It was like, unsophisticated, I guess. I'll say. And that probably sounds so snobby coming from someone who went to Harvard. But I think, like, I would every day, you know, I was the CEO now.
Acquiring Minds
From Small Acquisition to $30m Industry Leader
Excerpts · 540 segments · ~1:40:54 long
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We'd close the deal and I'd be like, hey, Will, how many gift baskets did you make today to the warehouse manager? And they would be like, I don't know. What do you mean? Like, it wasn't. We did fine. Like, it just wasn't a rigorous company.
Like, I was used to the businesses that I had previously been around had KPIs and metrics and, you know, but a tiny little business doesn't need that, right? And so, you know, I have this funny story that, like, my first day, I. I asked the receptionist for a contact list.
You know, the company contact list. Like, hey, Will sits there and here's his phone number and whatever. It took her, like, three weeks to get it to me because she didn't.
She didn't. Wasn't sophisticated enough to know what that was. So here is me, I just bootstrapped my life savings to Buy this thing. And it doesn't even have, like, the basic tools that I dumbly assumed, you know, like a shared system where they save electronic files.
Like just basics that you would need to get to the next level. And so it was a tough. A really tough slog.
And that's. That's the other side of the coin. For those of you listening, thinking of going really, really small is like, you better be ready to not only set up your own computer, but teach everyone what a contact list is. And, you know, like, there's so much to do to get to the next level.
So it was really hard. It was a. It was, I would say, a turnaround. There was just so much to do.
And I think ultimately that was really hard for the owner that stayed right because it's their baby. And I think it's interesting because the company is kind of going through that right now where these changes are so hard. Right. And the people, you know, who've been with us for the last 10 years are like, but we've always done it this way.
And I'm like, yeah, but to get to the next level, we need, you know, this and this. And it's hard. Change is so hard for people. And I think if you are going into something that's growthy.
I love that term, and you want to make change, you have to really understand the impact and challenge that that is for so many people. And so it was really hard for her. I ended up her decision, buying her out way earlier than we had anticipated in our original.
So when you do have a minority partner, it's really important to have a great shareholders agreement. And, you know, it's like. It's like having a divorce as a prenup.
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