Buyers and Builders

What if you can't code and you're not good at tech?

You go and start a business that makes $1.7 million per year.

This is what Ben Wolff did with little money and reasonably short period of time.

Today, he manages more than $65 million worth of real estate.

"With our properties, we achieve industry-leading margins of, say, 52-55% NOI."

We discuss:

— Opening first property

— Starting an real estate management company

— Secrets of using social media platforms in short stay

— Achieving 52-55% NOI margins

— How to really own customers

— Not relying on booking platforms

00:00 - Intro

00:40 - Being broke, $30,000 in debt, what next...

07:05 - REIT (a public company) acquires the majority of the company

11:00 - Revenue and size of the business

14:02 - Fundraising with no track record used to be easy

20:17 - Luxury hotel stays and 50%+ IRR

24:49 - Using social media to achieve industry leading margins

30:45 - 100% overship of a customer

31:50 – How traditional businesses should use social media to their advantage

34:34 - The biggest lesson as an operator - quality!

42:05 - The benefits of sharing everything publicly

54:30 - Reinvesting all real estate profits in the media

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: ⁠⁠https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

⁠⁠Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: ⁠⁠https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe⁠⁠

Ben on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/UniqueStaysGuy

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

Ever wondered who are the young folks who build these great business portfolios?

2020 $17.0m

2021 $44.1m

2022 $64.9m

2023 $126.8m

All that within a reasonably short time.

While spending tons of time with kids and family.

I mean today Rafael Quinn is 44 years old, but decades from now people will be Googling him to find out how he started this massive conglomerate called Alternative Holdings.

The best investment advice:

• Buy companies you understand

• Run by people you want to work with

• Pay a fair price

“No matter how important I believe cash-flow is. Every 6 months I’m reminded again of how much more important it is.”

We discuss:

— Why they look at EBIT instead of EBITDA

— Dividend payments while building wealth

— A 5 year period of doing ZERO deals

— How to create value by prioritizing your strengths

Show notes:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:23 - At 26 he sold everything, slept on a floor for 15 days and moved to Panama

00:02:55 - 1st acquisition and how it all got started

00:05.00 - How much money Rafael invested in the first deal

00:07:50 - The importance of having the right co-founder - whoever says no wins

00:11:00 - “Better be lucky than smart”

00:11:26 - Being investor vs operator

00:13:30 - The number 1 key factor of the most successful holdco conglomerates

00:17:55 - The amount of debt they use

00:21:20 - What has been the average acquisition multiple

00:31:46 - Time spent on each business per week

00:39:40 - CEOs and their attitude & work ethic pre- vs post-acquisition

00:42:50 - The acquisition process and the discipline of say no to 100s of businesses

00:48:01 - Cashflow, cashflow, cashflow

00:51:10 - Spending time with kids is the best thing ever

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: ⁠⁠https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy⁠⁠

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: ⁠⁠https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

⁠⁠Rafael on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/RafaQuinn

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

Imagine being in your 30s and having a track record of raising more than a billion in debt and equity.

And starting a company which is worth over $1 billion.

Here you go:

Let me introduce you to Michael Cassau.

From working at Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet.

To founding a company that raised more than $330 million in a recent fundraising round.

Location: Germany

Name of the company: Grover

We discuss:

— Investors and the signals they follow

— What does it really take to raise 100s of millions?

— Why too many companies have a great story but still end up going bankrupt

— How high energy ensures extreme results

Show Notes:

00:00 - Introduction

00:21 - How Michael celebrated when they raised $330 million

01:35 - Michael’s first jobs after university

02:56 - Lessons while working for Rocket Internet

04:29 - Early days of Grover (marketplace model)

07:04 - The balance between raising enough equity and debt

07:53 - How to build a company where people want to invest 100s of millions

10:52 - When is the right time to step down as a CEO

11:33 - Tips for fundraising (number two is surprising)

