heard it.

[00:56:28 - 00:58:05]

Linh Tran: Oh, and I still have a problem with it today. It's like, oh, if that wasn't perfect. But then the other side of me says, you know what?

I'm not going to say anything because I didn't do anything and I got 80% of the results. So, you know, what I do is, you know, if I've got, if I've got five people doing 80% and they're not doing the other 20, I hire another person to do the 20% that was missing from those five. Right. And so I just, I just do coverage, right, where it's like, you know, if you're not great at this, I'll hire someone who is. Now, does that cost me more money?

Yes. Does that cost me margin? Yes. But it keeps me completely out of the business and it also builds redundancy in the system as well. Right.

Where, yeah, I'm not beholden to, you know, when I started my career, I would say that the hardest thing for me to do was to not have terrorists working for Me, right? Like, and what I say by that is it's like when you're a small company of 10 people and one person leaves, that's like, that hurts your business, right? And so to get to the point where you've got coverage everywhere, right where you. I call it like a fantasy football team, right, where you know, you don't want to only have one quarterback because if that quarterback gets hurt, you know, you need to have a backup. So you need to really build your bench.

I'm really, really kind of purposeful about building that bench and that next next group of people that can move up. And I always tell people that you don't want to push that button and be the only person that can push that button, because that means you'll always have to sit here pushing that button. You want to be able to grow out of that spot. And I think that's probably another reason why our companies are so successful, is everybody has a clear. At least in my head, they may disagree, but a clear pathway to get to the next level.

[00:58:06 - 00:58:58]

Will Smith: And. But just to be clear on your own trajectory here, Linh, because what you're saying now is that was not how you were in the early days where you were working from 4 to 10, 4am to 10pm so what it was was you were just pouring yourself into your business, giving it everything, giving it too much time, in fact, and you kind of, through force of will, got it to 2 and 3 million dollars of earnings, right? And it was, it was at that point where you. And frankly, you had the earnings to play around a little bit. To me, probably to, to, to have some mistakes and to hire, maybe make some hiring mistakes and to really start.

Have the room to start building some of these systems. And then, and then that worked and you stepped out. And in fact, the business really started growing on its own. Not, I mean, all your people are growing it, but growing without Linh's heavy hand in their kind of doing through force of will. Is that, is that, is that a fair characterization of the arc?

[00:58:58 - 01:00:06]

Linh Tran: A hundred percent. And I would say that my pep talk to the CEO that took over the company or the GM that took the company was pretty bad. I mean, I was like, I was like, assume it. Pretend it was you, Will. I was like, will, I've.

I've made this efficient. You can't grow it anymore. I just need you to not lose money. I just need you to hold zero, right? I need you to make two or three million dollars a year.

I'm happy with that. Just, you know, don't sink the ship. And I think the first year growth was like 36% and then it was like 20 something percent. I was like, oh my gosh. I was like the, the rate limiting step here like for years.

Right. And, and there was no reason for it other than the fact that I didn't really want to grow it anymore. And did I purposely say that in my head? No. I'm telling you this from a 2020 hindsight, right?

Is I didn't, I didn't grow it because I didn't take the meetings to grow it. I didn't move to different states. Right. I would say things like, oh, that's too far, it's too hard to manage. Right.

And you know, that wasn't being true to myself. What I was saying was I didn't want to manage it. Right. But what did, what did my new GM CEO do? He hired a manager to live out in a different city.

Right. And so, you know, I could have done that. I don't know why I didn't. But you know, but so your mistake.

[01:00:06 - 01:00:22]

Will Smith: Was in thinking that because you didn't feel like it, nobody would ever do it.

But once you get, you get a GM or a CEO who's perfectly happy to take that risk or do whatever is involved to put somebody in a, in a new market, then the business can, can benefit from that.

[01:00:22 - 01:00:53]

Linh Tran: That's right. That's right. That's, that's a lesson I learned. And you know, what I've grown is this is to surround myself with people who can think like that and you know, probably beyond the scope of this call, but I am coaching people to do these things.

Industry kind of agnostic. Right. And so when they're thinking about things like moving territories, I'm starting to shift employees to different companies saying, hey, you know what you did there to grow? I'd like you to do that with this other company. Oh, that company's completely different.

Oh, but the bones are still the same.

[01:00:53 - 01:00:53]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:00:53 - 01:01:30]

Linh Tran: We've got an issue with how do we, you know, how do we grow into an area of the country where we don't have as good of a reputation? How did you, how did you accomplish that? So I'm starting to coach my, call it top level executive L10 people to be able to switch between companies easier.

Right. So that's kind of, you know, stage two of my life is taking the lessons that we've learned from previous companies and then applying them to faster growing companies with, with, with more opportunity and less headroom. Because I honestly think that the Trades are going to be somewhat capped by, by humans.

[01:01:30 - 01:01:30]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:01:30 - 01:01:56]

Linh Tran: And so It's a catch 22 in that I don't think a robot's going to fix a refrigerator anytime soon.

I don't think even maybe in my lifetime, but it'll get there. Right. And so, but I'm limited to the number of humans I can put in front of a refrigerator. Right. And so we're trying to figure out how do I take that type of feel and maybe buy companies that are just one notch above that.

Right. Still have a human component, but isn't going to be taken over by AI.

[01:01:57 - 01:01:58]

Will Smith: Found any?

[01:01:59 - 01:02:06]

Linh Tran: We are working on a few different platforms right now. We've probably picked up eight in the last year.

So maybe we'll talk in a year and I'll tell you if they've been successful.

[01:02:07 - 01:02:30]

Will Smith: Linh, we could spend a lot more time on your whole story. But I have a few other things I want to make sure that we get to. So let's round out just the story itself. Take us from when you basically when you stepped out effectively as CEO, business was at 2 to 3 million of earnings.

And to today. What does your kind of empire look like today?

[01:02:30 - 01:04:06]

Linh Tran: So it started with the refrigeration company. Right now we have electrical, plumbing, we've got some concrete work that we do, some light construction, some little heavier construction. Then we started investing in just different, call it light manufacturing.

So we're trying to do vertical integration as well as horizontal integration and then really just started investing with, with friends. Right. In, in, in companies that were not in that vertical. And so we're all over the place. We invest based on cash flow, which is why I think, you know, self funded search is the great thing.

Like you mentioned earlier, Will, when you're buying 200 to 300,000 SD companies, you can buy them for really low price. And it's easy to double a $300,000 company to 600,000, you know, probably 10 times faster than a million to 2 million. Right. And so, you know, it's, it's better. So we like doing that.

We like focusing on 1 to 3 million dollars in EBITDA companies. That's our sweet spot. I started a venture cap fund that we invest with, with, with friends. We're not good at it. And so now we're going back to, we're going back to kind of like the boring business model.

Right. So that's Apex Fund Group where we're supporting searchers in their search and that, that's going well. We picked up eight companies in the last, you know, 16 months and really just helping people do what I did, but do it faster and better if that makes sense and just to avoid some of the pitfalls that I learned along the way. So, you know, that's where we are today.

