Buyers and Builders

What does it actually take to build a world-class roll-up?

After spending a day at the RollUpEurope Serial Acquirers Summit with some of Europe’s most active serial acquirers, we break down the operating playbooks behind groups that have completed hundreds of acquisitions—and the lessons that matter whether you’re pursuing acquisition #1 or #50.

This episode covers how great acquirers choose markets, build proprietary deal flow, win sellers without simply paying the highest price, keep founders engaged after closing, integrate without destroying what made a business special, and eventually turn a collection of companies into an institutional platform.

The examples are remarkable: one group has acquired roughly 680 pharmacies. Evergreen has completed roughly 160 acquisitions. Another platform deliberately stopped acquiring for nearly a year after its first two deals because the founders wanted to understand the operating model before scaling it. Later, they completed an additional 18 acquisitions.

Roll-ups look like finance from a distance. Up close, they are a combination of sales, psychology, operations, hiring, negotiation, capital allocation, culture, and endurance.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Inside Europe’s most active roll-up builders
2:36 Find the pain you actually enjoy
6:11 Why the best roll-ups start extremely niche
7:22 Your acquisition pipeline is part of the research
9:23 Seller psychology: why the highest price doesn’t always win
11:58 Don’t scale a roll-up you don’t understand
13:09 M&A is not value creation
15:08 Integration, capital partners & building an institutional platform
18:54 Reputation as an economic asset
20:08 The roll-up flywheel

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guests today are Deiya and Dean Pernas, founders of Pernas Research, who have compounded capital at roughly 30% annually over the past nine years.

We explore their private equity-like approach to public markets: understanding businesses from the inside out, judging management teams and capital allocation, and finding inflection points before they show up in the financials.

We also discuss their “motor” investing framework, why trajectory matters more than absolute quality, lessons from poker and bankroll management, and how they think about position sizing, averaging down, and knowing when a thesis is broken.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The opportunity in public markets
2:49 From poker and engineering to investing
6:08 Private equity lessons for public investors
11:35 The Motor investing framework
14:40 Finding potential before the numbers
17:02 When to sell
19:20 How to judge great CEOs
23:39 Capital allocation: good and bad
29:59 Trajectory over quality
33:32 Finding inflection points
36:45 Incentives and shareholder alignment
41:48 Poker lessons for portfolio management
45:16 Position sizing, averaging down, and surviving mistakes

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Sam Allsopp, co-founder of Neal Roofing and Waterproofing, a home services company he started with Andrew Neal in 2020 and has since grown from zero to roughly $50 million in annual revenue—all organically.

What makes Sam’s story interesting is that he didn’t come from roofing. Before starting Neal Roofing and Waterproofing, he ran a marketing agency and worked with more than a dozen roofing companies, where he began to see firsthand why some contractors could turn leads into profitable growth while others struggled. That experience eventually became the foundation for Neal Roofing and Waterproofing: build a world-class customer acquisition and sales machine, then pair it with excellent execution and fulfillment.

In this conversation, Sam breaks down how the business changed at every stage—from the first few million in revenue to building management layers, professionalizing the sales organization and eventually creating the systems required to operate at $50 million of scale. We go deep on marketing spend, lead generation, speed-to-lead, booking rates, sales capacity, one-call closes, compensation plans, hiring ahead of growth and the KPIs he watches every day.

We also explore how Neal Roofing and Waterproofing has remained profitable while growing aggressively, why Sam prefers opening new markets from scratch over acquiring competitors, how he thinks about incentives and accountability across the organization and why he believes the underlying playbook can work far beyond roofing.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 From zero to a $50M roofing company
1:11 The real business: customer acquisition + sales
3:25 $1M → $2.5M → $6M → $14M → $25M → $36M → $50M
8:33 What changes at every stage of growth
15:01 The KPIs Sam tracks to run the business
17:52 Facebook, PPC, LSA & the marketing mix
19:15 Why they contact leads in under a minute
23:15 Building the sales machine & one-call close
27:24 The operating system behind $50M of roofs
33:07 Growing fast while staying profitable
38:48 Hiring, incentives & performance pay
40:34 Why they prefer organic growth over M&A
46:14 How Sam actually learned sales & marketing

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Felix Jander, co-founder of Arsipa, a buy-and-build company focused on occupational health and safety.

Felix and Stefan began exploring the idea during COVID, studying roughly 60 niche industries before choosing a fragmented market with significant room for consolidation.

Arsipa went on to complete more than 40 acquisitions, grow to over 1,100 employees across 60+ locations, and surpass $100 million in annual revenue. In 2024, the company partnered with Warburg Pincus, with Felix remaining invested in the business.

We discuss how they chose their market, built proprietary deal flow, and used highly personalized outreach to generate reply rates as high as 80%. Felix explains why the first acquisition matters so much, how Arsipa financed its early deals, and the operational playbook behind recruiting, finance, pricing, integration and culture.

