How to 4x EBITDA in 3 Years Without Growing Sales

This whole thing, this isn't, you know, there are some people that go to business school and then they become consultants in order to be something else. They go to Bain or McKinsey or whatever. Okay. Search isn't that, this isn't, come here, get your stamp and then go to the next thing.

Right. Like the thing's called search. At the end of the day, we're looking for companies, we're looking for ourselves, we're growing, we're maturing. Like there's this whole thing and it's not a, it's not a check the box.

And you said to me that you actually, when you look at a searcher and a deal, you're, you're really more investing in the searcher.

Yes.

Thank you. The deal, obviously, I'm sure that's an oversimplification if it's a terrible deal. Although then you might argue if a searcher brought me a terrible deal, then the problem is this. Still the searcher. Yeah, they should, they should have known better.

But, and you know, in the investing cliche, this is, this is investing in the jockey more than the horse, as the, as it goes. So, so is there anything to, to elaborate on that or is that, is that just a kind of a crystallization of what we've, we heard you say?

I, I think it's more of a crystallization. But what I might add is if I'm committed to you as a searcher, it, like I owe you. Like if you're bringing like B or C deals consistently and I'm not giving you hard feedback and I'm not telling you like what's wrong with this and I'm not, I'm not sitting down and, and like helping you sharpen the saw to get better and better.

I'm not a good investor. Like I'm not showing up for you. So like that's our job is to help you learn and mature.

I'm not expecting anyone to be great at search. I just expect you to be coachable and willing to take in these data points and process them all and reflect on and get better. That's what it's all about.

But if you're not getting better and, and it's just you, it's not working. Like the likelihood of 1 finding a company to getting investors to back in 3 being successful goes way down.

One of the reasons that people are don't want to do a traditional search and might tend toward a self funded search instead is, is because of the perception of being the C. The conventional format in a traditional search conventional kind of corporate format where you are a CEO and you have a board behind you who are in some sense your bosses.