[01:04:07 - 01:04:19]

Will Smith: Great, thank you for that Linh, the search investing activity that you do.

The last thing that you said. So these are self funded searchers and you are invested in self funded SBA style deals, is that right?

[01:04:19 - 01:05:19]

Linh Tran: Yeah, self funded, it could be sba. Some of them don't have sba. Like we have one international company that couldn't use SBA for obvious reasons.

People can use private credit. You know, I think we've done maybe a couple of independent sponsor deals, but I think the deal economics for self funded searcher, you know, obviously there's traditional, there's accelerator, there's self funded. I think the biggest one is that self funded search is going to be the only one where you're going to own the majority of the company, over 50% of the company. Right. So that's what we invest in.

So I'm always going to be the minority investor in these companies that does. That doesn't mean that I don't have veto rights and you know, board rights. Right. Like you can't just say, hey, I'm going to pay myself $3 million next year and wipe out all of our SD. We have protections against that.

But at the end of the day, I say, hey, you're the one in the driver's seat. I'm going to give you my opinion. But you're 51% owner or more and you have a PG on it. And you know, that's how I bought my first company. We didn't cover that, by the way, how I started my first company.

[01:05:19 - 01:05:23]

Will Smith: Oh yeah, please. Can we hear the bullet points on that? Go ahead.

[01:05:23 - 01:06:41]

Linh Tran: Yeah, that first deal was when I thought it was about a $300,000 SDA company. I was willing to pay between 4 and 5 randomly.

I don't really know why I did it. Oh, actually I do know I did it. I figured out that the debt service on it I think I could afford if I paid between 4 and 5 times earnings. So I ended up paying roughly 1.2 to 1.5 ish, I want to say. And the reason why it's a range was I structured it as part of it was fixed and part of it was an earn out.

And the earn out was based on like a five year kind of growth. And so the more that we grew up, the more we were able to pay on the earn out. Right. And so, you know, we did that and I think we, we just went gangbusters on it. And then the way we structured it was I did about 500,000 out of my 401k which I did with using Fran Fund, which is essentially kind of.

It's called a robs plan. Robs rollover for business. Sure. Basically where you're buying company stock in your own company. Right.

You got to pay yourself back and it's totally legal. It's something that you want to do, but you want to. Actually I got myself in trouble. We grew so fast that I, my CPA was like, you're in danger of actually not being able to buy your own shares.

[01:06:41 - 01:06:41]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[01:06:41 - 01:08:15]

Linh Tran: And so I had to, you know, buy my own shares back and basically, you know, double my 401k without a tax, you know, kind of disadvantage. I mean obviously I got to pay it at the end, but you know, no short term tax penalties for that. Did that, did a huge seller note on it and basically paid, paid it out of the earnings of the company. And what's interesting is, and I still do this today is I love that structure today because that keeps the seller involved. I'm able to pay the seller a pretty good interest rate.

Right. So the seller note in my situation was more of a, call it the SBA portion. Right. It's like, hey, if you think that I can do this and I'm the right partner for you, you don't really need this money. Why don't you just take a 15%, you know, 50 loan on it?

And you know, obviously people say, well, I want money up front. Okay, well I'll give you a few money. A few, a few dollars up front. Right. So that 500,000 I did for my 401k was the upfront money.

And then I, you know, but I've negotiated that down to 10 or 20% pretty easily. And I tell them, tell the seller, it's a seller note. If I don't do well and I don't pay your seller note, you take the business back over and you can sell it again. Right. But you've kept my down payment.

And as soon as I don't make your payment, then you get it back, there's no risk for you. Right. What if you sink it? Well, don't let me sink it. Right.

Help me. Right. And so that's an interesting kind of self select. I know who's not going to be there for me when I offer even a small seller note. They don't even want it.

Right. Because I know they're out the door, which is okay. But I need to know that up.

[01:08:15 - 01:09:06]

Will Smith: Front, laying this point that you really like to have sellers stay in, stay invested. Of course, private equity sees that a lot.

They want to see sellers role their equity demonstrates, you know, further skin in the game.

On the other hand, in search land.

We do hear.

You.

You'll hear, you know, 180 degrees different opinion, which is get the seller out.

Too many cooks in the kitchen, Sellers aren't going to like you getting in there and making changes while they're still there. They're territorial about their business, they built this business, etc. So I, I do wonder if everybody's opinion on sellers staying in or not is just based on whether or not they had a good outcome or a bad outcome in their, in their own particular story. But you, you see in, but you see into a lot of search stories these days. And so I, you have more data to look at.

So you do feel like general, you can generalize that.

[01:09:06 - 01:10:08]

Linh Tran: You like that approach. I like that approach. It's not 100% foolproof. There are, you know, I've done bad deals, right.

I've done bad deals where the seller, whether they intentionally or unintentionally gave me bad info or didn't work as hard when they were in there. Like, it happens. Right. And so you can't predict that, unfortunately. Right.

Like I, I would say that, you know, after looking at hundreds of deals, maybe thousands of deals, I have a little bit of a sixth sense about who may fit, you know, the mold of what I like. But yeah, no, that's always a risk, Will. And you know, I would say that the way we structure it is we don't have to keep the seller. Right. Like I always have the ability to say this seller is a cancer.

We will just pay them off. Right. Because this seller note isn't because we can't afford it. It's because we're trying to keep them involved in it. And if we, we want the option.

Right. Like I'm all about maximum optionality. If we want to keep them, we will keep them. If we don't, we get rid of them. Right.

It's not like it's a, you know, it's not like we're marrying them. It's like, that's interesting, right?

[01:10:08 - 01:10:22]

Will Smith: It's a seller known as option and I hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah, but how do you say it's not going well with the seller? How, how do you get the Money to pay off the seller note and get them out.

I mean, the whole, A big part of the reason the seller notes there is because you don't have the cash. You don't have the cash.

[01:10:22 - 01:10:27]

Linh Tran: So. So, yeah, so. So good point.

So I've only been able to do this on the latter portion of my career.

[01:10:27 - 01:10:27]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:10:27 - 01:10:43]

Linh Tran: Where we can cover it. Right. But, but earlier on, you couldn't.

You're right, you couldn't do it. I did have a company where I still owed the seller note. We couldn't afford to pay them off, but we just told them to stop showing up. Right. Like just stay home.

Like we don't like you. Like nobody likes you.

[01:10:44 - 01:10:44]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:10:44 - 01:11:07]

Linh Tran: So it was, it was very contentious. And so he literally stayed at home.

And did I feel bad that we were giving him a paycheck while he was staying home doing nothing? Yeah, I felt bad. But it was better than the alternative, which was to have him be there and kind of just, you know, Linh doesn't know what he's doing. They're wrecking the company. You guys should all go look for other jobs.

Right? This isn't going well. And I'm thinking to myself, this is, this is not good.