He also shares the story of splitting with his original co-founder, finding his next partner, and transitioning from operator to investor.

This is a practical conversation about acquisitions, capital allocation and building an institution from a collection of small businesses.

Please enjoy my conversation with Felix Jander.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 From zero to 40+ acquisitions and $100M+ in revenue
3:33 Why boring businesses beat venture-backed hypergrowth
5:08 How they chose one market from 60 niche industries
7:40 The 1% conversion math behind proprietary deal flow
11:08 Raising the first pool of acquisition capital
18:00 Buying businesses without brokers
20:41 The first acquisition changes everything
23:04 Equity first, debt later
24:58 Turning acquisitions into an operating company
28:13 Losing a co-founder in the middle of fundraising
32:27 Selling to Warburg Pincus and rolling equity
40:08 The roll-up integration and value-creation playbook
44:32 The economics of scaling a roll-up
48:06 What changes after a major private equity investment
51:24 Felix’s advice for aspiring buy-and-build founders
54:18 From operator to investor
56:12 Final lessons from building Arsipa

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Justin Escajeda, an entrepreneur who owns 12 trade businesses around Pittsburgh, employing roughly 250 people and generating more than $50 million in annual revenue.

What makes Justin’s story interesting is that he never set out to become an acquisition entrepreneur. He started in masonry, construction and real estate before buying his first roofing company which did $600k in SDE in 2018 for $846k. That acquisition changed how he thought about building businesses.

Today, Justin owns companies across masonry, roofing, insurance, material supply, general contracting, property management and luxury remodeling. His approach is unusually simple: buy businesses that already work, preserve what made them successful, put great operators in charge and resist the temptation to change things simply because you can.

We also explore how he manages 12 businesses without micromanaging them, the four KPIs he watches every day and why he stopped taking cash from portfolio companies to fund new acquisitions.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Building a $50M portfolio of trade businesses
1:24 The first acquisition that changed everything
4:34 Buying a roofing company for under $1M with an SBA loan
6:21 Why Justin never wants to start another company
8:15 Why he avoids changing businesses after buying them
12:24 Inside a portfolio of 12 trade businesses
15:00 The acquisition Justin overpaid for
16:49 SBA loans, cash, and why he prefers seller financing
22:25 Solving key-person risk after an acquisition
27:14 Growing companies without micromanaging operators
31:05 Why Justin went an entire year without buying anything
34:38 The four numbers he watches every day
37:42 A $300K mistake, liquidity, and why ownership isn’t passive

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

In 2010, Robert Finkel wrote the book The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital: Management Lessons from the Pioneers of Private Investing

In this episode, I explore the ideas, decisions, successes, and failures of two people who helped define modern private equity: Joseph Rice, co-founder of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and Warren Hellman, co-founder of Hellman & Friedman.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The Masters of Private Equity
2:15 Private equity is more than buying and selling companies
5:42 What separates the best private equity investors
7:14 Joseph Rice: Building Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
10:13 Jack Welch’s advice during the 2008 crisis: “Hammer them”
15:23 The failed deal that changed how Rice invested forever
19:28 Lexmark: Turning an IBM division into an entrepreneurial company
22:06 Kinko’s, a total loss, and the danger of believing you can do anything
26:20 Joseph Rice’s five lessons from 40+ years in private equity
31:03 Warren Hellman: Building Hellman & Friedman
32:23 “This time is different” — the investing lesson Hellman never forgot
36:35 Every investment is guilty until proven innocent
39:51 Think like an owner, not an employee
42:38 Levi Strauss and the deal that put Hellman & Friedman on the map
45:34 Why a great security can still be a terrible investment
49:08 Warren Hellman’s five rules for investing

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Greg Geronemus bought a ~$5M EBITDA business with no operating experience, financed half the purchase price with a seller note, and spent his first year doing something most new owners struggle to do: almost nothing.

Four years later, the business was larger, professionally managed, dramatically delevered, and sold at roughly 9x EBITDA—producing just under a 5x net return and ~50% net IRR for investors.

Greg breaks down the entire journey: finding the deal, negotiating the structure, taking over from a deeply embedded founder, deciding what not to change, discovering the growth channels that actually worked, and ultimately selling the company.

Above all, this is an episode about buying well.

Because you can change your team, strategy, marketing, systems, and operations after closing. You cannot change the price you paid or the structure you agreed to.

For anyone searching for, buying, financing, or operating a business, this is a case study worth studying.

