Host: Well, that was fast. 200 episodes of acquiring Minds.

Guest: I haven't been this excited, this invigorated about where my career is in a very long time, maybe ever. I just want you to know that if I haven't made it clear, I love this. I have loved creating and growing Acquiring Minds, tracking down entrepreneurs, making big scary

Host: bets on themselves, bringing those stories to

Guest: you, hearing back from you that you felt motivated by this episode or inspired by that guest. It is so gratifying, so fun. Thank you for listening.

Host: Thank you for providing me the scarcest resource of all your attention.

Guest: You have been my motivation to get to 200 episodes.

Host: So today's episode is in two parts. The first is seven things I've learned

Guest: from these 200 episodes.

Host: Now obviously I have learned countless things, so the way I chose these particular seven was to identify themes that haven't

Guest: otherwise gotten much or any attention.

Host: I wanted these to be fresh, maybe meta, kind of essential takeaways. The second part is about yours truly. As Acquiring Minds grows, I see more and more curiosity about the guy behind the mic.

Guest: So I tell the story of Acquiring Mind's inception and I look ahead, including

Host: teasing some plans for 2024.

Guest: So listen for that toward the end.

Host: And let me say that I'm not sharing about myself just because I get

Guest: asked the question a lot these days.

Host: It's also in the spirit of reciprocity

Guest: for the people I want to thank most deeply.

Host: My guests.

Guest: You all come up here on stage, subject yourself to an interrogation, get vulnerable

Host: about your journeys, your numbers, your hard won lessons and tips and tricks.

Guest: You give a lot of yourself when you say yes to an Acquiring Minds interview.

Host: And needless to say, there is no

Guest: Acquiring Minds without you.

Host: Many of you guests have said to me, I got so much value from

Guest: this community when I was trying to buy a business. Now I want to do my part to help people behind me on their journeys. I'm going to come on and tell my story.

Host: So today the least that I will

Guest: can do is share a bit about me. Okay, let's get into it.

Host: And to those of you in the US on this eve of my personal

Guest: favorite holiday of the year, Happy Thanksgiving.

Host: Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome

Guest: opportunity for many entrepreneurs.

Host: And on this podcast I talk to

Guest: the people who do it.

Host: You already know that business owners are making amazing use of virtual assistants, often based in the Philippines. And while virtual assistants are helpful, virtual professionals are transformative. More staffing is a boutique agency that hires a players in the Philippines not for simple tasks but for deep competency work. Think operators, supply chain managers, controllers moor Staffing de risks your engagement with a 12 month guarantee to you and they provide coaching for six months to their talent. When an engagement begins, that means your hire is coached in the background, no additional cost to you, so that your working relationship flourishes and is as successful as it can be. Global staffing is increasingly the norm and building the muscle within your business to take advantage of it will be crucial

[3:48] Guest: in the years ahead.

Host: Speak with more staffing about the pool

Guest: of capable, affordable managers they can connect you with.

Host: Check out MoreNow co. That's MoreNow co. Okay, here are the seven takeaways from 200 episodes and after that, a look

Guest: back and forward at acquiring minds.

Host: Number one the two hues I've seen

Guest: two character traits that are necessary to successfully buy and grow a business and

Host: they seem to be in contradiction. Hubris and humility. Hubris because you need a deep well

Guest: of self confidence to think that you little old you can find, buy and

Host: then successfully lead and grow somebody else's business. Somebody who has years of industry and management experience. While you are likely without any industry experience or much relevant leadership experience. It does sound a bit overconfident when

Guest: you put it like that. Right?

Host: But then we also know that to

Guest: pull it off you have to check your ego at the door. You are going to make mistakes, and very public ones, because all eyes will be on you. You are going to be challenged by employees.

Host: You are going to be not the smartest person in the room, indeed often the dumbest. As you get up to speed on

Guest: the business you bought and its wider industry. Threading this needle in your own psychology is crucial to on the one hand,

Host: say I can do this. I'm good enough, smart enough, enough of a leader to crown myself within this

Guest: organization and on the other hand say I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm going to fall on my face

Host: some and it's going to sting. I need to close my own mouth and just listen. I need to lead from behind, at least for a while. Internalizing both of these attitudes, hubris and

Guest: humility tending toward one or the other

Host: as the situation demands, is a big

Guest: part of the mental game here.

[6:00] Host: Number two the underestimated rewards of making a positive impact on employees. Here are some of the common reasons

Guest: people are drawn to buying a business.

Host: Financial gain Freedom A desire to lead status.

Guest: But whatever their initial motivations, I've heard

Host: from many guests that that the gratification

Guest: of having had a positive impact on their employees has jumped to the top of the list.