14:49 - Few funny fundraising stories

16:51 - The ins and out of building relationships with investors

19:13 - Biggest mistakes: LPs pushing GPs; GPs keep pushing founders

21:19 - What Michael knows today but didn't know in 2015

25:40 - Who Michael looks up to

27:12 - A typical day is 8:00am to 2:00am; still finds time for family

30:40 - 4-5 “aha” moments which made all the difference

36:41 - Find the right “energy” and you can build a very large company

41:53 - What Michael learned from Novak Djokovic (winner of 24 tennis Grand Slams)

43:14 - “Next, I’m going to build the company which…”

44:25 - The GDP of US will double within the next 10 years

45:21 - Australian investors made an offer to move to Sydney to build HoldCo

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: ⁠⁠https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy⁠

⁠Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: ⁠⁠https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

⁠⁠Michael on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/MichaelCassau⁠

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

Ujwal and his VERY unsexy story on building a holding company which is on track to hit 8-figures in EBITDA.

All while being just 32 yrs old, traveling the world and sometimes working 3-4 hrs a week.

The crazy part – he built it with no prior PE or M&A experience.

His secret to success:

"Just go and do it. Have the ability to figure things out. That's all. That's the advice."

We discuss:

— How to save enough to buy a business

— Funding for all of his transactions

— Managing the company while traveling for 3 months

— Doing everything alone, without outside help/assistance

Show Notes:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:21 - Ujwal's eatly days as an entrepreneur

00:04:37 - "I did absolutely everything I needed to. Myself!"

00:06:25 - Zero moments of doubt

00:07:50 - The story of the man who acquired Adidas

00:10:35 - Did Ujwal really go to the Rio Olympics 2016?

00:10:55 - Ujwal 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th acquisition (lessons from this)

00:17:55 - BIG QUESTION: How did Ujwal finance all the deals

00:23:45 - DD, Structure - How Ujwal himself figured it all out

00:26:50 - How to do something without prior experience

00:29:15 - You are capable of figuring things out

00:29:45 - Size of HoldCo today, how many machines, headcounts, etc.

00:34:10 - The day-to-day; sometimes working 3-4 hrs a week

00:38:45 - Where does most of the revenue come from

00:45:58 - The biggest challenges in this business

00:54:01 - How to achieve 8-fig EBITDA in 5 yrs

00:57:08 - We get personal - what excites Ujwal?

01:01:11 - Ujwal looks for significant other

01:01:23 - Best investment advice given by Ujwal

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: ⁠https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy⁠

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: ⁠https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe⁠

Ujwal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UjwalVelagapudi

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

Mathias Calonius is a serial acquirer and co-founder of the Finnish holding company JATKAJA, which has 5 companies in its portfolio and a turnover of more than 50 million dollars.

“The first 3.5 years have included 10+ transactions and the formed 4 group companies stand at around $30M+ in revenue”

Location: Finland

HoldCo name: JATKAJA (means: continuer)

This short 55-minute call turned out to be an MBA on how to build a diversified HoldCo around boring traditional companies.

We discuss:

— Day-to-day when operating 5 portfolio companies

— How to find excellent deals

— Expensive mistakes to avoid in the future

— How to 3x a $3m company to $9m company

— Entrepreneurs being too greedy

Show Notes:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:15 - Why invest in traditional companies and not in something else?

00:02:25 - Swedish series acquirers (trading at P/E ratio of 25x) were a big motivation

00:03:45 - Is Mathias a generalist or a specialist

00:06:15 - What Mathias and the JATKAJA team look at when acquiring the company

00:08:45 - This is how they find deals

00:13:10 - How much time they spent on finding good deals in 2023

00:14:05 - Will they buy 100% of the company

00:17:00 - Growing a portfolio company from 3 million to 9 million in revenue

00:19:35 - Exact methods to accelerate growth

00:23:30 - The biggest mistakes with portfolio companies

00:28:10 - HoldCo's biggest risks in the world (sales-sales-sales)

00:31:20 - How Mathias spends his time between 5 portfolio companies

00:32:55 - Mathias' difficult situations in life and business

00:35:02 - Should we build one company or focus on 19 other companies?