[01:11:07 - 01:11:08]

Will Smith: Right?

[01:11:08 - 01:11:39]

Linh Tran: Yeah.

So, yeah, yeah. But no, I like to structure that seller note. And you know, again, you said, how do you get out? Well, let's, let's put that in the search review if you want to get out. You know, there are, you know, companies like mine, Apex, that will, you know, take that seller note over or there are just other private, you know, institutions that will.

What I tell people is that money is the easiest part of a deal. Right. If the deal is good, either I will have the money or I know friends who will take the deal. Right. It's just, it's that good.

And if you don't have someone who's willing to take the deal, it probably is indicative that the deal is not great.

[01:11:40 - 01:11:40]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:11:40 - 01:11:48]

Linh Tran: So I know I'm oversimplifying, but I've never had a deal will that we thought was good, that we didn't, that we weren't able to get over the finish line.

[01:11:49 - 01:12:14]

Will Smith: So. Great.

And so. And now returning to your own investments and self funded searchers. So when you make an investment in a self funded searcher, they own, they have the pg, they own more than half the business. That's how you did it. You've been really successful with it.

I have found in my own investing activity that while I am an advocate of self funded searchers with my podcaster hat on, as an investor I like it less.

[01:12:15 - 01:12:15]

Linh Tran: Right.

[01:12:15 - 01:12:41]

Will Smith: Because as an investor, you know, you, you want more control and that and the terms of self funded search are so incredibly strong from, you know, for the searcher, which is something that I celebrate. But being on the other side of the table as an investor, I'm less enthusiastic about it. Totally honest.

Honestly.

It's interesting that you as an investor continue to celebrate that, that you are happy to have them own the majority of the company.

[01:12:41 - 01:15:38]

Linh Tran: Sure. Yeah. No, and it's, you know, this will sound like a commercial for Apex, but just take Apex out of it.

Just kind of look at it as from the investing hat will. I felt exactly the same as you. Right. Like my first investments, you know, I probably made my first self funded or you know, kind of similar investment 10 years ago. Right.

And it was terrible. Right. Like I had no control, didn't know what was going on, lost all my money. Right. So that was terrible.

Okay. And so, you know, fast forward to today, right. Is what type of search deals do I like? Well, I like search deals that are like bulletproof. Right.

And I think I told you earlier where you know, our baseline is a search deal has to, you know, if it doesn't grow and it has the same exit multiple as the entry multiple as a fund, we still make 22% IRR over five years. Right. And the way we structure that is with the step up and the pref and the liquidation and everyone's like, oh, that's really sharky. Now you're like not giving the searcher good deals or good kind of deal economics. I'm like no, no, no, I'm giving them great deal economics.

One of two things has to happen. They either have to hold the company for five years so that the cash flow is enough to pay us back and then they'll make a lot of money, right. Or they have to sell it for a lot of money the next year. Perfect example is let's say a million dollar EBITDA company that we buy for 5. I'll put the $1 million down the 20%.

Right. Because I don't want a PG. So I'll put the 1 million down, I'll get a 2x step up 10% profit if you sell it next year because you don't like being a CEO and you sell it that $5 million for 6 million. Well, guess what? I get that entire 1 million dollar extra because I need the 2x liquidation, right?

Yep, yep. Because you know, if in that case we're 60, 40, right. Like you get 600 and I get 400. I could, I could have made that in my debt fund. Right.

Like that wasn't worth the risk for me. Yeah, but you know, if you sold it next year for 10 million, then you get 6 and I get 4 and all of the, you know, liquidation preferences are satisfied. Right. And so I tell searchers this for a reason, to say for you to work with me, you have to make sure that this grape is going to turn into a watermelon. Right.

Because Obviously you want 60% of the watermelon, not 100% of a grape. Right. Mark Cuban line. And that self selects the searcher too. It's like, oh well, they use our models and my partner David Madden, he's a modeling genius.

It's a numbers thing. If the math doesn't work, it doesn't matter how much we like the business. If you overpay for a business, you won't get the return that you want and I won't get the return that I want. And so it's all about the deal economics for us. And that's, I think that's a little different than a lot of search people who invest in self funded searchers.

A lot of people spend a lot of time and vetting these searchers and making sure they're good. And that's great. But the problem is, and you know, this will, out of 100 searchers, maybe only 20 of them will find a deal. So it's, it's hard to do that. And so we kind of tackle it the opposite way.

Where I want to see the deal economics first and if it passes that screen, then I'm going to look at you as a searcher.

[01:15:38 - 01:15:39]

Will Smith: Exactly.

[01:15:39 - 01:16:22]

Linh Tran: But what's interesting is if the deal economics looks good, the searcher is typically pretty good because they found the deal, they were able to negotiate pretty good deal for terms and they were thinking about things kind of along the same lines that I would as a searcher. Right. Because for me I couldn't fail Wheel, right.

When I was, when I bought my first company. Like I had a kid or two kids and a wife. I still do. I would say I had, I have, I still have them and I couldn't fail them. And so I go in there saying I need a company that's got a 99% chance of success, of surviving.

Right. Like that. It's been around for 50 years, making a million dollars every year for the last 10 years. Like I need that kind of, like, you know, that kind of certainty.

[01:16:22 - 01:16:22]

Will Smith: Certainty.

[01:16:22 - 01:17:10]

Linh Tran: And I teach, you know, at Duke, you know, I'm on like the council and the board of their entrepreneurship council. And I talk to these students all the time and they're like, yeah, but you're, you know, you're only investing in stuff that's a sure thing. And I'm like, nothing's ever sure, right? Nothing is ever sure. But if, you know, I'm a big basketball fan.

If I'm going to, you know, if I'm going to get a center, I'm going to, I'm going to choose the 7 foot 7 center over the 6 foot 7 center every time. He might still be a bad basketball player, but he's going to have a better chance at being a good center. And that's what I'm doing with these companies, right? Where I'm trying to like stack the deck. And I tell the searchers, you should be too, right?

And they come to me at these, with these models, Will, and they're like, hey, if I, if I grow at 5 or 10%, I'll make this much more money. And I'm like, duh, if you, if you grow a company 10 or 20%, you'll grow the company. What I need you to look at is how badly can you run this thing and still have it run, right?

[01:17:10 - 01:17:26]

Will Smith: And so it's interesting that you get pushback. Linh on, on the fact that you're just, you know, you have deal flow and you're choosing the best deals from among that deal flow.

I guess maybe what people are reacting to is the fact that you probably wouldn't have invested in your deal or almost certainly. Or am I wrong?

[01:17:26 - 01:17:27]

Linh Tran: You mean the first deal that I did?

[01:17:27 - 01:17:32]

Will Smith: Yeah, yeah. Because that was that tiny, fragile business.

[01:17:32 - 01:17:37]

Linh Tran: I mean, that has good a chance of going to zero as it did being really well. Right.

[01:17:37 - 01:17:37]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[01:17:37 - 01:18:50]

Linh Tran: And so, you know, you're absolutely right. And so I would not have done that deal today, but I would have not, I would have not, I would have not recommended that someone take that deal.

Right. Because I have seen similar deals that I did where other people did it and it went to zero. I have seen a ton of them. Right. And so that's what we don't talk about a lot in Search is the horror stories that happened and the people who, you know, I think you and I were at an ETA conference where, you know, a gentleman lost his house, right.

And, and, and he was very vulnerable in talking about that. And so, you know, if you have a PG on your stuff, you know, I, I love it when these business school students are like, oh, Yeah, I don't have any network, so I'll put a PG on. I'm like, that's really not the attitude you should go into this with, right? Because if you fail at this, chances are you won't do it again, right? You'll, you'll, you'll go into corporate world and you'll do it, you'll, you'll wish that, you know, things were different.

But I want your first business to do really well. And, and so I'm really brutal with, with the, the students that I teach and with the mid career people that I coach is, you know, you want to stack the odds in your favor, right? You want to be like, you want to be like the 1983 Bears. You don't want to be the 2017 Falcons. You know what I mean?

Like, you want to have it, you know, you want to have it stacked, right?

[01:18:50 - 01:19:20]

Will Smith: So, but Linh, on that point about a younger person who has no net worth being willing to take the PG because they have nothing to lose anyway, is that flawed logic? I mean, maybe they're being overly sanguine about what it would look like to, to be in a bad situation. But, but I have said on here that, you know, pg, when you have nothing to lose versus a PG where you have everything to lose, there is obviously a giant difference there. Am I flawed in saying that?

[01:19:20 - 01:20:53]

Linh Tran: No, you're absolutely not flawed. I would say this is the time to do it, right? Take that pg. I guess what I'm saying is, but don't take that PG as a gamble, right? Like there's a difference between investing and gambling, right?

One of my early invent mentors would say that it's like, hey, is this an investment or is this a gamble? Well, what do you mean? Well, an investment isn't fun. It isn't subject to all this risk. A true investment is, you know, you've got pretty good certainty, right?

And what it was, this isn't venture cap where you expect 99 out of 100 things to not hit, right? Like, yeah, this is, this is, you know, self funded search to me is you're not aiming for the home run, you're not aiming for the billion dollar valuation. You're aiming for the singles and the doubles, right? And so that's what I would say is take the pg. I always tell people, you know, and you know, I think searchers listen to this podcast.

They're going to be very motivated to say what, you know what? I'd rather start with a company with $5 million in SDE and grow that because it's a bigger nut and I don't like that. It's like that's a bigger company, that your mistakes are going to be magnified and it's going to have a lot bigger repercussions. Right. And you know, we had a Portco that was like that, that they were like, oh yeah, this is great, like what could go wrong?

Well, something went wrong. They had one person that, you know, did something wrong and they had revenue pushed, you know, a quarter, which, you know, they'll get the revenue, no problem. But guess what, you still have to pay your employees tomorrow. Right. And so they're not going to say, oh yeah, we'll just wait till next quarter.

Right. This problem is less of a problem when your payroll is ten thousand versus a hundred thousand. Right.

[01:20:53 - 01:21:13]

Will Smith: And so Linh, what is to you then kind of the sweet spot. So as big as possible is, is not what you advocate.

No, you wouldn't, you wouldn't advocate buying 150 or 300 SDE that you bought. So, so what do you, what do you like? Is it, do you actually follow where the conventional wisdom is that 750 to 1.1.2 of earnings is what a self funded searcher should target?

[01:21:13 - 01:21:29]

Linh Tran: Yeah. So I would say that our fund does 1 to 3 million, which is exactly where I think the self funded searcher should be.

Is between 1 to 3 million in, in, in, in, seller, discretionary. Because anything below a million can go to zero like instantaneously in my opinion.

[01:21:29 - 01:21:29]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:21:29 - 01:21:33]

Linh Tran: It's, it's, it's, it's on a house of cards, so to speak. Right.

[01:21:33 - 01:21:33]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[01:21:33 - 01:22:04]

Linh Tran: At a million you start developing some processes and procedures that are good but not great. Right. And then above 3 million they're starting to get a lot better. So the, you know, the hair on the, the company is, is not as great.

Yeah. You know, you're not, they're more efficient. So I like to say between 1 to 3 million is, is a good target. Will I drop down to 700,000? Absolutely.

Will I drop to below 500? Probably not. Right. That's more of a solopreneur to me. Right.

[01:22:05 - 01:22:35]

Will Smith: And so as inspiring as your story.

Is, Linh, a takeaway for the listeners buy a business like you bought, that is not the takeaway here because it's easy to walk away from this, your incredible trajectory and be like, ah, see, I just got to get in the game. Even if it means buying a little old $300,000 of steel trades business. I just got to get in the game because I'LL work hard like Linh did and I'll, you know, I can work from 4, 4am to 10pm for the next few years. I'll just do that.

He's a picture of what I want to build. That's actually should not be the takeaway.

[01:22:35 - 01:25:05]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, I think the takeaway is like you said, 1 to 3 million. Because I could have done what I've done now faster had I just. Now the problem is I didn't have any investors and there was no ecosystem to get the money and SBA financing wasn't as huge back then.

Right. With, with doing this in today's world you do have investors such as myself who are not only willing to give you the money, but also give you the expertise to say, you know, here's how you grow that. Because I could promise you one to $3 million. SD companies, they're not run, you know, as well as say an Amazon is or as you know, just a larger company. Now obviously there's going to be some exceptions to that rule, but with the 1 to 3 million dollar SDE company, it's gonna be a guy who had a good idea or who had a good business product or a good service, who said, hey, I'm a good mechanic.

Let me hire my friend who's also a good mechanic who hired another friend. Right. I mean, it's just, it's usually not some. Oh, that's another good thing, Will, that I would say is I wouldn't buy something where you're super into it, right. I find that a lot of times when someone is super into the business, they make the worst decisions, right?

Because they, they think they know better or they just get clouded. Whereas I think that if you don't know something about a business, it's almost an easier lift for you. Right? And you know, I think EO and YPO is a good example of that where I get most of my good ideas from people who are completely outside of my, my, my wheelhouse. Right.

And it's like, you know, perfect example is I used to always do like money as my motivator for my people. And you know, one of my friends said, why, why is that a motivator? Like these people don't, you know, they're, you know, they like, they like going fishing and they like big trucks and stuff. And I ended up like offering like new Ford Raptors to people as bonuses and it cost me less than their actual bonus structure. But that's what people wanted, right?

It's, it was so weird to me, right? And I was like, how did you come up with that idea? He's like, oh, well, your employees are just like mine. They're just blue collar. Like, you know, if you give them a 20% pay bump, they're just going to pay their bills with it and it's going to be gone tomorrow.

