Host: Today's interview is the second part of a two part series. On Monday for part one, we heard from Don Goerly, the entrepreneur who bought Boston Tree Preservation. Today we talk to the founder and seller of that business, Peter Wild. We also have Carlos Laconi here who was immersed in the world of search, worked for Peter, and really made this deal come together. As regular listeners know, Acquiring Minds is all about talking to buyers of businesses and from those buyers we learn about the psychology of sellers, but only indirectly. So I think you'll enjoy hearing directly from a seller today. And if you haven't yet listened to Monday's episode with the buyer Don Gourley, make sure to do that as well. Please enjoy this conversation with Peter Wild and Carlos Liconi. Quick heads up before we start, I'm going to be moderating an in person event devoted to buying small businesses. The event is hosted by the Silicon Valley Chapter of EO Entrepreneurs Organization. We're going to have three awesome acquisition entrepreneurs on stage, including a couple that you regular listeners will recognize, George Goetz, who bought the shuttle business Now City Bus business and Nick Haschka, who bought an indoor plant business and is a well known name in the search ecosystem. It's going to be a fantastic conversation. It's after work on Thursday, October 5th in San Jose. It's an event for EO members, but I've got free passes for any listeners of Acquiring Minds. So if you're in the South Bay and want to come by, let me know and I'll get you a free pass. In addition to the awesome panel, you'll get a sense for what EO is all about, which as you all probably know is one of the largest organizations for SMB owners in the world. A number of guests on Acquiring Minds have joined their local EO chapters after acquiring their businesses again Thursday, October 5th after work. Email me for your free pass. WillQuiringMinds 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. Listeners of Acquiring Minds know that for almost any business you acquire, its success comes down to the people and how you develop and manage them as their new leader. Thing is, in addition to management there is also a lot of process and bureaucratic work when it comes to your new employees. Payroll compliance, HR technology, hiring to name but a few. These processes are crucial to get right, but at the same time distract from where you want to be putting your energy in leadership. So Aspen HR is an HR firm and PEO that takes this work off your plate and handles it with the care it demands. Aspen is owned and run by Mark Sinatra, himself a successful former searcher. So Aspen's own leadership understands the HR challenges that searchers have. Post acquisition, the firm is offering Acquiring Minds listeners a complimentary pre acquisition HR and PEO review for your target business. Check out aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly@markspenhr.com Peter Wild and Carlos Laconi, welcome to Acquiring Minds.

[3:38] Guest 2: Thank you.

Guest 3: Thanks.

Host: So today's conversation will be a bit different than usual. Peter, you are the seller of a business and Carlos, you are the pre sale operator of said business and ultimately the one who facilitated its sale. And what I want the audience to get from this conversation is first, Peter, a glimpse inside the mind of a seller. So Acquiring Minds focuses on people who buy businesses, but I have long had requests to get a seller on the show so we can hear the perspective from the other side of the table. So we'll spend time on that. And second from you, Carlos, how you identified within Peter's business that it would be one, that it would be a good candidate for a searcher to acquire and kind of the story about how you put things together to make all of that happen. And then lastly I'll say that the audience will have also heard an interview with the buyer of your business, Peter Don Gurley. So we are getting across a two part interview, a full 360 degree view of this story. So let's begin guys. Peter, by way of introduction, can you give us a quick background on you and what Boston tree preservation is? We'll get to a little more history in a minute.

Guest 2: So in 1977, 46 odd years ago, I started a professional tree care company. I was 23 years old and I took that four and a half decade run growing and promoting a professional tree care company in the greater Boston area. And when it was time to consider selling the company, it was probably 10 years prior to to when I actually sold the company. And I ended up developing a relationship with Carlos Leconi and we moved towards selling the company. We had three years to sell it and we sold it in 18 months.

Host: Beautiful. Thank you. And Carlos to you, same question please.

Guest 3: Yeah, I'm originally from Argentina, all my experience was in agriculture. So spend 12, 13 years with my own companies down there and operating farms, exporting to Europe, the US. Then in 2015 I came to Boston to my MBA and then I focused on entrepreneurship through acquisition at Babson College. And after that My career changed and I was focused on that. Trying to do a search fund in Argentina, but it didn't work out because the country wasn't suitable for that. And then always being involved in the search, fun community. And then eventually joined Boston Tree Preservation because he's. Peter Jr. Reached out to me to. And like first he offered me a job to manage the business. And we started this conversation. We like immediately clicked with everyone. Then with Peter, and then we came up together with the idea of like putting together the company, growing little and selling it. And we did it.

[6:53] Host: In 2022, we're going to dive into all of that. Carlos, back to you. So you said you came to the States to get your mba, and as I recall from our pre call, you really fell in love with the idea of buying a business of eta. You were at Babson. Give us a little more color there.

Guest 3: So basically I picked Babson. I chose Babson College because of entrepreneurship. My idea was to come do the mba, come back and continue growing my business. But my roommate, when I just arrived the first, like the first minute, he was coming from investment banking and private equity and doing the whole career and he wanted to do a search on. So immediately he started talking about that and I got in love with the concept. And then I picked all the classes for that, did my internship in search on accelerator, and then like went to absolutely everything, all the events, conferences and everything. And then I, I knew when, when I knew the concept, I knew I wanted to do something related to that. And then, well, try to do that. But I didn't have my visa at that point. So after an mba, you get only one year and the searching period is usually two. So talk to traditional investors and like, they would, they would tell me, go to Argentina, do it there. And I will say no, that country is not like, I mean, if you see the model, it needs to be in stable scenario. A business that's being stable, a country that is collapsing is like very difficult to find that. And so then I said, I want to in the U.S. they said no. And then I ended up starting a subsidiary of my company here, of the Argentine company. Got my Visa, my green card, all the stuff. Like. And then I, I was living in South Carolina and I remember the first calls with Peter and Peter Jr. And when I started talking to Pete Jr. And Peter, I said, this is exactly what a searcher is looking for. It adapts like perfect for a search firm.

Guest 2: So.

Guest 3: And then I ended up moving back to Boston and continuing this process of growing and like putting the company together.

Host: So Carlos, you fell in love with eta. You kind of attempted search in a bunch of different ways. You talked to investors, you kind consider doing in Argentina model didn't work. You came back to the U.S. you're in South Carolina and the wild duo, Peter Wild and Peter and Peter Wild, Peter Jr. Wild, reach out. So to you, Peter, first you were deciding to sell the business. What, what precipitated this decision?

