The first is your phrase, caught the M&A bug. So yes, you are early into this transaction, but what did you mean by saying that to me in the pre-call?
Acquiring Minds
From 16 Years in Corporate to a $1m SDE Acquisition
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Yeah, so I think one of the... real takeaways from this journey is that point about falling in love with the process. I felt like it was a struggle at first, learning how to do it and trying to build an effective approach.
But the outcome of that is just like, well, I feel like I'm actually pretty decent at it. Having kind of gone through that and now starting to mentor a few folks and understand what's potentially out there for future opportunities, it just makes it quite compelling for me to continue this path of potentially future acquisitions or to sponsor deals, to be involved in this ecosphere. I don't know…
I say I caught the bug because deal-making is just such a fascinating space. I don't think I'll necessarily focus on that now, given that I'm operating a business.
Well, I think it's a good – it's a valuable exercise to reflect. to self-reflect on what part of this whole journey one enjoys and to just crudely break it down, the deal process versus operations. There's obviously just a huge range, but you are...
saying that you actually really liked the deal process. Whereas, for example, Jan Vanarsky, whose episode aired on Thursday, independent sponsor said that he really likes operating. And in fact, doing deal, the deal process was not something that he terribly enjoyed.
So he really likes being... an operator and building a business um and so i've now heard two people emphatically say that they you know one likes one one likes the other um so i say all of this just for the audience that you don't have to like both you should like one if you're gonna do this you should like one of them But you don't have to like both.
That's okay. And just be paying attention to which one you like more. And then you can gravitate to that over time. If you really like the deal process, there's probably independent sponsorship in your future.
If you really like, or at least programmatic acquisition of the business that you buy, leaning into M&A to grow the business that you bought. And if you didn't like the deal-making process so much, then you'll be happy being an operator. So good way to think about things.
Finally, this yearning for fulfillment that you leaned into. I know you're early. Sorry, when did you close?
June 30th.
June 30th? Yep. 23 days ago. That's right. So we are very fresh here. So it's only been 23 days, but how much do you think that you answered the call in the right way?
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