But, you know, if you give them a Ford Raptor, you know, it's like they're driving around and, you know, they're the man, you know, and so just those ideas came from completely outside my industry. And so I think that my best entrepreneurs that I work with are ones that, I'm not going to say they're not ex, they don't, they don't know nothing about it, but they know enough about it, but they're not the expert in that field, if that makes sense.

[01:25:05 - 01:25:29]

Will Smith: Well, but then how do you, where is the right fit between, you know, the business buyer fit? If you, if you are again, kind of leaning into or, or embracing somebody, not coming from the industry, buying a business completely outside their industry, you know, then, then how do you find where, you know, whatever they can bring to that business in that business intersect?

[01:25:30 - 01:25:54]

Linh Tran: Sure.

So, you know, tough. Good question. Tough question. So it depends on who they are. Right.

So some people are going to be like me where they're visionaries and they're going to beat the drum and attract the talent over. Right. Some people are more accounting or finance based or more marketing based. And what I look at those searchers and when I'm looking at investments, it's how are they going to put their marketing spin or their accounting spin on this business? Right.

Where it's.

[01:25:54 - 01:25:54]

Will Smith: Yeah.

[01:25:54 - 01:26:23]

Linh Tran: You know, when they're looking at a, you know, one of the companies we just picked up was, you know, sewage inspection, you know, sewage pipe inspection, business and repair. And you know, the person who is our searcher who bought it, great guy. He knows nothing about sewer repair.

Right. But he has experience working with governments and you know, that's a transferable skill. Right. And so, yeah, you know, it's, it's things like that. Yeah, yeah, you can transfer those, transfer those skills.

[01:26:24 - 01:26:44]

Will Smith: Yeah. Linh, before we wrap up here and, and we have one more segment to do, but I just want to make sure that everybody heard how you invest. So tell us the criteria again and then if you could tell us the terms. I don't think you told us what the step up and, and the pref is and all of that. So, so again, your criteria for the business first, please.

[01:26:45 - 01:29:14]

Linh Tran: Yeah, so the criteria for the business is very similar to my criteria back in, back in the day, the three Rs, I call them recurring recession proof required, right? And so if they hit all three of those things, then I'm in. If they hit two of the three, I'll talk about it, right? And if it hits one of the three, I probably won't do it, right? And so, you know, people are cool.

What industry does that mean? It's any industry that hits those three, right? And so, sure, we've got, you know, IT services, we've got database engineering firms, we've got manufacturing, we've got trades, you know, but all of them fit those three R's in some way. And then in terms of the deal terms, right, for, for me as well as investors and my friend and partner, David, you know, we're the biggest lps as well as the gp. So I think people like that where we have the most money in all of these deals.

And so we're going to try to pick the best ones that, you know, we've been investing together for, know, 10 years. We have a 2x step up, right? So, and that's not on equity, that's on the waterfall at the end, right? That's important to know, right? So if you put 20% of the money down, we're going to get 40% of the waterfall at the end.

We're going to get a pref. The Prep is usually 10 to 15%. So classic deal where if it's a $5 million deal and we're putting in a million, that million buys us $2 million worth of, you know, distributions. We get 10% to 15%. So we get 100 to $150,000 a year on our money until we're paid back.

And so, and that, you know, when do you get paid back? Well, pay me back when my cost of capital is more than your cost to borrow, right? That's when you should pay it back. And then we have a 2x liquidation, meaning my million has to be 2 million before the equity split comes in. And, you know, if you do that math out, the searcher wins if they run the business at zero growth for five years or they sell it for a lot of money under five years.

And so we motivate the searcher not only to stick with it, but to also work. Right? I mean, there's no other way around it. That searcher needs to put in the time. And I can't tell you how many searchers I say, hey, Lee, I want to do what you do.

I want to do a hold Code like you and buy these businesses and do it. You just can't do it until you've run your first company. Right. Like you don't know what looking for until you've run your first company. Now do people do it?

Do people become portfolio managers? Absolutely. But the best portfolio managers I've seen are always ones that were former operators who, who know what to look at. So yeah, that's in a nutshell, our.

[01:29:14 - 01:29:41]

Will Smith: Our investments and thank you, Linh.

And to just to underline two points there. To the extent that you guys are a little aggressive on terms, it's that 2x liquidation press that would be a little outside market. You've explained why you, why you do that. And then generally the searcher, the self funded searcher is looking at having 60% ownership if everything goes, it goes to plan.

[01:29:41 - 01:29:41]

Linh Tran: That's right.

[01:29:41 - 01:29:42]

Will Smith: You guys are 40, they're 60.

[01:29:43 - 01:32:21]

Linh Tran: That's right. And you know, it is, it is a richer than market. But if you look at our, our portfolio companies, we run them like an EO forum where we're talking to them about what's going on, right. Like we give them not just strategic advice but tactical advice, what lawyers to use, what sales teams that we've used, what CRM systems have we used, right.

So I literally tell them, if you don't think you're going to double the value of the company with our help, you literally should not take my money. Right. Like it's not going to be good for you, but if you want to get there faster, right? It's classic Shark tank, right? It's, you know, if you want to get there faster, we're probably going to be the ones to get you there faster, right?

We're going to have, and I've, you know, I could tell you a million stories where you know, we had our, one of our first Port Co companies, we saved them 300 grand in legal fees, right. You know, with a 30 minute call, right. And they're like, oh my gosh, like this was worth your 2x step up already. And I'm like, right, right. How did you, how did you know?

Well, because we had literally the same thing happen to us and we're just going to give you the same lawyer, right? And, and you know, I don't think that they realize it until they see, hey, you and Dave have run real companies before and you know, we're gonna, you're gonna help us not lose, you know, a million dollars, you know, by using AI to do takeoffs, which is one of the things that we did Right. So I think our advice is, you know, is, is great, it's worth it. But it's funny that you say that. It's, it's when you say that the terms are better than mark or better than market.

We had a lawyer at one of our deals who literally told me that, said, you guys are the worst investors I've ever seen. Like you're taking advantage of my client who's the searcher. And I'm like, okay, well I told the searcher, sounds like you got an investor. Who? Your lawyer.

Your lawyer says I'm terrible, right? Like, you know, and, and the lawyer's like, well, I guess, I guess my role is to, not, to not negotiate the deal, but to write and make sure that the deal terms are legal. I'm like, right, you know, fast forward, you know, we're doing great with that company, right? So it's not that the deal terms are bad because all the things I told you I forgot to mention will have us have a catch up provision. So once we make that, every dollar goes to the searcher until we get back to parity.

So they get back to parity really fast. And the way I tell them is, look, Will, if you were one of our searchers and I said, will, you didn't grow the business at all. You just ran it as a CEO. You still got paid your CEO salary. So why do you think you earn 60% of the equity if you didn't really grow it?

Well, but you know, I had the pg. Yeah, but you know, I put the money down and the company paid the loan off. Like you didn't have any personal, you know, you didn't do anything.

[01:32:21 - 01:32:21]

Will Smith: Right?

[01:32:21 - 01:32:49]

Linh Tran: And so I know that's harsh sounding, but it's kind of the reality, right?