[9:25] Guest 2: Well, that's a great first question to start with because there's a difference between selling a business and closing a business. Sometimes you need to close the business because of a traumatic event, a death or whatever, and it's a fire sale. And that's, you know, however it plays out. It plays out. But selling a business, particularly a successful business, is a real consideration for a small service type oriented business. Typically a service business would sell to a competitor, pretty much a local competitor, because they want the geography, they want the geographic footprint that you've built and they want the phone list. And we had about 20 square miles and about 10,000 people. We serviced three or 4,000 of those people annually. And out of those three or 4,000 people we serviced annually, we had multiple visits to those clients per year. So we were doing about 20,000 stops a year. But I'm getting off on a tangent here. So selling a successful, profitable business to the right individual is a serious chess game. You got to move all the parts and all the players succinctly with the right people. And in this particular scenario, Carlos, I know you'd agree, but it worked out swimmingly and it was done smart, intelligent, swiftly, correctly, accurately. And here we are nine months later and it's just the transition's gone fabulous. And I think when you hear from Don, you'll pick up on the same passion.

Host: And Peter, did you decide that it was time to sell the business basically because you were looking to retire, or was there some other reason?

Guest 2: Well, okay. So jokingly, but not jokingly. A 50 year run is enough. And sometimes people might take it until they drop. And that's just the personality type. But you want to live several lifetimes in this one body if you can. And Carlos brought up the entrepreneurship, but I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I don't think an entrepreneur truly thinks of themselves as an entrepreneur. They just have a vision and they act on hunches. And some are successful and some aren't. And it's just what you do because you know your trade. But about 10 years ago, after the company was 35 years old, I started Getting calls from competitors saying, if you ever want to sell your business, I'm here to talk. And so people would approach me and I'd say, okay, have a conversation and see what that looks like. But not to throw that process under the bus because it can work. But what happens is you start analyzing, well, if you're only going to pay me this much money for the business, if I run the business for another two years, I'll make that money and still own the business that has a value. So it's really kind of a tease. And so I never sold the business below value because I felt like I had to get out and think of it. This was a four and a half decade run in an industry with employees who had been with me for over 40 years, over 20 years, over 10 years. So this was a well oiled machine. I wasn't being tortured by customer issues, employee issues, geographic issues, equipment issues. It was just a well oiled machine. And even though I had to put in a lot of time, I had a passion for the industry, so I loved it. I didn't mind keeping the business. So there were probably three or four attempts over a ten year period where I considered selling to a competitor. And I was aware of the search fund concept and I liked it. But I thought the search fund concept wasn't for a business my size. I thought it was for businesses that were of greater scale. And what I learned from Carlos was that there, there are people who live local, who have an mba, who know the search fund routine and they want to buy a job and they want a local company and they want the relationships with local clients in a local community. You know the old American pie story. And so this is on a small scale, the quintessential search fund purchase.

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[16:07] Guest 3: It was on the lower side of a traditional business and it was just on the border. So like couple of millions in revenue and yeah, but like really good margins and like so that was like the pre. I mean when I got all the information I said this is exactly for like it could work for a traditional search fund but it was perfect for a self funded search because was on that side of the. But to your question, I just want to make it like a note. I asked the same question. How do you reach out to me? I mean South Carolina, I'm from Argentina and like there's obviously like, like local people. Boston has like how many schools here? Like, and the entrepreneurship through acquisition concept is. So I asked the same question you asked Peter to Peter Jr. He told me he used LinkedIn and put in the search for a job like MBA Boston. I still had my profile in Boston. Agriculture Search funds entrepreneurship through acquisition. And I was like the only person. I mean he had other candidates but like then immediately we clicked and like

Host: yeah, well I guess Carlos, I mean all of those, all of those search terms would have yielded a lot of people. It was the agriculture that was the agriculture one and the Venn diagram that made you one of one.

Guest 3: I guess like one of like I think there were three. But like the other people were like, like not, not related to. But yeah, so.

Host: So I didn't realize that Peter Jr. Didn't know you, Carlos. That it was cold out.

Guest 3: No, no, no. When I saw the email I thought it was like, you know, you get these things like it was written in like because Pete Jr. Knew about search phones and like he was written. So when I saw that thing, I mean after being introduced to the concept all the time I've been thinking like every time you see like a track or a company, you think is this suitable for a search phone or not? It's like automatically. So when I read that email and the explanation said, oh, this is like search, search for material. But like, no, I didn't know Pete Jr. And I thought it was like not a scam but like, you know, like you get those messages in LinkedIn.

[18:09] Guest 2: Sure.

Guest 3: But then like I saw that and I go, oh, immediately like, yeah, the first call was like three hours. I think two hours and a half. Usually that call is like Five minutes, you know, and like I just say I was doing something else. I wasn't even looking for a job, you know. But then like I said, oh this is like perfect. And like everything went like smoothly and. Yeah.

Host: And let's. 30 seconds on Peter Jr. Pete Jr. How did he know what search funds were? Is he in business? Where does he live? Why is he the one doing all this? Somebody speak for him?

Guest 3: The pandemic started, he moved with his dad and then at some point he wanted to do. He had explored the search one thing but he's more like an entrepreneur by like traditional entrepreneur, not the entrepreneur through acquisition or searcher. So he knew about the concept and that's why like and when I started pitching all the ETA stuff, I mean he knew that. And then we talked to Peter and like, I mean Peter's really smart so like he gets it immediately. And then like the three of us, like they say oh this is what we are going to do. But Pete, yes, I mean he knew about entrepreneurs through acquisition but he had like his own startups and he didn't want it to. The first question I made like why aren't you taking, I mean why aren't you taking over this business? And well, he had other issues but it was like all consistently, you know, like pandemic. He's living with that and like talking about the business and then like they said let's try this and they reach out to me. Yeah, great.

Host: Peter, you said, that was really interesting what you said about your, when you'd be approached by competitors locally and you'd have conversations about selling the business and you, by you saying, well I could just work for two more years and basically generate the same amount of money for myself and still own the business. So that translates in our world to. They were offering basically 2x, a 2x multiple on your annual cash flow, more or less. Does that, does that make sense?

Guest 2: Oh I, I'd say half of 1x and it, I mean I don't, I know that doesn't make sense, any mathematical sense but it was really fire sale pricing and you know most successful service businesses don't sell because what, what, why would you sell a cash cow that's a well oiled machine that's running swimmingly, you know, you'd think it would just carry on and carry on and carry on. I, my children were not interested in the business and that was all well and good. You know, it's really interesting watching children who have grown up in an entrepreneurial environment and so my children were Never afraid to take a risk, never afraid to make a gamble, never afraid to be geographically stuck in an area, never afraid to try this or try that. And you know, it wasn't like we raised them, you know, to be specifically entrepreneurial, but they, they were in an environment where there were changes and there was forward motion and there were things that didn't work out and things that did work out. So anyways, it was not looking good to sell a business to a competitor at a fire sale price. And so the search fund model, I mean somebody who's buying a business, I don't care what scale it is, big or small, the search fund model, they're going to take a look at the books and they're not going to buy a business that doesn't show either huge potential or serious foundational establishment that's ripe for success. And so I knew because of the three year window we'd given Carlos to sell the company, I knew that we were in a growth mode and that we were in a right place to make this company look not only successful, but profitable. And Covid played into that because it's a green industry business and people were stuck at home and they were investing in their landscapes because they were home and they were able to look at their trees instead of looking at their pocketbook. So the business grew fabulously through Covid. So the business always had growth. Covid hit and we had more growth. It was established in a geographic greater Boston area for 46 years. Everything was, was green light.

[23:11] Guest 3: And like Peter kind of created that like he Boston Tree Preservation is the only company doing organic plant health care. And he's one of like the pioneers in the industry. So that was something. So basically the business has like, like thousands of accounts, most of them prepaid. And the business operates from March to December, but two thirds of the revenue or more comes as prepaid in the winter months. Customer concentration is zero. Something very simple. The margins are really good. So when I saw all this stuff, they were not exactly in the books. That was something that I learned from Peter on my transition period and learn about the industry. I didn't know anything about plant healthcare. I come from agriculture and trading and exports. But this like, and when they first reached out to me, I thought, oh, landscaping, I have no idea about that. But it's nothing to do like that. All our technicians were like, had a lot of experience. They have a passion for trees and the organic, the industry and also most of them have degrees. Like we started hiring like people because like the, you know, like if you have, like a science soil degree or like environmental studies or like agriculture in the Boston area, this is a really good opportunity to live in the, in the, in the city, which is great. And the job is very simple. They love it. And so there were a bunch of things that I liked of the company, and at that point I was analyzing everything as a searcher. But no, no, he basically started this thing at some point. When he started the company, it was a traditional landscaping company, but then he found this niche and only focused on that. And it's the only company that only does that. Most companies do a small come like, like, and they don't even care. But, I mean, we have the creator of the industry, so, like, he knows way better than me all that.

[25:25] Guest 2: Well.

Host: The perfect segue. Carlos. Peter, let's now tell people exactly what Boston tree preservation does and of course, how it's differentiated from an arborist or a, you know, a tree trimming business. And then also, let's get a quick history on it.

Guest 2: It started out as a. A basic tree care company where we did pruning, removal, and plant health care. Plant health care means insect and disease management as well as fertilization of trees. So as. As time went on and climate, climate started to change, the pressures in the urban forest. Because imagine you've got the forest forest that obviously maintains itself to some degree, and then you've got the urban forest where you've got trees that are planted along streets, they're planted next to sidewalks, they're planted up against foundations. There's a disrupted water table that distributes their moisture content. So trees in the urban forest are under a huge amount of stress, and people think of them as statues where they're really living entities. And the tree that's above the ground is really just a barometer of the health of the root system below. So when a tree starts to decline or develop deadwood, it's the root of the problem, no pun intended. The root of the problem is in. Is in the soil health. So I learned, and my entrepreneurial side came out, that if I focus on organics, because when you're dealing with Mother Nature, the synthetic world doesn't work. Synthetic works in agriculture, sort of, or we wouldn't have the food supply that we have. But in the urban forest, it's all about repairing the soil. Here's a question for you, Will. How many years have we been raking leaves in the urban forest?

[27:37] Host: Well, for the duration of my lifetime, so at least since the 80s.

Guest 2: Yeah, so. So we didn't Start recreating in society until the late 1800s. And, and so for, for 100 years we've been raking leaves. And the reason I use that as a little test is because that, that organic matter trees are autotrophic. They make their own food and we rake it away every year. So how many years can an urban forest tolerate the removal of its food? So I happened to come along. When the urban forest experienced sprawl, Trees were more impacted by stress, soil was poorly managed, and I started seeing the decline of trees. And just because of my knowledge and passion in the industry, I learned that by improving the soil health, the tree would improve. Not only would the tree improve, the insects go away, the disease goes away and the tree thrives or the tree can tolerate it. So I developed organic soil amendment programs, including worm farming, for the foundation of our nutritional amendments. And so we were the only game in town that was taking this approach. And so when our customers would talk to us because that have questions about their trees, the language that we spoke about what we were going to do to their property was different than anybody else's conversation. So I really felt like I had no competition. So we set our pricing standards. We, we conveyed our passion for the health of the landscape. And because we had years and decades of previous results from, because, you know, you might be able to fix a headache in 20 minutes with an aspirin, but if a tree has a headache, it's going to take you about three years to, to, to get this tree back on track. And our customers, they, they believed in us. We had track records and so they'd hang in there with us and we would turn these properties into glowing landscapes that didn't require pesticides, didn't require fungicides. And people like that approach because we were in an educated area where our customers were, they didn't want chemicals in their environment and we were years ahead of them in our programs to fulfill that need. And the beautiful thing is once our customers came on board, that was it. We had a customer for life. We're actually working for the grandchildren of our first customer base now.

[30:42] Host: Well, I have, I have a lot of follow ups there. One thing I want to do with all that Peter, is, is contextualize it a little bit. So to be clear, you, you, as I recall from our pre call, you started as a young, young guy, but even more history industry for tree service is when you were a young man, it was the local, what, policemen and firemen who would take down your tree for you, you know, so it wasn't kind of a formal industry. You kind of started similarly as kind of an amateur just doing traditional tree work, taking off limbs, taking down trees, developed a passion for it, studied it at UMass. Right? Yeah. And then. And then went into the industry again, kind of as a traditional tree service business. And as you learned about kind of more the science of this and true tree health, you evolved all the stuff that you just described for us. These approaches, this organic approach, this more holistic, healthful approach. Is that a good encapsulation of about 20, 25 years?

Guest 2: Yes. Thank you for filling in those blanks for me. But yes. And that is kind of interesting to have been a part of an industry that started out as a vocation or a hobby. The moonlighting policeman or fireman would cut down the dead elm trees. When I started in business, all those elm trees were dying from Dutch elm disease, and there was a lot of tree removal going on. And that's a whole nother conversation of the evolution of the urban forest and certain tree collapse. But when I first started out, there wasn't the level of competition locally because it was a new industry. And then as time went on, the competition became greater, and it opened up the slot for me to focus on plant health care and do it organically and focus on that and become an expert, a pioneer with an already established customer base. And then you have the climate disruption that fed into that. Every time we turn around, there'd be a new insect, a new disease, a new hurricane. It was. It was really fascinating as a person in the industry, to watch it unfold.

[33:09] Host: And all of this, your kind of your pioneering days, when you're evolving from a traditional tree service business into one who's taking this organic approach to things, was kind of 70s and 80s, as the. As the wider culture itself was kind of opening its mind to organics. Right. That's kind of all in that. That time frame.