Timestamps:
0:00 From Private Equity to Buying a Business
5:12 The High-Volume Strategy for Finding Deals
7:42 The Unlikely Chain of Introductions That Found smarTours
10:01 The Deal: ~5x EBITDA and 50% Seller Financing
13:50 From First Meeting to a $29M Acquisition
17:18 What Made This Business So Attractive
23:14 How the $29M Acquisition Was Financed
25:21 The First 100 Days: Don’t Screw It Up
31:35 Why Great Buyers Go Slow Before They Go Fast
35:23 Modernizing the Business—and What Didn’t Work
39:39 The Growth Breakthrough Nobody Expected
44:12 Selling the Business, ~5x Returns

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Eric Tan and Patrick Grove are building one of Southeast Asia's most interesting serial acquirers. As CEO of Catcha Digital, they've completed 14 acquisitions while creating a permanent home for market-leading businesses across digital media, B2B exhibitions, and vertical software.

In this conversation, Eric shares why his failed startup became the foundation for Catcha Digital, how they evaluate hundreds of acquisition opportunities, why culture matters more than spreadsheets, and what he's learned from studying companies like Constellation Software, Danaher, Roper and Europe's leading compounders. We also dive deep into capital allocation, decentralized operations, buy-and-build strategies, and why live events may become even more valuable in the AI era.

Timestamps:
0:00 Building Southeast Asia's serial acquirer
1:00 From failed startup to Catcha Digital
8:20 How Catcha Digital operates a decentralized holding company
13:05 Why 99 out of 100 acquisition opportunities get rejected
15:25 Lessons from Sweden's best serial acquirers
24:00 Why B2B trade exhibitions are exceptional businesses
28:40 The software acquisition strategy inspired by Constellation Software
30:15 The buy-and-build playbook behind Catcha Digital's growth
39:00 Learning from Danaher, Roper, Constellation & other compounders
43:50 Why live events become more valuable in an AI world
47:00 Working with Patrick Grove & building an acquisition machine
51:00 Capital allocation, going public & balancing long-term thinking with quarterly results

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Frederik Brandis was one of the key minds behind Arsipa, a buy-and-build platform focused on acquiring occupational medicine and workplace safety consultancies. As one of the earliest investors and strategic partners, he helped scale the business through dozens of acquisitions before it achieved an exit to Warburg Pincus just three years after its founding.

Today, he is the Founder & General Partner of Aven Capital Partners, where he backs exceptional entrepreneurs before they even own a business—helping them acquire, integrate, and scale small companies into market-leading platforms.

In this conversation, we discuss what separates AAA entrepreneurs from everyone else, why emotional intelligence matters more than pedigree, how Frederik evaluates founders before they've built anything, why buy-and-build remains one of the most attractive opportunities in investing, and the biggest lessons from building one of Europe's most successful acquisition platforms.

We also explore:

• What makes an exceptional buy-and-build entrepreneur
• How to evaluate people before they've built a track record
• Why relationships outperform spreadsheets in acquisitions
• The biggest misconceptions about roll-ups and ETA
• When to sell—and why leaving value for the next owner matters
• The future of buy-and-build investing

Whether you're interested in private equity, entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA), search funds, capital allocation, or building businesses through acquisitions, I believe this episode is packed with practical insights.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The gap in private equity that led to Aven Capital Partners
06:04 What makes a true "AAA Entrepreneur"
09:00 How Frederik evaluates founders before they've built anything
13:34 Is now still the best time for buy-and-build?
16:43 The Arsipa story: from first investment to major exit
20:20 Why Frederik chose investing over becoming a searcher
27:00 Holding periods, exits & leaving upside for the next owner
32:50 Designing businesses that private equity actually wants to buy
37:16 How young entrepreneurs earn credibility without pedigree
43:25 Why many searchers and roll-up founders fail
46:06 Frederik vision for building Europe's operating system for buy-and-build

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Greg Geronemus is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Footbridge Partners, where he backs entrepreneurs pursuing search funds and other forms of Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA).

Before becoming an investor, Greg lived the search fund journey himself. In 2013, Greg and his partner David acquired a tour operator generating roughly $5 million of EBITDA. Over the next four years, they grew EBITDA by approximately 50%, paid down most of the company's $20 million debt load, and ultimately exited the business at approximately 9x EBITDA—around four turns higher than their acquisition multiple.

In this episode, Greg and I explore how the search fund ecosystem has evolved from a tiny, relatively unknown corner of entrepreneurship into a rapidly growing asset class and career path.

We discuss why buying a great small business has become more competitive, the differences between traditional and self-funded search, and why owning a larger percentage of a smaller company doesn't necessarily create greater economic upside.

Timestamps:
0:00 Greg's acquisition story and introduction to ETA
1:03 How search funds have changed since 2010
6:40 Raising equity and debt when almost nobody understood search
10:40 Is buying businesses actually harder today?
17:30 The Harvard ETA course that changed the industry
24:42 The mindset required to survive a two-year search
27:16 Traditional search vs. self-funded search explained
35:33 The biggest misconception about ownership and wealth
40:22 Why committed capital vehicles are exploding
48:38 What Greg looks for when backing acquisition entrepreneurs
50:24 If you had $500k today—which path would you choose?
53:08 Greg's advice for future searchers

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.