In The Trenches

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Those who have never run a rapidly growing company are unlikely to appreciate the operational challenges associated with doing so. Indeed, while running my own company, I found our highest growth year to be the most difficult, both operationally and personally. We outgrew our systems, had to change our people, had to add entirely new departments, and I found that my own role as the CEO had to evolve both quickly and significantly.

To help us better understand the day-to-day realities associated with running a high-growth company, we're joined today by Anth Georgiades, co-Founder and CEO of Zumper, North America's largest apartment rental platform. Since it's founding in 2012, Zumper has grown revenue at triple-digit annual growth rates, and has raised over $150M in Venture Capital funding. Today, Zumper boasts over 250 employees, and 75 million active users.

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Franchise ownership is an entrepreneurial path that remains under-discussed and under-explored within the small business community. Yet, for the right person, it can represent a highly lucrative opportunity with several built-in risk mitigation mechanisms. My guest today, Michael Horowitz, acquired 7 Wingstop locations in 2018 and continued to grow his footprint over the next 5 years until a successful exit to a strategic acquirer in 2023. As we discuss in our conversation, the entrepreneurial gods don’t deduct any points for leveraging a business model that is proven to work.

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Back by popular demand today, for his second tour of duty on the podcast, is Brent Beshore. Brent is the Founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, a private investment firm that invests in Founder-owned small to medium sized businesses. Beyond his commercial acumen, one of the things that I most admire about Brent is how he takes a deeply personal approach to his work, utilizing tools and frameworks from disciplines like philosophy, psychology, and religion to inform how he thinks about conducting himself both personally and professionally. This is one of the reasons why a seemingly black and white conversation about investing went into domains like fear of failure, the source of our identities, and why young professionals ought to demonstrate more vulnerability, among other topics. My first conversation with Brent, published in November of 2022, was one of our most highly rated episodes, and something tells me that this one might even top it.

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Today's episode features five unrelated thoughts on how to lead and grow a healthy and vibrant company. None of them are long enough to justify a stand-alone blog post, but all of them are important enough to highlight for current and aspiring CEOs.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Properly managing the relationship with the outgoing seller is likely to be among your most important tasks within your first 6 months as the new CEO. I say this because a non-functional (or worse, a toxic) relationship between the incoming and outgoing owners has the potential to damage a company more than customers leaving, employees quitting, or competitors fear-mongering ever could. To help us better understand the perspective of a selling Founder, I was joined this week by three founders, all of whom chose to sell their companies to a Search Fund within the past few years. Joining me today is Alicia Browner (Founder of Prelude), David Marshall (Founder of Performio), and Robert Day (Founder of Integrity Advocate).

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

Rich Manders has done almost everything that an entrepreneur and CEO can conceivably do: He co-Founded a Massachusetts-based automation company and grew it to $90M in revenue. He sold that business to a Private Equity firm, then stayed on with the business to help them acquire 7 tuck-ins, growing the company by 6x and producing a 50% IRR. He has since started a coaching practice, and now works with SMB CEOs across North America. His story is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, where he has also taught several courses and seminars.

Our discussion today covers how PE buyers are likely to evaluate your business, including internal systems, capital allocation, management team quality, pricing, and countless other variables.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Link to The Entrepreneur and the Spousal Relationship: Part 1

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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

Jim ultimately sold the company to JMI Equity, and returned an astounding 13.5x MOIC and 53% IRR to his search fund investors.

Jim also served in the United States Marine Corps in the Special Operations forces and was awarded the Combat Action Ribbon and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medal for his service in Iraq in 2004.

Jim graduated from Amherst College with his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Spanish and earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School in 2006.