Guest 2: Yeah. And let me just try and create a synopsis of a brief picture. But. So you have these hurricanes that come along and knock down valuable trees in an. In a. In a community, and people get tree awareness, and then a couple of years later, you have an insect infestation come in, like the gypsy moth caterpillar that defoliated over half the state of Massachusetts for about five years in a row. This was. This was a big deal for. For homeowners who had trees and landscapes. And so the only way to really rectify those problems and get the urban forest back on track was through soil health and treatment. But during those Particular times, the organic movement, people wanting to get away from chemicals. It was becoming evident that DDT and chloride and the pesticides used in the environment and trugreen chemlan had been around for, you know, had started and for five or 10 years people had been putting synthetic stuff on their lawn to make their lawns look good. And so people started to develop an awareness and one of their first questions would be, you know, do you use chemicals? Because we don't want any chemicals in our environment. My child has a health issue or my spouse has a health issue or we just don't want chemicals in the environment. So as, as much as I'd like to see myself as a, you know, an environmental steward only working organically, I was, I was almost forced to move into that direction because I went with the demand of the, of the people.

Host: Yeah, the market was kind of leading you there.

Guest 2: Yeah.

Host: So the audience here is going to be business minded too. So just to get a picture of the business itself, you do you all, or do you also just become the landscaper of your thousands of, of customers? Are you also the landscaper or do they have a traditional landscaper? In addition to Boston Tree preservation, they

Guest 2: have an additional landscaper. But in the early years the opportunity was there. Why, why wouldn't you take an extra quarter of a million dollars of revenue coming into your young growing company and do some landscape installations and some hardscape stuff and, and lawn care. We certainly were capable of installing lawns and promoting lawn health. But isn't it interesting? Nobody is ever happy with their lawn. That, you know, perfect lawn, one dandelion and whoever managing that lawn is going to hear about it. And, and so we, we, we started the first organic lawn care company in the state of Massachusetts in 1996. And there were people who wanted to move into that arena and we had a large customer base and so we started an organic lawn care program. And we, we taught people that weeds were messengers as to what was wrong with your landscape. And you needed that three year approach. You know, we're not fixing this overnight, we're going to fix it over time. And not only is that a good sales tool for customer retention, but it's also the truth. And so we started an organic lawn care company and it was so successful that the person I had running it wanted to buy it and I sold it.

[37:36] Guest 3: Can I do a little like some background? So basically Peter started this business in 1977, but he's always creating new businesses or programs or some, or stuff like that. The business Had Boston Tree had like 30 programs. Some of them would be. So he started injecting hemlocks and started another company and then he patented that, raised money from investors, everything within the company, programs like that. He would create other companies. Even at some point he had like a manufacturing thing. So all the time doing businesses. And he, he. The long care business. Because of what he explained, no one is happy with that. He created a program as a long. As a long thing and then he sold that. So like, it's always like the. And like. But like it's fun to me. Like we would be there like having breakfast or something, and he would always come up with an idea. Why don't you do like, or like plant tomatoes inside here, like organic like something or like all the time doing so like it's like super funny, Peter,

Host: that, that you, you don't consider yourself an entrepreneur given, given that.

Guest 2: So just what's interesting about that is the green industry, particularly it used, you know, it was the Moonlighting Policeman and Firemen or it might have been, you know, the, the, the. The old school Italian landscaper. It just, it wasn't really professionalized. And so I happened to get into an industry that wasn't completely saturated at the top. A lot of these businesses, you get into it and your competition is huge. How do you separate yourself away from that? So there was so much opportunity in the green industry because nobody had really invested in it on these higher, more professional levels. And I just saw. I was like a little kid in a candy store. I just saw so much opportunity. I literally had to contain myself.

[39:41] Host: Carlos, coming back to you. So when Peter Jr. Reaches out to you and you are on the heels of some sort of fits and starts in your own search, trying to do a search fund, the obvious question is why were you. Why was it not that you would buy the business? Why did you and Peter Jr. And Peter decide that you would instead kind of smooth out the edges and package the business for sale to somebody else?

Guest 3: So we consider that at some point. And all that negotiation I did with. With Pete Jr. I mean, not negotiation talks. Originally the plan was me joining the company, growing it for like indefinite time. Indefinite time. And like, we didn't really know like how. And at that point I didn't have access to all the financials. I didn't know the industry. But yeah, the, the reason we ended up doing that was because we wanted to align incentives and sell it at the maximum price. If I was. If I'm managing that business. And now I know everything about that and like, then I'll just like, try to pay. Not a lot, you know, and that what we thought. And that was one of our initial conversations. And that's why we say, okay, we're selling to someone else if we sell.

Host: So, so, so what I'm gathering is that, that the, the Peter father and son. Peter saw that there needed to be another few years here.

Guest 3: I think he's growing. At some point he wanted to continue forever with the business. I think we had to convince you, Peter, at some point that okay, it's the right time to sell it. You had the idea, I mean, you've been approached by competitors. And while we were operating the business, we would have calls with the huge competitors trying to talk. He never wanted to sell. So when I tried to reach out to strategic buyers and he wouldn't like that, he would say, no, these people will come, fire all the employees, put their own things like Boston Tree as a brand disappears, which is true. But I remember Peter, at some point we didn't really have like, I had this plan of like selling it, but like, we didn't have like a timeline. I mean, like we were supposed to sell it after three years. And then like, I, like we accelerated this, ended up selling in 18 months. But to your question, I think we wanted to align incentives and we wanted to sell at the highest price possible, you know.

[42:11] Host: But also I'm trying to understand why when Peter Jr approached you, why he didn't approach you to, to, to buy the business. So it sounds like the Peter Senior and Junior decided that there needed to be some years there where there needed to be additional growth, maybe professionalization to kind of mature the company and prepare it for sale. So that's where Peter, your thinking was, was it's not ready for sale yet, so we need to find somebody to bring it in to prepare it for sale.

Guest 2: I don't know that I, I thought of Carlos as an individual who would buy the company. I thought because of his education and his background that he would be the perfect candidate to seek out a buyer. And it was great that he, he, he had the background in the industry, so he kind of knows the, he knows the, the ins and outs of personalities possibly and, and some of the obstacles. But we, we, I, I was always under the impression that we, we were going to go out and sell it to somebody else. But it didn't mean that there couldn't be a conversation where we decided to take a different approach. I feel that because of the geographic location of this company, in the greater Boston area because our customer base is three generations in and the geographic closeness, this is a huge part of it. The majority of our customer base is within 20 square miles and that's doable even in a traffic area. So there might have been a situation where we decided to, you know, take, take a different approach with this company. It's, it's franchisable. The, the organic programs that have been developed are very unique and specialized. Somebody could take this business concept and start it somewhere else and probably within a three to five year period, grow a million dollar company, little investment and a little hard work, right place, right time. So we could have gone in that direction by saying, hey, let's franchise this. Carlos might have come in with that idea, but the gentleman Don who bought the company, I think he, and you'll hear this from him, I think he saw the whole package. He saw lean and mean and he saw the ability to grow either locally or potentially nationally.