It's like I need the searcher to know, hey, I'm expecting you to grow this thing, right? We, we underwrite it at zero growth. But if I thought that it was going to be zero growth, I wouldn't invest in it, right? Like yeah, 22%. They're like, well, but you're making 22%.

Well, but my debt fund makes, you know, I think our gross is 25% right now, right? So I'm better off just putting my money into a no thinking credit fund, you know, than put into here. Unless I think you can grow it.

[01:32:50 - 01:33:15]

Will Smith: Right? Well, exactly.

I mean one thing that people probably receiving money from investors, receiving capital from investors might not take into account is that investors capital providers have opportunity costs. So they're looking at an array of Options. Right. So for them to do your deal, whatever that is, it needs to basically on a risk adjusted basis, they have to believe it's going to outperform wherever else they could put that money. Like in your case, your credit, your private credit fund.

[01:33:15 - 01:33:58]

Linh Tran: That's right. And I think. Is that right? Well, I don't know if it's right. It's just what it is.

Right. I mean, you know, same lawyer said, hey, you have, you're having a confirmation bias that all deals are like this. I'm like, no confirmation bias would be if I said all deals in the universe are like this. I'm telling you, all of the deals I do are like this. That's a fact.

Right. I don't do them unless they're like this. Right. And so, you know, and so, yeah, no, I mean I admit, I admit that I'm at a point where my batna, right. My best alternative to negotiated agreement is to do Nothing and make 25% on my money.

Right. So because of that I've got to ensure that whatever I do is going to make me, you know, 30, 40, 50% IRR returns on my money. Right, right, right. So it's just, is it the right way?

[01:33:58 - 01:34:14]

Will Smith: No, I mean, you know, when you compare it to traditional search where the, the searcher is looking at 25% in the best case, 25% carry in the best case.

You, I think 60% looks pretty generous even, even with the liquidation prep.

[01:34:14 - 01:34:15]

Linh Tran: Sure.

[01:34:15 - 01:34:31]

Will Smith: The other thing is you're not leaning on them to sell, Right. This is the searchers. Can a long term oriented hold co aspiring searcher could come to you and explicitly say that and you would welcome them warmly.

[01:34:31 - 01:35:27]

Linh Tran: 100 and then our fund has to sell, I think in 10 years. But we have it set up where we can buy, buy, buy the assets with Fund 2 behind it. Right. And so we have it structured where that conversation doesn't have to happen today. But you know, if it was me and you, I'd say, will, do you want to buy my half?

Do I want to buy your half? Do we want to sell it to a third party or do we want to just keep it? Right. Because I think when you get to some point, and this is kind of my investment philosophy is it's not about selling for these big piles of money, it's about cash flow. Right.

And having millions of dollars coming in from cash flow. Right. Because I'll be honest with you, I have people who are selling their businesses who are sitting on, you know, I have one guy sitting on like, this is a crazy story. He's sitting on a billion dollars and he won't spend money because he's like, I'm terrified because I am, I have no asset generating, you know, vehicle anymore. I don't have a business anymore.

Every time I spend money, my billion dollars goes down. Right?

[01:35:27 - 01:35:44]

Will Smith: I, I have heard that even for the ultra wealthy, when they're just sitting on a pile of money, as opposed to having assets that are generating cash flow, it's a weird psychological thing where they, they, they feel very frugal, even if they had assets that were generating a lot less than the money pile they're sitting on.

[01:35:44 - 01:37:20]

Linh Tran: That's it. That's it.

And it's, it's a strange, I mean, we have actually a whole community called post Exit founders because I did actually exit an early company halfway. I didn't exit, I brought on a partner. But that, that kind of qualified me for being a post exit founder. You know, I talked to those, those guys and girls all the time and it's just weird, right? You see them sitting on pile of money, afraid.

And I'm like, and I'll joke, I'll say, oh, you're not doing anything with your money. Why don't you like invest in, you know, a fund or buy a company? Because you're literally losing like a Porsche 911 Turbo every day with the interest that you're losing by having it just sit there in the, in the bank. You know what I mean? It's like when you say that, they're like, oh my gosh, like, what are you talking about?

Like, well that's, that's what you're doing. So. Yeah, and what's another, another funny story about that is I know a guy, a friend of a friend who's sitting on $17 billion right now, who's the most depressed person you've ever met, who says he's getting divorced, his kids hate him, and he's like, I did all this stuff for my life. I would trade it all for you guys, right? Like, and I'm like, like, you know, training for, for our life.

And I'm like, you know, we're kind of joking. We're like, haha, that's really funny, Will. Oh, you're not kidding. Like, this is, this is serious. Like, this is not, you know, this is not cool, right?

And, and so that's a cautionary tale, right? Is that what's money if you don't have the friends and family around you, right? It's like, you know, he's like, you know, yeah, you guys are happy. You guys are hanging out all the time. Like, you know, you make a lot less money than I do.

And he literally said, I want to kill myself. I mean, that's a big, that's a big cautionary tale.

[01:37:20 - 01:38:12]

Will Smith: It is a cautionary tale link. And I do actually think this theme is kind of the theme of this interview with you is this balancing, figuring out how to balance wealth creation with family and how it's, you know, that balance is probably, or the sweet spot is probably a moving target and there's probably swings and there's, there's seasons of life where maybe the family get. Suffers a little bit of neglect.

But you, with the full intention that you're going to come back to it. But the, but how, like you said earlier, like, it can become addictive. Improving your business, improving your business, improving your business can become addictive. So maybe the neglect that your family's suffering, it can. Suffers for too long.

And so you need to have the somebody in your family, hey, give, you know, give us your attention. And you need to be woken up from your, from that neglect. And, and, and it's, you know, it, it's not static. And so it's probably something that needs to be, needs to be worked on.

[01:38:13 - 01:38:35]

Linh Tran: That's, that's great.

And that's probably because, you know, you've got insight from, you know, 400 people talking to you. That's, that's great. Right? Because everybody, we call them sprints or seasons. Right.

Where everybody's different. Right. Where my family sprint's going to be maybe two months. Right. Whereas I've got some friends who are like their spouses and family.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll give you two years to, you know, go in a hole. And my family's not like that, right? Like, no, maybe, maybe a month or two.

[01:38:35 - 01:38:36]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:38:37 - 01:41:36]

Linh Tran: That you can go into a hole. But we need you back. Back to us. And I like that.

Right. You know, I've got a kid who's a freshman in high school and a kid who's a freshman in college, and I'm still active in their life because that's the season I'm in. You know, maybe once they're out, I'll have a different season. But I think that's important to kind of discuss with your people, and I think legacy is important to discuss. Right.

Where, you know, I feel like a lot of my time is how do I deploy the cash, not just with my businesses, but in a philanthropic way. Right. Where, you know, I'm telling You. We have Philippine, you know, Philippines office. We built, you know, four child centers in the Philippines this year.

