There are two paths to career success, and they treat your time very differently.

Climb the corporate ladder and the more successful you get, the less of your own time you control — more title, more travel, more of someone else's priorities.

Today's guest watched his friends who owned businesses go the other way: the better their businesses got, the more time they got back.

‍That observation put Patrick Dunphy on this path to buy his own business.

Eight years in the Army, then corporate, then three and a half years of searching part-time — lunch breaks, nights after his four kids were in bed.

What he bought in May 2025 is a business most searchers have never considered: JS Languages, a low-seven-figure agency that places human interpreters in courts, hospitals, schools. He found it on BizBuySell, which he likens to looking for a blind date on Craigslist.

Listen for what Patrick did with working capital.

‍By invoicing faster and in smaller batches, he cut days sales outstanding to half the industry standard — resulting in a one-time cash benefit that he values between $100,000 to $150,000. This working capital arbitrage, he says, is the cheapest capital you can find.

Finally, Patrick wanted to make sure his QoE provider got a call-out. He said David and Steven Nemes at The Accounting Company were absolutely essential both before and after he closed.

Here he is, Patrick Dunphy, owner of JS Languages.