Eric Pacifici is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SMB Law Group, a law firm that's helped everyday operators buy boring, unsexy businesses — closing over a billion dollars in deals along the way.

Before founding the firm, Eric cut billion-dollar deals at Kirkland & Ellis, the largest law firm in the world by revenue, before leaving to help entrepreneurs skip the startup grind entirely and buy their way into ownership instead.

He's credited with coining the term "silver tsunami" — the roughly $7 billion in small businesses currently held by Baby Boomers that will hit the market by 2030 — and has been named a Rising Star in M&A by Super Lawyers four years running.

He's also become one of the most prominent voices in the ETA (entrepreneurship through acquisition) space on X, with a following surpassing 148,000.

In this episode, Eric breaks down the real deal-making lessons from a billion dollars in closings — what separates a good acquisition from a bad one, and what buyers consistently get wrong.

Kyle Thomas was one of Uber's earliest employees, hired as the company's 250th hire and one of its first NYC operators — right in the room while Uber was cutting the deals that turned it from a scrappy startup into a global empire.

He helped launch multiple markets from scratch, personally negotiating and closing the local partnerships, regulatory relationships, and driver/rider deals that got Uber to $100M+ in ARR in market after market — all while the company scaled from 200 employees to over 30,000 worldwide.

After Uber, Kyle took his deal-making instincts to Avo, a Y Combinator-backed startup, before founding Early — a company built to help ambitious operators land roles at the next high-growth company before everyone else sees it coming.

During this episode, Kyle and Berk go deep on the stories behind Uber's early deal-making — including pitching Travis Kalanick directly — how to spot and land a seat at the next high-growth startup, and why thinking like an investor is the real unlock in your career.

Evan Buhler's journey into startups began after he quit his Big Law job following a conversation with a client who had built a multi-billion dollar company.

After two attempts at building a legal tech startup, Evan founded Talok Capital, a venture capital firm investing at the intersection of AI, enterprise software, and consumer — with a portfolio that includes early positions in xAI and Neuralink, both Elon Musk companies, along with Parafin and other early-stage bets.

In this episode, Evan shares his path from Big Law attorney to full-time investor, and how Talok Capital combines capital with legal protection to help founders build and defend their startups.

Kevin Henrikson is a seasoned entrepreneur, engineer, and investor with a track record of building and scaling high-impact technology businesses.

Before Acompli — which he took from 0 to a $200 million exit to Microsoft in just 18 months — Kevin was Director of Engineering at Zimbra, which sold to Yahoo! for $350 million in 2007. After Acompli, he led engineering for Outlook Mobile at Microsoft and later became VP of Engineering at Instacart.

He's also invested in over 50 startups over the past two decades and served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Redpoint Ventures.

During this episode, Kevin & Berk (the host) discuss:

• How Acompli went from 0 to a $200,000,000 exit in only 18 months
• How to pick the right co-founders and build a successful partnership
• How Kevin is using AI to supercharge himself and his businesses

Scott Van den Berg is the General Partner of HotStart VC, a fund exclusively focused on investing in celebrity-owned brands.

HotStart has made several notable investments in brands backed by celebrities like Selena Gomez, DJ Khaled, and Jake Paul.

In this episode, Scott and Berk discuss how Scott invests in celebrity-backed brands, how founders can actually partner with celebrities, the broader trend behind celebrity-backed brands, and the risks that come with them and how to manage them.

Landon Sanford is a serial entrepreneur who's built venture-backed startups raising from Y Combinator, Sequoia, Craft Ventures (David Sacks), and the co-founders of HubSpot and Honey.

Before becoming a full-time founder, he was the first hire at Maven and worked in strategy at Google. He's also the son of Mark Sanford — a presidential candidate, 2x governor, and 6x member of Congress.

In this episode, Landon talks about growing up with a governor and congressman father and the lessons he's learned from him, raising $1M right out of college to build a travel app before leaving due to co-founder disagreements, driving Uber and freelancing to fund his startups, and getting into YC for his AI startup before leaving that one too over co-founder conflict.

JR Butler was a D1 hockey player at Holy Cross, part of the 2006 team that pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college hockey history against #1-ranked Minnesota.

After his hockey career ended, he struggled with alcoholism — including stories that involved hospitals and handcuffs — before turning his life around and moving into business.

He became an early sales leader at Turbonomic, which IBM acquired for $2 billion in 2021, and later served as CRO at Pillir, where he was named one of CRN's Top Channel Chiefs for 2021.

Today he's founder and CEO of Shift Group, which he scaled to $1.5M in ARR within 12 months, helping athletes transition into technology sales careers.

In this episode, JR shares his full journey — from playing professional-caliber hockey, to hitting rock bottom with addiction, to recovery, to building and exiting a billion-dollar company.

Steve Walsh's career started out working for Congressman Joseph Kennedy.

After his brief time in politics, Steve joined Cox Communications as one of the first employees and the founder's right-hand man, where he helped take the company from $0 to $1 billion in annual revenue.

He later joined Comcast as a VP, where he helped build a business unit from inception into a nearly $10 billion business — before experiencing burnout while running a $500 million division with 200 people reporting to him.

Using capital and connections from his corporate career, Steve became an angel investor, making direct investments in over 60 early-stage companies while also becoming a Limited Partner in LAUNCH by Jason Calacanis and other angel syndicates.

In this conversation, Steve shares stories from every phase of his career — from working with Congressman Joseph Kennedy and salesman-turned-billionaire Herb Chambers, to building Cox and Comcast's business units from the ground up, to burning out and becoming a full-time angel investor.

Alan D'Souza is a serial entrepreneur with 5+ successful exits and an active investor.

Some of his past startups include txtBrowser (ChatGPT for SMS, with 1.3 billion paid search queries), Free Paisa (an app discovery platform with 50 million users and $5M+ ARR), Adof Games (creator of games like Battle of Dots with 1.1M+ paying users), and OpenInApp (G Suite for creators, with 1.5M+ paying users).

In this episode, we uncover Alan's exact playbook for building, growing, and exiting startups — the strategy that's carried him through five-plus successful exits.

Omar Hedeya is an engineer turned VC investor with one unicorn in his portfolio.

During this interview, Omar shares the story of investing in his first unicorn startup and what he saw in the founder early on.

He also shares stories from some of the most notable founders he's met — including a Syrian entrepreneur who built and exited his startup to Snapchat while operating out of a warzone.

Omar breaks down the different levels to fundraising and what separates founders who are great storytellers from the rest.