Host: And this caught them unawares. It was a surprise to discover just

Guest: how rewarding it is to improve people's lives. That they can help their people level

Host: up their skills and careers.

Guest: They can help them feel more pride

Host: by growing the business or otherwise improving it. They can upgrade their employees daily lives by making the workplace more pleasant.

Guest: This very happy byproduct of buying a

Host: business surprised me too. But I now consider it a great reason, maybe the best to pursue this path. You want to have a positive impact on the world? Buy a business with 20 employees, then

Guest: help those people thrive.

Host: Number three, it can move fast. For some of my guests, once they

Guest: buy their first business, things move quickly.

Host: Other owners approach them to buy their businesses. Quick wins in the business result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in net new cash flow. An improved growth strategy yields 30, 40, 50% year on year growth. Now of course, these are the happy stories.

Guest: This is not what you should expect. It can also go horribly wrong.

Host: It can also just be kind of flat. But when it goes well, buying a small business can be a life changingly

Guest: productive three or five years.

Host: It's like the search goes slowly months

Guest: to find a business you want. Disappointment and doubt rule.

Host: Then if you do consummate a deal,

Guest: the transaction likely took more months.

Host: So it can easily be two years from when you decide to search to

Guest: when you're actually owner of a small business you acquired.

Host: That part feels slow, but once you're in the seat, life comes at you fast. You will be swept up in the momentum of an already operating business. And if you can successfully manage the transition now, opportunities will reveal themselves to you.

Guest: And you may hopefully have gone from

Host: a striving, scrappy searcher where possibilities were scarce, to a business owner where possibilities are abundant.

Guest: Which brings me to the next point. Number four, the value of getting in the game. In entrepreneur content, you'll hear the mantra just start.

Host: Just get something out there. Take that first step, just do something.

Guest: And I'm actually ambivalent about this advice,

[9:01] Host: but in our world of buying businesses, there is an observation that sort of

Guest: echoes the just start mantra and that

Host: there's a reward in starting. And the observation is this. There is value inherent to becoming a

Guest: business owner, in joining the club, in

Host: getting in the game of business. The world sees you differently when you're an owner treats you as legit.

Guest: You become a serious business person and

Host: opportunities find serious business people. Or when you go seeking opportunities again.

Guest: Other owners will return your email, Take

Host: your call, Treat you seriously Brandon Adams said this in episode 183 quote it's good to be in business. You want to get into business. And once you're into business, a lot

Guest: of other doors open, a lot of

Host: things that you hadn't thought about open.

Guest: And a lot of validation comes from

Host: just being in the arena and doing it, doing the thing.

Guest: It's kind of like you open one

Host: door and then there are three more

Guest: on the other side, and you open

Host: two of those and there are 10 more. It's definitely the feeling that we've had,

Guest: the people that we've met, the relationships

Host: that we've made just being in business to start with. Number five it's so unpredictable. A common theme of buying businesses is how difficult due diligence is. As we all know, these are small, messy businesses, hard to discern from the

Guest: outside what's really going on. But what I want to call out

Host: here is how numerous people have said you don't really know what you bought

Guest: until you actually acquire it and get in the seat. Or another version of that.

Host: The business I thought I bought is not the business I actually bought. I'd say this is one way that

Guest: entrepreneurship through acquisition differs from zero to one entrepreneurship.

Host: In the latter, the founder has exerted

Guest: a lot of control and knows every nook and cranny of the business.

Host: Opacity of the business is not what they have to worry about, whereas for acquisition entrepreneurs, it's the key worry. The contrast here couldn't be starker and

Guest: another contrast with zero to one entrepreneurship.

Host: Number six Risk. Buying a business is often considered less

Guest: risky than starting from scratch. You already have revenue people brand a

Host: relationship with your market, and this is valuable. Of course, it's why we're here. But I've come to feel that we mischaracterize this a bit. This isn't risk minimization as much as it is shortcut. And shortcuts are often more risky, not less. Here are some of the things that when you start a business from scratch, you don't have to worry about. You likely don't have an enormous loan. You don't have a personal guarantee that could result in your losing everything. I mean, the cohorts at Y Combinator aren't going to face financial ruin if their startups fail, most of which will. You don't have a team of employees that you didn't choose, whose characters you don't know, who may receive you with skepticism and suspicion and and need to

[12:11] Guest: be won over and quickly.

Host: And again, you know your own business because you started it. This is the same as my previous

Guest: point that you don't even really know the business you buy until you've actually bought it. A personal example. When I started Acquiring Minds, there was very little risk.

Host: Mostly just my time. Which doesn't really count because every venture

Guest: you pursue costs time.

Host: So that's kind of a push. If no one had ever listened to Acquiring Minds, I would simply stop. No debt balance, no employees who would suffer.

Guest: No painful unwinding. Now, if and when I buy a

Host: business, there will be way more at stake. It's not even close. So is it just the zero to one entrepreneurs that are bold risk takers?

Guest: No way. My hat is off to you acquisition entrepreneurs.

Host: And finally, number seven, a rich path. Buying a business is such a compelling

Guest: direction to take your career.

Host: The promise is to own an asset

Guest: that is not only worth millions of dollars but also pays you hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Host: To lead a business and all that entails. The emotional intelligence, resourcefulness and discipline it requires will try you but force you into a better version of yourself to be master of your own destiny. Many people feel that in a W2

Guest: they don't matter very much. Well, when you buy and own a

Host: business, your decisions matter.

Guest: It's almost like going from having no control when you were an employee to too much control as suddenly you're captain of a ship.

Host: Now this is the part where I'm supposed to say yeah, but it can all go wrong. The risk, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Yes it can.

Guest: I think I've already covered that and you already know it. So I'm not going to qualify away the point here and that point is

Host: 200 episodes in this is what I've learned. Buying a business is a dazzling rich path and we are fortunate to be

Guest: able to take it.

Host: August Felker is a two time successful searcher. First with a traditional search fund. The second time around he did a self funded search. Today August runs Oberle Risk Strategies, an insurance firm with a dedicated practice group for searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs like you. If you've got a business under loi, Oberly will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. A great no risk way to get

Guest: to know August and team.

Host: They love helping searchers. They've worked with hundreds. Oberle is a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. Check out oberle-risk.com o b e r

[15:06] Guest: l e-risk.com, link in the show notes. Okay, and finally, I have been asked

Host: many times in so many words, dude, what's your deal?

Guest: One of you will say to me,

Host: I've spent hours hearing you ask questions,

Guest: but I know very little about this Will Smith. Okay, okay, okay. This is going to be me answering that. And by the way, I haven't been intentionally evasive. I tell people my story in person all the time.

Host: But from the get go, I didn't

Guest: want Acquiring Minds to be the Will Smith Show. Like an influencer driven thing.

Host: My approach is to make my guests

Guest: the star, the protagonist. So some backstory.

Host: I have been a zero to one

Guest: entrepreneur for most of my career. No big exits, no multi million dollar

Host: paydays, but I've made a career of it. And in my mid-30s I moved from D.C. to San Francisco to live in the supposed mecca of entrepreneurship. I worked for a couple startups, but. But after about three years, I felt the itch again. The entrepreneurial itch that I've always had.

Guest: Sometimes it's stronger than others, but I

Host: do consider myself kind of a lemonade stand kid. Not that I literally had a lemonade

Guest: stand, though I did run a profitable lottery in fourth grade. So I showed some entrepreneurial zeal pretty

Host: early back to San Francisco.

Guest: So I'm no longer WT'd and I'm

Host: spending my days figuring out what business to launch. Now I had co founded a business 10 years earlier and while I was

Guest: no longer very active in it, I did still have equity and that was generating dividends to live on.

Host: And so I spent my time experimenting

Guest: with ideas, going down new product rabbit

Host: holes, learning no code tools, researching industries, conducting user research, just looking, looking, looking for that idea. And I was heavy into a podcast and community called Indie Hackers, which is

Guest: kind of digital business entrepreneurship, but not

Host: unicorn VC style, more bootstrapped. And it's a bit of a movement if you will, not unlike our thing here.

Guest: I'll return to that in a minute. But one year became two became three.

Host: And even though I was working hard at this really disciplined, I was getting nowhere.

Guest: I was spinning my wheels.

Host: I did put out a few products,

Guest: but they got no traction and frankly I didn't have passion for them. Anyway, eventually I get the notion maybe

Host: I should buy a business. You know, I have the experience and ingredients to grow a business. I just don't have an idea worth pursuing.

Guest: Sound familiar?

Host: Well, I wasn't initially optimistic that this could happen.

Guest: I assumed like many of you did

[18:01] Host: that buying a business was for already

Guest: wealthy people, or private equity or company A acquiring company B.

Host: But it only took a few Google

Guest: searches for me to discover just how possible it is. Walker's book, SMB, Twitter A lot of

Host: the usual suspects that my guests talk

Guest: about being their gateway drug were mine as well.

Host: So I'm having the epiphany that so

Guest: many of you have.

Host: Wow, this buying a business thing. This is it. But then my zero to one instincts kick in as my eyes are being open to the possibilities of buying a business. I also noticed that there didn't seem to be a media brand or property

Guest: or voice talking about this style of

Host: entrepreneurship, this acquisition entrepreneurship, which seemed so compelling, so rich, so much potential for great content. Now, my own track record in entrepreneurship had been in serving particular niches with media. So I thought maybe I can do the same thing here. Maybe that becomes the elusive business idea. And if not, in the meantime I

Guest: will have immersed myself in the topic of buying a business and and I will be super prepared to go out and do just that.