00:38:03 - When a great team meets a bad market, the bad market wins - how and why?

00:40:20 - We all have that friend who isn't the smartest but runs a very successful business

00:41:25 - Should you be greedy in business?

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Mathias on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MathiasCalonius

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

Michael Bjorn Huseby is an investment fund formation attorney at a global law firm.

He represents both fund sponsors (GPs) and investors (LPs).

In 66-minutes Michael proved to me that he has seen almost everything in the world of funds...

“Investors don’t want to see something they haven’t seen before.”

“Yet some GPs pitch an investment deck with a 7% management fee.”

We discuss:

— Sideletters & waterfalls

— How to choose the right structure for your fund

— The best ways to build relationships with LPs as a GP

— Whether and why you should raise capital on X

Show notes:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:10 - will Michael charge a typical fee for the hour of podcast?

00:02:25 - Importance of side letters (an excellent overview for both LPs and GPs)

00:07:30 - why do GPs keep screwing up the “most favored nation provision”

00:10:45 - it’s a lot of sideletter per $300m aum fund (some very obnoxious)

00:11:43 - who pays for a sideletter?

00:15:40 - the most important thing to know about sideletters (red-flags, etc)

00:17:15 - a lot of LPs will invest because of the information and not just returns

00:18:45 - why very large family offices write test checks of $25,000 and not more

00:20:00 - what is a Waterfall?

00:23:25 - Investors don’t want to see something they haven’t seen before

00:25:50 - “forget the 2/20, I’d like to have a 7% management fee”

00:29:05 - why you shouldn't set up a fund without charging a fee

00:32:00 - how to structure your investment fund in a correct way

00:38:28 - Best ways to build relationships with LPs while being a GP

00:43:10 - being truthful about company valuations

00:45:30 - out of 39 investments; only 7 companies gave reports

00:47:43 - step-by-step on how to create a fund (documentation)

00:51:56 - how to recover when you mess up your first fund

00:57:53 - You can market your fund on X / podcast (using 506C)

01:00:10 - don’t promise insane 40% IRR projections

01:00:55 - what can you promote on X; and what can’t you promote on X

01:03:26 - Mikk asks for free legal advice on raising bonds/securities on X

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Michael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/investing_law

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

Andy Schornack is a CEO of Flagship Bank and a President of Security Bank and Trust Company.

Flagship Bank - $324 million in total assets

Security Bank and Trust Co. - $713 million in total assets

“I always wanted to be in a position where I’m running my own small medium sized company. I didn’t know it’d be a bank.”

We discuss:

— The story of how they have bought and built two banks from nothing to a Billion $$ in assets

— What do bankers look for when giving loans to SMEs

— Internet banking vs. traditional brick-and-mortar banks

— How bankers think in different situations

Show Notes:

00:00:00 - Where does Andy's ambition come from

00:05:14 - What is the secret souce when it comes to building banks

00:07:00 - Why people don't like bankers

00:09:27 - Bankers are often behind the walls, why Andy builds in public

00:13:22 - You'll be surprised who's watching you

00:13:42 - Winter is coming

00:15:40 - Why most fintech businesses suck

00:19:40 - Banks Andy have bought

00:21:06 - What small biz owners should know about bankers

00:24:18 - How big is the acquisition opportunity of millennials to buy companies

00:26:15 - The story of a shipping company with a debt of $1.3B

00:31:00 - The story of a RE investor with $700 million in debt

00:35:30 - The story of how a true professional creates and maintains relationships with his clients

00:42:27 - What books Andy reads

00:45:55 - Being relentless together with Jeff Bezos

00:52:45 - How to become a CEO of a bank and what would Andy do when staring again today

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Andy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Schornack

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

Val Katayev is a serial entrepreneur with $100M+ in profits & exits.

Today Val runs a diversified holding company.

Founded and led four successful companies to hyper-growth centered around digital media in display, mobile, music, search and data.