[45:13] Host: Well, speaking of Don, Peter, one thing I also want to get from you is the, you know, as I've heard you talk and your, and I've heard Carlos talk about, you know, what an entrepreneur you are and what a pioneer you are and an originator of ideas in this world and your clear depth of knowledge and your own kind of discovery. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to flatter you. This is, I'm trying to paint a picture, you know, you, you, it does start to feel like this is going to be a hard business to sell because the founder is such a visionary and so much of the, what the business does is up in his head. Now of course, you've, you've, you've passed that on and infused that into the culture and the collective knowledge of the business. But still, so, so yeah, talk to me about, and you had mentioned earlier, like, finding the right individual was going to be the key. When you really started thinking about selling this business to, to a person, finding that person was going to be really hard. How did you think about that? Because there's not going to be another Peter Wilde out there.

Guest 2: So this sounds as an aside, but the older I get, the more I understand the concept of leaving on a high note. You know, you don't want to be, you don't want to be the last guy at the party that they're booting out the door. So I, I had, you know, really, I, I, I started professionally in, in 77, but it was when I was, you know, 19 years old, one year out of high school that I chose and it's interesting because they say most people can, can pick their career path at that 17, 19 year old age, you know, just before the frontal lobe gets developed and you've still got some passion for things, but at 19 years old, you know, so 50 years, 50 years ago I made a commitment to this industry and so I had that, that run and I the leaving on a high note concept, you can't do it forever. But it makes me feel really good to have grown, built and sold a complete trajectory of a business model that just reeked of success. I'm not Bill Gates, right. But I had a good run and I had some ups and downs. But I just feel blessed to have been an American with opportunity and have taken advantage of that in a positive light and succeeded in that. And the transition as to how it got sold and passed on has gone swimmingly. So it's really very, very positive and I'm proud of that.

[48:30] Guest 3: What we did, and we used to make fun of this, we're doing the reverse search one because I knew the concept and everything. Instead of someone reaching out to us, a searcher, we were going to find the right person. What we did was first when I joined the company, we were in the middle of a digital transformation and we put Salesforce. And so I really like the company. To your question, is it possible. Those were questions that I was having. Is it possible to replace Peter Wilde in this company? And one of the things was that the company has been stable, I mean growing stably for like 20 years. And he was the CEO of another company. So that to me a signal was like, okay, someone my age can manage a business like this. He was operating another company since like 1999 to 2015. So that to me was this company stable. They had another person managing the business and stuff like that. And then we thought we're going to sell in three years. And then when we were all on board for selling the company, we put a teaser in searchfounder.com and got like 60 people reaching out to me. So I'm talking to these people. From them I knew like 15 from the conferences and the search form community and then from my class for not even the entrepreneurships or acquisition concentration from buying a small business class that was like a small class. Three people reached out to me. First we started the. Well, I put prices the highest we could but I thought we were going to negotiate and go down. And first we went with one person that I knew for the loi and the whole thing. He couldn't secure the investors or the funding. And then he, I mean, we didn't. Ended up selling to him. And then we went with John, which I also knew. And we had these conversations with Peter and we thought, yeah, this is the right person to take this business to the next level because he's a military guy and has the right education and will connect with the people from the company and everything. And this is something personal. I think they're super, super, like. Like they have a manual for everything on the military. Boston Tree was more like. Like Peter and I, I think we have the same personality, like entrepreneur, like doing 1 million things at the same time. I thought, yeah, a person that is like, focus and like order will succeed here, like, tremendously.

[51:22] Host: And so is this post of yours still available on search funder?

Guest 3: The original post, I think I put it and I got to delete it because I was getting so, so many responses.

Host: Ah.

Guest 3: So I kept it there for like, we were testing the waters at that point. We're not like, we'll just see like, what happens.

Host: So Carlos, what. What did you do when you got in there for those 18 months that. To improve the business and prepare it for sale? And why did you guys decide to start testing the waters and look for buyers at 18 months rather than the. The preplanned 36 months?

Guest 3: So the company, like, as Peter explained, was like getting all the, all the sales and everything no one was actively selling or doing. And the company was majority residential. So when I joined the company, we're just starting a digital transformation, so we had to focus on that, put Salesforce together, which added a lot to the business and ended up being the backbone of the business. Then we integrated everything to that. So QuickBooks Online, the marketing thing of like constant contact, also integrated. What else? We changed the payroll and all that stuff. So Salesforce ended up being the backbone and we put everything there. And that took us a lot of time. Then we also hire more people in preparation for growth. So when I joined, we were like hiring people, doing the digital transformation and then testing new things. That was a really fun thing of the company that you do something small and get growth and then we try to get more. Peter always like residential customers. I like commercial because it takes one phone call and you get something. But we got some of them. We did like some colleges, campuses and then, well, Peter got the, like, it wasn't common at some point. That was amazing. And that was one of the last, like, before selling, the company was almost sold. And we went together, me and Peter driving a truck and like spraying that was I like before the day that that was like so fun.

Host: And Carlos, give us an example or two of something that you did in the business that where you'd see growth. I think you said like small changes would lead to kind of immediate positive feedback in terms of growth. Did I understand that correctly?

Guest 3: Yeah, correct. I mean the first thing I did, like first I understood how to sell and I was being sitting next to Peter. He'll be doing phone calls and then I would start like copying that. One thing we did was like put that in, you know this website, Angie leads or Angie's like posted there, started getting 1 million things. And I would, I use that as a testing because I didn't want to like you know the, all the search form, the literature says like for a year, don't sell, just learn the business, sit there. And so I didn't want it to like create any like concern on customers. So I would use that to learn and I would ask Peter or like sometime put him on the calls and like try to sell to these people and to understand the whole business, the whole cycle then. Well, we did the email campaigns, we did a lot of those with Peter. And so I wasn't really at that point I just joined the business and I'm so I was leaning on his knowledge or other like in the company. If you ask any of the other people, they also know. So like, but like I didn't want it to like disrupt these people. And then another thing we did when we knew we were selling, we empowered other people. Like for example. And that's something Peter always had. Like he wanted to take people that have been with the company and like give them managerial positions. You know, I me coming from a different background, I was now, I mean, let's hire an mba. Let's hire this person with a degree. You'll be more like, no, these people have been like 20 years and, and which is something great. I mean these people now have like everyone has a laptop and they know how to operate with Salesforce. And then the company, we change a lot now. Like we wanted to do something like an Uber thing. Like when the employees come and they get their tablet and they do like go to customers, do services, click something and that goes to Salesforce, Salesforce to QuickBooks. And that was something that I really loved from the company at the beginning. We put all this together and I had access to all the financials, life or everything that was going on the company. So I live five minutes from the company and with all the digital transformation, we Did I could operate it from here if I wanted because everything was online and that for a landscaping business, it doesn't exist.