Host: Or even better, maybe both. This amorphous media property, whatever shape it might take, becomes a business and I

Guest: eventually buy a business. And the two complement each other. This was a eureka moment and it became the goal.

Host: The media property started taking shape. It went through a few iterations before

Guest: landing on a podcast, which in retrospect

Host: was the obvious choice.

Guest: And when I had landed on doing a podcast, I decided, I'm going hard

Host: at this full time for a year,

Guest: then I'll come up for air and reevaluate. Now, quick digression to circle back to Indie Hackers, the website podcast I mentioned before Cortland Allen, the founder of that site.

Host: What he did was identify a type of entrepreneurship that was neglected. Everything else was raise VC, unicorn or bust, get in TechCrunch, lifestyle businesses are lame, etc. But Cortland saw that there was another path for entrepreneurs creating digital businesses. He saw these entrepreneurs already doing it and he gave them an identity.

Guest: This indie hackers moniker.

Host: He elevated them and he celebrated their stories and successes and the overall path.

Guest: Again, sound familiar? That became my North Star with acquiring minds in acquisition entrepreneurship.

Host: What Cortland Allen did for indie hackers, I set out to do for acquisition entrepreneurs elevate and celebrate this path.

[21:00] Guest: That was two and a half years ago.

Host: Now I still have not bought a business, but believe me, I want to, if for no other reason than I

Guest: have so much knowledge kicking around in my head about this topic.

Host: But it's all academic And I really want it to make contact with the real world. At this point, I feel like Professor Will.

Guest: But I don't want to be a professor.

Host: I want to be a practitioner. Still, I'm not letting myself search yet.

Guest: Not at this point. And here's why.

Host: Happily, Acquiring Minds has become the thing.

Guest: It is a business now, if admittedly a tiny one. It is not where it needs to

Host: be to even pay me the salary

Guest: that I expect at this stage of life, though it's getting there quickly. But even if it were, my goal

Host: isn't to be a podcaster for my

Guest: career, no matter how well it pays.

Host: Like you, I want to own and grow businesses eventually. But for this season, Acquiring Minds is

Guest: right where I want to be.

Host: You all seem to like it.

Guest: My numbers are growing, this market is growing, my sponsors are getting value. And I learned the hard way that it is not trivial to create something people want.

Host: And so when you do, it is precious. So I do not take for granted

Guest: the momentum Acquiring Minds is enjoying.

Host: These are rare and special moments in

Guest: one's career, and I intend to seize this one.

Host: But also, aside from the this kind of purely strategic stuff, there's this I love doing it.

Guest: I love interviewing you all.

Host: I love this tribe of ours, the culture in this space.

Guest: I love the feedback I get and that my guests get. I love packaging and putting out content.

Host: I love the subject matter and not

Guest: just buying a business.

Host: Business generally. I'm crafting my own little MBA here, getting to peek into all these delicious little corners of the economy.

Guest: Learning and learning and learning.

Host: So in contrast to my failed experiments

Guest: during those years spinning my wheels, Acquiring

Host: Minds is finally the product I built

Guest: with myself as the end user.

Host: I would totally listen to every episode

Guest: of Acquiring Minds if I weren't the one hosting it.

Host: What a gift it is to be able to say that. So for at least the next six

Guest: months, I'm going to build upon Acquiring Minds and and not distract myself with a search. Restless though I might be to apply my knowledge about Search 2024 is going to be an exciting year.

Host: A year of experimentation to discover how

Guest: else to grow Acquiring Minds by delivering products and services that you find valuable. To give you a bit of a

Host: preview, some things in the works.

Guest: A fund to invest in search deals,

Host: deal promotion or pairing searchers with businesses for sale. A service to pair operators with owners, indexing 200 plus hours of content and refactoring the website so that this archive is organized and accessible live. Acquiring Minds panels where guests come and

[24:16] Guest: you, the listeners come and you can

Host: ask your own questions of the guests

Guest: in a real time zoom. If any of these resonate with you, let me know. I would love some feedback.

Host: Or if you have an idea that I'm overlooking, please send it over. I'm eager to start taking a more

Guest: expansive view of what acquiring minds can become.

Host: And that's it. If you're still here, nice of you to care. And in the spirit of this Thanksgiving

Guest: holiday, I'll close with an expression of gratitude.

Host: This is the voice of someone who tap dances to work every day and who has created something that people value and enjoy. Like I said, that is a gift

Guest: and one for which I am so thankful.