You know, built some in, you know, Brazil and Ecuador the previous year, and Dominican Republic. And that's just one thing that I, you know, have really, you know, gravitated towards because each center does 250 kids. And we're getting them out of poverty and showing them how to, you know, to make a life for themselves. That's why I'm, you know, putting so much into the searcher community. I want them to build a life for themselves, right?

Their family and, you know, to, you know, I think it was. Who was I having breakfast? It was John Mackey, Whole Foods, right? They're a big company. Big, big, big client of ours.

And I remember John at a breakfast saying, hey, you know, ling, like on TV, business owners, they're villains, you know, 80 or 90% of the time. But in real life, you know, it's only like 10%. I'm like, where's John going with this? He's like, his point was, is that business people are villainized. But, you know, we can make a change, right?

Like, we can. We can do good with our money. Unfortunately, you can't make change unless you have money. So, you know, make a change and deploy it in a way that you feel is. Is good for you.

And I think that was a great way, a great thing for him to say, which was, you know, hey, there's, you know, he. Whole foods is charging $30 for a steak instead of, you know, somebody else charging eight. You know, and, you know, they take that money and they, they do their, their philanthropic efforts. And so I think that's an important thing for searchers to know, too, is that it's not just about making money and, and making your own lives better. It's about making, like, your employees lives better.

Right? Like, because I'm not owned by private equity, you know, I was sharing with you, you know, not to brag, but just to say that you can do these things. We've had employees with cancer, that we can cover their cancer treatments. No private equity board would allow me to do that. Right?

We, you know, we. I remember one guy who was retiring, he said, hey, you know, I'm. I'm retired. I'm good. I've.

I've ridden my bike in all 49 states. And I'm like, you know, you're old as dirt, but, you know, there's 50 states now, right? And we joke and, you know, it's, you know, and, you know, we sent him off to Hawaii, you know, where he could ride a bike and, you know, do some stuff. And he'd already retired. And I.

A board would never have approved that. Right. And. But what's weird, Will is doing those things, they can become part of your culture, right? Where I had a few people who had a private equity company, this is one of those hostile takeovers, right?

Where they said, ling, you better sell me your company or I'm going to offer everybody at your company double their paycheck and steal the from you. Like, that was his pitch.

[01:41:36 - 01:41:36]

Will Smith: Wow.

[01:41:36 - 01:42:07]

Linh Tran: Like, I was like, well, this is an interesting lunch. And so.

And he did. He offered everybody double and nobody left. Right. And what did they. I said, why didn't you leave?

Like, I, I didn't tell anybody to stay. I said, hey, that's life changing money for you. Like, you know, take it. And they're like, no, we know who he is. We know that he sells his companies every three years.

We know that he's terrible to work for. We've talked to people who used to work for Forum. We know that if something happens to us or our families, you'll take care of us.

[01:42:07 - 01:42:08]

Will Smith: You will.

[01:42:08 - 01:42:37]

Linh Tran: And that's powerful.

That's very powerful. Right? And you know, how can you not want to be a business owner after hearing, you know, that kind of statement from, from your employees who are willing to, you know, you convert them from being terrorists to being patriots. Right. And really, really wanting to do well for the company.

And it shows. Will, like, with everything with clients and just treating each other like the people who, like, are good people, are, are good to, you know, everyone around them. And it's just a positive thing to be around. So.

[01:42:37 - 01:43:16]

Will Smith: Well, one of the, the patterns in this podcast is that many searchers get into search or buying a business for a particular reason, and then they find to their surprise that, that the impact that they can have on their people, on their employees, turns out to be one of the most gratifying parts of the journey.

And it wasn't even one that was on their radar. And I've heard that time and again. Linh, I want to start closing us out here, but I, before we close, I'll mention that I interviewed Catherine Butler Dines a couple episodes ago. So her, her interview will have aired before, before this one.

[01:43:16 - 01:43:16]

Linh Tran: Sure.

[01:43:17 - 01:43:52]

Will Smith: And she is part of the Duke Fuqua community and a searcher, and she knew you and she was considering a search, considering traditional search, as it turned out. She worked. She went and got a CEO role at Alpine, the private equity fund that hires you know, MBA grads to, to be, to run, to be the CEOs of their platform acquisitions. And you had advised her to go.

Do a self funded search.

She did not take that advice. She went and got this CEO role at Alpine. It wasn't a fit for her. And then so she, she went off then and did do a self funded search. And that's what our interview was about.

All right, what did you tell her?

[01:43:52 - 01:43:55]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, love Catherine. And her, her husband rule.

[01:43:56 - 01:43:57]

Will Smith: Yeah, Rahul. Yeah, exactly.

[01:43:57 - 01:46:55]

Linh Tran: You know, it's, I think I took a, I took a really kind of keen interest in Catherine because, you know, she's one of the few females I've, I've worked with through the years who have been doing search. Right. It's, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, as a sidebar, you know, my two daughters growing up, you know, I think they were watching some TV shows and they said, there's not a, there's not a lot of women CEOs. And I said, yeah. And they're like, dad, don't you have a bunch of companies?

Yeah. How many women CEOs you have? None. And my youngest, like yelled at me, she was like, you're part of the problem, you know, and I was like, wow, okay. And she's like, you should try harder.

And so, you know, fast forward. Today I've got, you know, probably half my executive team is women because I've made a, you know, a conscious effort to develop that. And so Katherine, you know, she stuck out a was because, you know, she's brilliant, but, you know, she was a woman. And what stuck out about her was she was so analytical and into the weeds of companies. And I, and I love that.

And I think that's what separates self funded searchers from running it for Alpine, right? Where the questions that she asked were super intelligent about how a business ran. Not, I'm looking at the AR on the ap, I'm looking at this top line revenue and if I roll it like, you know, on a very high strategic level, she was getting into the nitty gritty. Like, I want to see line item, what the net income looks like. I want to dig in.

We worked on a deal where she flew down and, you know, spent several days at a company just kind of grilling their team about each line on cost. And to me that's the sign of a searcher who's willing to go there and, you know, unclog toilets if they need to. Right. And I can always tell because there's Someone who's like, I want to be, you know, running a company for a PE company so that we can do all this roll up, but they have no intention of ever going and meeting the feet on the street. They just want to roll up 10 companies.

And, and I could see that because their strategy is all about, here's my first purchase, here's my second purchase, here's my third purchase. It's never about what do I do with this purchase, right? And when I, when I ask things questions like, you know, tell me about the company you want to buy or tell me what you want to look at. A self funded searcher will look at customer concentration. They'll look at job costing, right.

They'll look at very specific details. Whereas someone who's kind of more fit for a, I'd say a high level CEO role, they're going to say things like, oh, well, I'll have my finance team look at that and I will figure out what our cash flow requirements and so there's nothing wrong with that will. They're high level right now. I always tell people, you know, there's easier ways, you know, to make money, right? Like, you know, Tim over at sfa, he has a great quote that I love, which is, you know, there's, there's much better ways to make money, right?