[56:36] Host: Let me ask about the tech transformation, digital transformation. Because one of the things that Peter, a lot of my guests talk about, what we talk about in this world is that there are businesses that are decades old that haven't, that aren't on the latest technology. There's kind of a, there's kind of a symbol of that, a fax machine business where, you know, there's still a fax machine rather than, you know, the Salesforce or whatever up to date SaaS tools. And so it seems like this great opportunity, you know, out with the fax machine and with modern tools and it can work great. But sometimes there's, there's a suspicion that that's oversold, that, that digital transformation isn't necessarily what's holding a business back. Because there are many other features to a business other than just kind of the, kind of moving the paper around or making that paper digital and moving that information around. But it sounds like in this, in this business that this was a great candidate for digital transformation and that you saw immediate rewards for making that transformation. Can you respond to any of that?

[57:38] Guest 2: It was before computers and the business has started in 77 and it was the early 80s and computers started to hit small businesses. And I had a friend who was a, a coder or a software writer and so he was a good friend and in the computer industry and this gypsy moth caterpillar hit the state and there was, it was out of control. And so you had to go from keeping track of hundreds of customers to thousands of customers. And like the dentist notifies you when it's time to get your teeth cleaned, we had to notify people when it was time to perform certain services on their property. So the K Pro 10, a 10 meg computer, an Oki data printer and a friend who could write the code, a debase code. For me. I learned at that stage what it was like to become bleeding edge, not cutting edge, but bleeding edge. And I'm going, wow. If you want to grow your business successfully and you've got a friend who's in the industry and you're willing to make the investment into being bleeding edge, I was 100% for it. So I had a 40 year run with this individual who as an aside, wrote my programs, help me take my ideas, the things I wanted to keep track of. It was FoxPro. We had a Fox Pro Dbase system and you had to write every bit of it. And so we just kept massaging it, massaging it, massaging it. And I took over a 40 year run with one software package that completely ran my business swimmingly. And I'm just, I'm going to step out of the box for a second. So you remember when the airlines went down last winter? What was the Southwest? The airlines went down and they just, they couldn't manage the flights. So they shut down the industry for a couple of days and it sent everybody in a tizzy. The software program that they were running was FoxPro. That was like 40 years old and they'd never really bothered to update it. But that's how fabulous this dbase program was for making your company bleeding edge. And so it was time to leave that database because computers couldn't talk the language anymore.

[1:00:50] Guest 3: And it was ayin, you're the fox. When I, when I joined the company he, the software he had created was dying. So it was, I couldn't even open that thing like, you know, like I'm like from the 80s and that's why

Guest 2: the airline shut down.

Guest 3: And then we had, at some point we had like. So Peter wouldn't go to Salesforce and he would just continue operating on the 80s software.

Guest 2: My staff loved the old, old software program because it was, it was custom made to exactly how we ran the company. But we made the switch to Salesforce. Anybody you talk to, hey, it's great because you can, you could. What's good about it is you can do whatever you want with it. What's bad about it is it's a lot of hard work to get there. Yeah. So we, we decided, I've decided to go bleeding edge. And so we went with Salesforce. We went with gusto, we went with smartbooks, constant contact. We decided full McGilla that we were going to change this, this company to.

Guest 3: How many attempts it took you Peter, to get because like to leave the fox system?

Guest 2: Oh, it took a few years and it was very frustrating and a lot of accidents happened and those were costly but not devastating, but mostly emotionally frustrating. But we, with Carlos on board and my son and this whole new generational concept and then I instigated into that concept telehealth. Because telehealth became so popular during COVID with human health and I said let's do telehealth for trees. And so you're. I'm starting to stray but it's interesting but even your 85 year old person knows how to take a picture on a cell phone and text that picture somewhere else. So because it was not popular to go visit people's properties because of COVID exposure. We told people to send in pictures and it ended up becoming hugely efficient for sales growth, profitability. And so we saw this telehealth move as the pinnacle of the bleeding edge of integrating all these new systems. And it was like game over.

[1:03:28] Guest 3: And you know the big change that, the largest change we did, going from paper to digital and like that would give us multiple attempts on the contracts, on the yearly contracts, because in the past you would just send a paper and it will go in an envelope if the person doesn't open or doesn't send the check or whatever. And then we put digital contracts with credit card. And that was like we could track who opened, who read the emails, who sent me as the money, everything. So we could do only by doing that. The one thing we tried to do is like multiple things at the same time. And that's not what is advised. Join a business, learn the business, then do some changes and then start trying new things. I joined and we don't have time for that. We just start touching all the bottoms for everything and trying to change everything. But it worked well. I mean, we grew a lot the company during these two or two and a half years that we were operating the thing. But the biggest change was the digital contracts. Don't you think, Peter?

Guest 2: Yes. And it's a big deal to send out 12,000 folded and stuffed contracts. And not everybody responds timely. So you gotta send out to the stragglers. And we'd made it all electronic. People felt comfortable submitting their credit card information. It was very efficient for them. Nothing in the mail. And. And then on top of that, if people hadn't signed up for a particular program, we could send out and we could capture those people, send them out an email saying next week this program's happened. And you may not have signed up a month ago, but you might want to sign up now. And so we were, we were generating business electronically like a symphony.

Guest 3: I love it. No, no, it was like that we will sit like sometimes, like we have breakfast every Monday to talk about like what's going on, everything with Peter. And then we'll do like a few hours of sales. And remember you used to say that it was like printing money, Peter. We said, yeah, let's print some money. Few phone calls.

Host: Well, on this point about printing money and, you know, getting your systems in place and having this product market fit people clearly, like this service, it's. It's still, I think, differentiated. You mentioned earlier, Peter of, you know, entertaining a franchise concept. I don't know a ton about the. The. The tree industry, but it doesn't feel like kind of an organic approach to trees. It still feels not mainstream. It still feels like the. The industry isn't totally there, that most of the industry is just trimming, cutting, removal. Am I. Correct me if I'm wrong, and then if I'm not wrong, how do you see forward adoption of your approach to tree maintenance over the course of 50

[1:06:33] Guest 2: years, a half a century, what happened was pruning and removal started to become automated with fast chainsaws, fast cutting chainsaws and cranes. And you didn't really need to know anything about the industry. You just need. Needed to know how to cut a tree down. And so the industry, one group went to cranes and cutting, and the educated group, and I mean educated about plants, insects, disease, soil, you know, being like a tree doctor that. That group went. Went off in another route. And so the climate promoted the health care issue because we started having drought, we started having too much rain, we started not having snow in the winter. That's hugely impactful on plants that require frozen ground and a dormancy period. So all these issues started impacting trees. And so you might have a tree on your property that's 100 or 150 years old, and that tree has a value of $150,000 to the property. And so your educated homeowner would know that. So when the tree's health would be impacted by an insect, a disease or decline, that call an arborist. And the arborist would say, you know, we got to get this tree back on track. And then you would pull the natural tools out of the toolbox by improving the soil, improving the health of the tree, and getting it back on track. And so this was our customer base. They were people who were proactive about protecting their investment. And that was our niche.

Host: And do you see that? I assume that trend is kind of only continued. I mean, the world is much more environmentally conscious. Organic consciousness, Whole Foods on, you know, in every city now sort of thing. I know you know the Boston market extremely well, but I'm just curious about the opportunity for a business model like yours elsewhere.

[1:09:09] Guest 2: Well, wherever there's trees. Okay. And, and, and, and, you know, it's interesting, it's not really about the financial demographic of the area, because some of our most sincere, valuable, proactive customers were the people who might not have been able to afford much, but they love their trees. There's still this passion there. You could have a magnolia that your widowed husband planted 50 years ago and you're going to do whatever you can to it. It's sort of like saving the cat, you know, or the dog. Yeah, it's a pet and it's, it's alive. And I love. So, so, and, and, and what, what better client than a plant? So, so, so I, I, you know, I don't know that I'd want to be a human doctor, but I love being a tree doctor.

Host: Guys, I want to start wrapping up here and Peter, I want to hear a little bit more from you on the psychology of selling. We've been, we've been in and around that for the duration of the conversation, but let's, let's address it directly. We often, we as buyer, business buyers, people listening to this podcast often think about, you know, when we're thinking about the psychology of the person on the other side of the table, you, that this is selling your baby. And, and you seem like a great example of this, Peter, because you, you really, you, you are, you know, this is really an extension of, of you and your vision. You know, you were a pioneer in your industry. So I feel like it might be even more so that Boston tree preservation is your baby. Although on our pre call I felt like you had also, you were very, had come to terms with selling it. So talk us through for this for the buyers out there. You know, give us a window into how you think about selling this business, this 40, 50 year old business.

Guest 2: Well, there's the financial aspect and I'm, and so let's, let's put that all, all to the side because it's really not about the finances, so to speak. So. Have you ever heard the expression busman's holiday?

Host: No.

Guest 2: So what does the bus driver do on his vacation? He takes a bus somewhere. Right. So, so, so I think that the way to transition is not to start playing golf or buy a boat, but the way to transition is, you know, once you have a passion for the green industry, you know, working with the soil and plants, you, you, it never goes away. So I have a farm that I converted to a tree farm and there's really no money in farming, but I, I'm able to transition my passion into propagating and growing plants and so that fulfills that inherent need of working with nature. But I don't, I don't mind leaving the, I don't, I don't mind leaving the management. I was a good manager and I was a relationship builder with clients and a relationship builder with employees. And that contributes to part of the success. But at this particular stage I get to free myself of the day to day responsibilities of business ownership, but yet stay in touch with, you know, the passion of nature and its promotion, but

[1:13:05] Host: specifically about the entity that you've built. This business, you know, you've addressed scratching the itch of doing the work of working with plants. But the idea of this entity, this family, this business, this brand, this presence in the community, this way of approaching plant health, handing the reins over to somebody else, it sounds like you're fine with doing that. The time had come and you're okay with it because by just to kind of anchor a contrast here, other others might not be willing or able to let go of their business.

Guest 2: I think that I've lived a few different lives in the industry by growing and changing and developing. And so this is just, this is just the next thing. And isn't it interesting when you can take the perspective that, you know what, I'm going to cut this cord, I'm going to take a break and I'm going to see what comes along next.

Host: It's a great, the sense of possibility and uncertainty. It's a great feeling.

Guest 2: Yeah.

Host: And then one other last thing for you, Peter. And then I want to close with you, Carlos. You said you were aware of searchers, the kind of the search fund model. And, and I think you said that you liked the idea of kind of a, kind of a younger and enterprising entrepreneur who's willing to buy a job. Can you elaborate on that? Like, why do you, how do you see searchers? Because that's who's listening to you right now. And we do, we think a lot about how we're received by sellers. We'll send emails and say, hey, I'm, you know, somebody that wants to buy a business and I'd like to talk to you about buying your business. And sometimes the recipient of those emails, the sellers, the owners of these businesses are like, what? Who are you? Whereas other times those conversations happen and a transaction occurs. So from one seller to 5,000 buyers, what would you tell us?

[1:15:02] Guest 3: At some point you were a little doubtful. Like when I told you that we are selling to this person, we'll do this, we'll structure the deal with this way, like with the SBA and something you were like, and this is my question to Peter, you probably didn't believe at some point you were like, well, we'll just go with what Carlos saying. But like you were not like 100% sure that we were going to succeed on that no.

Guest 2: Well, not every. Most relationships fall apart, and so they do. And, and it takes.

Host: I've heard that about deals. I'm not sure I've heard that about relationships.

Guest 2: It takes years to build a relationship, but they can fall apart in a fraction of a second. A fraction of a second. It happens in marriage all the time. So what. What bothered me was letting go and, and, and, and saying, okay, I am taking the risk of this relationship completely collapsing and me not being pleased with the transition moving forward. And am I willing to take that risk? And I was willing to take the risk, but we took a calculated risk because being smart is a superpower. And so if you say, and I learned how to play chess as a young boy, and I credit having learned and played a lot of chess to my business success, because you learn strategy, you learn three or four moves ahead, three or four moves behind. So chess was really important to me. So this was a chess move, bringing in somebody like Carlos, bringing in somebody like my. My son, and, and playing those pieces correctly because I had. I had not accepted prior to a competitor buying the company because it wasn't the right chess move. So all the chess moves were moving correctly and gave me the confidence that even though there's a huge possibility for relationships to fail, that this was the best that we could do. And here it is. It's been eight or nine months, and. And I am shocked at how swimmingly. And I think Don will share the same thing. It's just gone. It's. It's gone fabulous. And I credit that to all the players. I credit it to being. Being smart and taking advantage of that superpower. And so, because the. The team of all of us are relationship builders. Don, with his military background, you know, knowing how to keep the troops moving, knowing how to keep it together, and being smart. So we were smart. We made the right moves, we had the right people, and we cared.

[1:18:05] Guest 3: And one thing I used to ask this to Peter, who do you think is the right buyer in your mind? Peter, before knowing about the search for model, you told me that you thought it was going to be a kid and a rich dad buying this business for him. Right? Am I correct?

Guest 2: Yeah, I thought before then.

Guest 3: So I would ask him, who do you think is like the right buyer for this? And he would say, no, I think it'll be like a really wealthy man buying this business for his kid, not the search for the searcher or whatever. And then he was always against strategic buyers because of the legacy, the brand changing, keeping the employees. Of course, I Mean, we remember like we were approached by like one of the big companies and I would, I wanted to entertain the conversation. People say no, no, no, not even entertain that like at some point he's like fathering the people in the company. I think there's people that have been working there for 45 years. So to him he's like very emotional. You know, it's not like. So all that stuff that we read in the literature for search fund was there. It's right.