On this episode, PrivatEquityGuy & Val discuss:- building $10m and $100m businesses

- how to raise millions of dollars for an asset management firm

- what makes distribution type businesses so great

- how they built a peer-to-peer lending platform

- why friends reaching out to Val and giving him money to invest

- money, identity, happiness

Show Notes:00:00:00 - Intro00:01:08 - If you don’t work on your side-hustle on the weekend you don’t want it bad enough

00:03:00 - "I always knew I’m going to be successful"

00:07:20 - First successful company

00:08:30 - Where Val found business opportunities

00:09:43 - $9.5M in revenue; $8.5M in profit story

00:13:10 - Val’s current business: platform for independent fine jewelers

00:15:34 - Growing AUM from $5M to $500M in three years

00:27:20 - Diversify yourself when it comes to capital sources

00:31:55 - What Val looks when it comes to hiring talent

00:34:25 - Which tasks and responsibilities to delegate

00:36:00 - Most efficient way to build a $10m or $100m business

00:40:55 - Val’s relationship with money

00:49:40 - Why did he join The Hampton

00:52:00 - It’s OK to ask help on Twitter

00:52.55 - Val in year 2040

00:57:40 - Val hopes the clock really stops ticking haha

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: https://Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses:

https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Val on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ValKatayev

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

Justin Mazeka Vogt is the co-founder and CEO of Evermore Industries, a permanent capital holding company he founded with Ed Redden in 2020

Prior to co-founding Evermore Industries, Justin invested in ~100 transportation and industrial businesses with Bain Capital Credit in Boston, Massachusetts.

Justin holds a Finance degree from the University of Notre Dame as well as an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

(I'm very sorry for my audio. My microphone messed up a few minutes before the podcast.)

On this episode, PrivatEquityGuy & Justin discuss:

- Evermore Industries dream business acquisitions

- lessons learned after 18 months of running a business and setting up a holding company- how and why they don’t think about dividends, and don't care about M&A.

- why everything is around trying to maximize value per share- what Justin is telling to her wife when she wakes up one day and wants Justin to buy her a brand new Porsche

- Frustration = expectations - reality

- Justin step-by-step strategy as a long-term owner

- why when they got started they didn’t look for investors, they were looking for investor-advisors

- how complementary skill sets such as operational expertise vs investing expertise really work together.

- what is the one decision that you can make that makes all of the other decisions easier.

- Justin's “best book” recommendationNo hype. Nothing flashy. Just real stories from a serious investment specialist.

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Justin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/J_M_Vogt

Evermore Industries invests in high-quality, profitable, growing technology and service and businesses with no intention of ever selling. Based in Austin, Texas, and investing around the United States, Evermore Industries exclusively focuses on businesses with long-term growth potential and large ambitions.

Alec Torelli is one of the most respected poker players in the industry.

With over $2,200,000 in tournament winnings and millions more in both live and online cash games.

Alec also runs a syndicate WHealthier with the brightest entrepreneurs in the health and wellness space.

On this episode, PrivatEquityGuy & Alec discuss:

- The insights into his decision-making process when it comes to investments and business opportunities- Asymmetric investments when investing in companies

- What does a winning mindset mean to Alec? And more importantly what does he do to achieve it

- What type of investments they've made over the past 2 years (12 to 15 total investments)

- How were he able to build such a remarkable list of co-investors

- The exact framework he has used to rebuild himself after major setbacks in poker and entrepreneurship.

- How he prepares himself to be 'in the zone' at the poker table for 10 hours a day, seven days in a row.

- Playing high stakes poker in Macau

- Recent WSOP, Main Event, finishing in 11th place and cashing for $700,000 and what's next for Alec?

No hype. Nothing flashy. Just true stories from one of the sharpest poker minds in the world.

Follow PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/PrivatEquityGuy

Join HoldCo Builders weekly newsletter on finding deals, raising capital, and growing small niche manufacturing businesses: https://privatequityguy.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Alec on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlecTorelli