This episode is brought to you by Oberle Risk Strategies: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses *This episode is brought to you by Boulay, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings, tax, and audit services, serving search fund entrepreneurs for 20+ years*Over four years ago, in February of 2021, I decided to publicly share the emotional and psychological realities of my journey as an Entrepreneur and CEO between 2012 - 2020. In publishing my first ever blog post, I suppose I had four primary objectives:First, to make a small contribution to the collective understanding, awareness and discussion surrounding issues of mental health, particularly that of Entrepreneurs and CEOs.Second, to simply discuss my challenges publicly. After all, if I didn’t do my own part to contribute to the discussion around the worries, thoughts, and fears that Entrepreneurs and CEOs face, what right did I have to lament the fact that they weren't being discussed enough more broadly? Third, to speak to any leaders who might have been experiencing feelings similar to those which I had feltAnd, finally, to share some of the lessons that I had learned as a result of dealing with these challenges, some of which only became clear to me with the benefit of time and hindsightIn re-publishing that post today, my goals remain the very same. Though I had no plans or expectations after publishing the article in 2021, that single post was the first of 119 others that have followed over the past 4.5 years. I hope that at least one of these episodes has informed - perhaps even helped - some aspect of either your personal or professional life.
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Evaluating Customer Retention in Recurring Revenue Businesses: With Craig Zingerline
This episode is brought to you by Boulay, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings, tax, and audit services, serving search fund entrepreneurs for 20+ years*This episode is brought to you by Oberle Risk Strategies: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses * Today we take a deep dive into the concepts of customer retention and revenue quality in recurring revenue businesses. To help me unpack these ideas, I'm joined by Craig Zingerline, a serial entrepreneur who is now an advisor and mentor to a wide array of startups and technology companies. Among other things, we cover:A deep dive into the most common retention metrics, including which are most and least informativeSituations in which high retention metrics might actually tell you that something is wrong within the businessThings that he looks for that tend to be predictive of future customer retentionWhether he cares about the difference between voluntary and involuntary churnHow he thinks about software companies with high levels of service revenueWhether transactional revenue ought to be valued the same as per-user revenueAnd what else he looks at to evaluate the revenue quality of any given recurring revenue businessPlease enjoy!
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Rethinking Asset Intensity in Search Fund Acquisitions
This episode is brought to you by Oberle Risk Strategies: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses *This episode is brought to you by Boulay, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings, tax, and audit services, serving search fund entrepreneurs for 20+ years*Although the vast majority of Search Funds seek to acquire businesses that are both “asset-light” and “capital-light” (that is, companies that don’t have a large base of tangible assets that need to be added to, refurbished, or replaced to either maintain operations or pursue growth), I don’t believe that the mere presence of capex should necessarily disqualify a company from consideration. In this episode, we begin by exploring the circumstances within which capex can be a tolerable part of any given deal, and we’ll conclude by discussing how buyers should adjust their approach to valuation based on the asset intensity of the target company in question.
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Should Search Funds Buy Healthcare Practices? A Deep Dive with Scott Becker
This episode is brought to you by Boulay, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings, tax, and audit services, serving search fund entrepreneurs for 20+ years*This episode is brought to you by Oberle Risk Strategies: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses * Today’s episode explores the intersection of healthcare and private investing, and specifically explores the merits and risks of acquiring the actual healthcare providers themselves.To help me explore this thesis, I could think of no better guest than Scott Becker. Scott is a Partner in the healthcare groupat McGuireWoods, a full-service U.S. law firm that serves clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. He previously served on the Board of Partners of the firm and chaired the Healthcare group for nearly 13 years. He provides counsel to hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, surgical hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, single- and multi-specialty medical practices, and a variety of healthcare industry entrepreneurs. Please enjoy!
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A Finance Survival Guide for SMB CEOs: Liquidity, Hiring, Budgeting, Capital Allocation & More
This episode is brought to you by Oberle Risk Strategies: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses *This episode is brought to you by Boulay, the industry standard for Quality of Earnings, tax, and audit services, serving search fund entrepreneurs for 20+ years*Today's episode is all about the Finance & Accounting function: My guest is Nicholas Andrews, who is the Founder of Aspen Consulting Group, a company that performs finance, accounting, and operations consulting for a wide range of small and medium sized businesses. Our conversation begins with several questions about how to manage cash and other sources of liquidity amid all of the macroeconomic volatility & uncertainty we’re currently witnessing. We then discuss the topic of employee financial literacy, including the question of how transparent CEOs should be with company financials, and then move to questions of capital allocation and how CEOs should think about spending the cash that they generate, and finally we conclude with several considerations related to hiring, specifically focusing on the question of how CEOs should think about hiring a senior finance & accounting leader.Please enjoy!
The only podcast dedicated exclusively to Entrepreneurs and CEOs running Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMB).
Nobody knows what it’s like to be an Entrepreneur or CEO unless you’ve been one. Though many understand the rewards of company leadership, very few understand the arduous journey that’s required to get (and stay) there.
I share my own lessons as an Entrepreneur and CEO, and interview experts spanning Sales, Leadership, Mental Health, M&A, and Operations (among others) all with a single goal: To improve the personal and professional lives of Entrepreneurs and CEOs running SMBs.