Host: So, Carlos. So having now immersed yourself in ETA as you were kind of doing your own search and exploring it, and then ended up kind of doing this quote unquote reverse search fund and working closely with Peter to get into his business, see his business, help digitally transform it and prove it in other ways, package it for sale and get inside Peter's head and understand seller psychology. And then also having negotiated with two potential buyers, ultimately ending with Don and understanding the buyer perspective so well as a one time kind of buyer yourself. Any takeaways for the audience about how to think about eta? Is there anything that you observed that isn't in the literature, isn't already on the podcast?

Guest 3: I think you have to analyze the owner, the business owner, when you are and how he lives. And that was the first thing I did before joining BTP and before partnering with Peter and everything. I think you like and this is something like qualitative or from your gut, you have to meet with the owner and see how he lives because basically you are taking over that position. So when I met with Peter, I was at South Carolina, came here, met him and his son. We went for dinner multiple times. And then I think we went to his farm and everything. And I knew his story that I, I thought like would I like to be so very interesting life and like then like that. That's what I think people need to check. Like you don't want to buy a small business where the owner lives in a shed and like drives a van. You know, like when I, when I saw Peter, I mean he has like beautiful farm in Cape Cod and like trees and then we like, like his life was really interesting. He's traveled the world, started multiple businesses. He has a good family. I mean he likes a lot of like, I like cars. He likes cars. Like, so he will show me his cars and like the motorcycles and everything. Yeah, I mean this is like totally. I think you have to analyze that. Like you don't want to buy like something that is like amazing in paper, but then you have to, you see the like An H VAC owner driving a truck, like a van, really old van, and he lives in a shed. Right, right. Yeah. And I don't know if I'm being politically correct, but like, you know, with Peter in the, like, in the first, like five seconds of our conversation, I knew, like, oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:21:48] Host: Well, I think we can tease that out a little bit because there's a couple, there's a couple things you're looking for in the owner, seller, which is, first of all, do you like them? Can you work with them? Is there chemistry? That I think we knew, but then there's also kind of like, you know, seeing their lifestyle as a proxy for how much money they've made or is coming out of the business. And so the third piece is kind of the X factor of like, interesting life. Do you admire this person? Do you admire the style of life that they have? Not necessarily do you want to be them? But do you kind of, could you kind of kind of that? I mean, do you kind of admire what, what they've built and is because this business has facilitated that, the life that they've made and, and so this business could afford you the same thing or, or something similar. And it also is just a reflection on if, if, if the founder, seller, owner is kind of interesting, that probably says something too about the culture of the business. You know, he's, he's probably put in some of that has trickled down into the business itself. And of course, culture of the business is going to be important. So, yeah, I guess, I guess breaking bread with the, with this seller and seeing how he lives or she lives is a proxy for a lot of different things. Anything that we didn't touch on, gentlemen, we're a little over time, but if we forgot something, let's make sure we air it.

Guest 2: The old standby is my parents told me that money didn't grow on trees, so I thought I'd give it a shot. But I, so many puns in the

Host: tree, in the tree industry, I had no idea.

Guest 2: But you know, I, I, I started out liking what was interesting about chainsaws and, and loud noises and sawdust in your face. I, I started out, you know, liking what was Neanderthal about the industry. But, but, but what? Once I got connected to it and, and developed a passion, it was, it was just an unbelievable spiritual, if I dare to use that word, it was just a spiritual business ride that reeked of creativity and, and, and marketing and relationship building and, you know, fun trucks and fun equipment. And so I, I feel Truly blessed that I stumbled into an industry where I could develop passion. And I think we're all very bright people, but I don't think that we realize how bright we can be. But when you're given an opportunity for the intelligence to come to the surface and be creative and artistic and touch things and grow things, there's no better experience in life than to have that opportunity. So I feel blessed.

[1:24:48] Host: That's so well put, Peter. And it's something that I've thought about a lot, is that those people who really excel, it's often because their circumstance just happens to overlap with the innate talents that they have just through some fluke of fate.

Guest 2: Exactly.

Host: And lucky. And lucky them, because what a. What a gift to your unique set of talents. Find their outlet in something. You live in the right time in the right country with the right resources to see those talents flourish. It's. It's really just an alignment of stars that few people get to experience. So that's. That's wonderful.

Guest 3: You know what's being great that we did the whole loop, like, joining the company, partnering, selling it, and the relationship is still, like. I mean, I talk to Peter, like, every two days on the phone. You know, like, we're buying each other, like, lottery tickets and, like, stuff all the time. That's like that, to me, more than the monetary thing or, like, the money thing that we were able to, like, maintain this. It's been nine months, and, like, that, to me, has been great, too.

Host: Yeah, that is great. And I have to ask. That raises the question, how much are you guys in touch with Don, the buyer?

Guest 3: So I am still here, like, five minutes from there, and, like, he. Every time he needs something, I am, like, like, there. I have, like. I'm very. I'm having, like, beers every, like, two weeks or something like that. Like, to, like, obviously, I want to see how everything's going. And I kind of check, hey, how's everything going? I mean, if he. If he's not reaching out, it means that everything's going well. But. And it is. But sometimes. Yeah, sometimes I like, just say I go there, and there's a brewery next to the. To the. To the warehouse and everything. So we go there, and I have a beer. I ask him, like, a few things. It helps everything. Revenue good, this good, this good, few metrics, and then I'm gone. And nice Jupiter.

Host: Great. Well, were you excited to Peter?

Guest 2: Well, just, you know, all the staff stayed it, and that was a really important sign. So he has all the intelligence and the people who have been running this company for decades in place. But of course, you talk about separating from the company. Of course. I thought Don wouldn't be able to, like, make a decision without me, so I thought he'd be calling me all the time, and I never hear from the guy. And how great is that, that he has that confidence with the staff that's in place, that he doesn't have to ask me all these trivial, potentially questions. So I hear from him on occasion a couple times a month. Maybe there's a key question to answer, and that's about the size of it. So that. That lack of his needing me is really a positive sign. And I'll get over it.

[1:27:53] Host: Absolutely. A testament to how. How finely tuned, as you put it earlier, the machine. The machine really is.

Guest 2: Yeah.

Host: So, Peter Wild and Carlos Lecone, thank you guys very much for giving me so much time and telling the story. It's really fun to hear kind of the other side of the table. And, Carlos, your unique position in this quote, quote, reverse search fund. And. And it'll be really fun to also talk to Don and. And fit all the pieces together and hear yet another perspective. So thank you very much, gentlemen.

Guest 3: Thank you. It was a pleasure being here and telling our story and had a lot of fun. Always. I mean, with Peter, always, everything is fun. That's really.

Guest 2: That's right. And not every relationship has to fall apart.

Guest 3: Sa.