You know, and, and you can make a really good, you know, living working and being a private equity CEO for Alpine. But to your point, you're going to be limited by, to 25%, right? Which some people might be okay with. You're going to have, you know.

[01:46:55 - 01:46:59]

Will Smith: No, and that's in traditional search.

I don't think Alpine gives 25%.

[01:46:59 - 01:47:59]

Linh Tran: No, that's, that's probably, that's probably like a, like 2 or 3, 5% bonus or something like that. Right. My point is, is that you're, you're not, you're not really an owner, right. You're an operator at that point.

And, and there's a difference between those two mindsets, right? Where it's like, I think an owner is willing to go down with a ship. A professional CEO always knows that there is that parachute attached. Right. If that makes sense.

And I can tell based upon the questions that they ask, what they want to do is that if they don't like this, there's always going to be a chance that they're going to leave and they're okay with that. Right. They don't want it to be all on them and they don't want the PG to be on them. And that's okay. Right?

But there are some people who want to say, like, Catherine was a perfect example where she's like, I want to make these changes today on this company. The company that we looked for, this company can't survive unless we make these, these changes. Like, and she came with very tactical things, you know, tactical, you know, suggestions.

[01:48:00 - 01:48:35]

Will Smith: And, and, but Lane, people watching you, listening to your story and saying, I want to be Linh. And a big part of the reason they want to be you is not because, just because of the wealth you've created and the freedom you have, but because to the extent that you're involved in your businesses, it is strategic and you're doing the fun stuff.

You're not in the way, you're not that doing that hard nitty gritty in the weed stuff. And so what you, so is then what you would tell them? I paid my dues. I, or I, or I, I am where I am today because I did sweat the small details for years. And there's no, skip it, there's no skipping that 100%.

[01:48:35 - 01:48:51]

Linh Tran: 100%. You have to do that because I don't know how you would otherwise manage a portfolio of companies looking at those small details if you never looked at those details yourself. Right. I'm just, is that, is that the right way to do it? I don't know.

It's just, that's who we support.

[01:48:51 - 01:48:51]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:48:51 - 01:49:26]

Linh Tran: Is when we're looking at searchers, that's what we look at is, hey, do we think that this person can, can dig deep when there's a problem? Are they going to just be deer in headlights when you know, oh my gosh, my, you know, the revenue is down. I don't know what to do.

Well, you know, how many customers did you go talk to? I don't know. How many customers do you have? I don't know. You know, like, I mean, literally, I talked to a company where they searched her, where I asked them questions about this 10 million dollar company.

Literally had no idea how many customers it had, who their customers were. Like, I'm like, you know, okay, so what are your failure points? Oh, it's not going to fail. It's been around for 20 years. That can't be your answer.

[01:49:27 - 01:49:27]

Will Smith: Right.

[01:49:27 - 01:50:06]

Linh Tran: And so, you know, it's, it's, it's tough. But yeah, I would totally agree with you, Will, that you have to put in the time. There's no shortcut to, to that. And so that might be two years or somebody, that might be five years.

I, I don't know. The answer to that. But it's going to be time in there, in my opinion, right. To, to know it. And then I think that once you do that, people are like, oh, what you do is so hard.

I mean, Will, it's, it's just not that hard today. But my wife always reminds me, ling, you used to go in at 4:30 in the morning, come home at 10. Like, it was hard for a while. That's why it's not hard for you today. Right?

And I think there's a lot of truth to that.

[01:50:07 - 01:50:09]

Will Smith: How many years did you do that for, Link?

[01:50:09 - 01:50:11]

Linh Tran: Five. Yeah, right.

[01:50:11 - 01:50:12]

Will Smith: At five.

[01:50:12 - 01:51:11]

Linh Tran: Yeah. So it was, and again, it was one of those things where I think back and it didn't feel like five. I don't, you know, when I say that out loud, people get scared. I'm like, you're not, this isn't going to be something where you hope you don't do. Like, if you're cut out for this, you will do it and you won't even know it.

Right. Like, I remember towards the tail end of that five years, I was going like, you know, playing tennis, surfing, flying, like, just doing everything with my friends, and I would tell them I don't work. And they would say, no, you're not. You're. Every time we see you, you're on the phone, right?

Every time, like, you fill up your time, right, with, with stuff. And I remember one guy was like, hey, I'm going to ask your IT guy to pull up your cell phone records and show us how many, how many calls you have in a year. And it was crazy. I was still working 35 to 40 hours a week on phone calls with, with companies in my staff when I thought I wasn't working. But that was just because it was.

I'd call them for an hour on the way to the lake, an hour on the way back from the lake. You know, I'd go, I'd fill in that time. Right.

[01:51:12 - 01:51:45]

Will Smith: Well, I also, I also think it was because of the adage, you know, if you enjoy what you do, you never work a day in your life, you're having a good time. Which really, wealth aside, you know, whether or not you're being strategic or in the weeds or whatever, that that is really should be the, the goal of most is if you, if you're enjoying what you do, right?

And, you know, balancing that with family, that's the real prize. So that, that's quite, that's quite amazing that you, that you got to the point where you were working working 40 hours a week but it felt like play so you didn't even realize it.

[01:51:45 - 01:51:46]

Linh Tran: That's right. That's right.

[01:51:46 - 01:51:49]

Will Smith: Yeah.

So let's leave it on that note. Where can people find you?

[01:51:49 - 01:52:03]

Linh Tran: Any searchers, anybody who wants to invest. And when I say invest I mean co invest with us. We co invest with a lot of people as well and or invest in the fund obviously.

But they can contact us at info@apexfundgroup.com.

[01:52:04 - 01:52:08]

Will Smith: And apexfungroup.com that is URL to learn more if they just wanna.

[01:52:08 - 01:52:28]

Linh Tran: That's right. Apexfungroup.com they can learn all about us and yeah, no it, you know put in the subject line Acquiring Minds podcast so that it goes and gets routed to the right people and you know, we. Yeah it's.

I think you've been great for the community. So I'm expecting probably influx. So I apologize beforehand if it takes us a few weeks to get back to people here.

[01:52:29 - 01:52:51]

Will Smith: Well, Lang, I've enjoyed it so much. It's been great to get to know you over these last few weeks and in this interview you really are an inspiration.

I won't flatter you, but what you built is, is really as I said, I think for many people listening, the dream and you've kept your head about you. You've done right by your people, you've done right by your family. Um, so it's, it's just a. Was thrilled to have you on. Thank you for sharing.

[01:52:51 - 01:53:07]

Linh Tran: Yeah, no, thanks for. Thanks for having me. I think you're the first real podcast that I've been on and I've refused to do them because I didn't think they had great motives and I think yours is one of the few where I love that you're giving back to this community and you know, building an army of self funded searchers. So kudos to you as well. I love it.

[01:53:07 - 01:53:55]

Will Smith: I love it. Well, thank you for that bling. Really appreciate it. Sure hope you enjoyed that. In interview.

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