Well, I feel like that continues today. You are a big part of your investing is also coaching. So, so the leadership is a, is a through line there.
Acquiring Minds
How to 4x EBITDA in 3 Years Without Growing Sales
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Going back, Ned, to how you even in business school back then, people looked at you like you had two heads when you talked about this thing. We were introduced through one of your business school compatriots with David Miller, who, who, who also said that, you know, he didn't really at the time understand what it was you were getting up to, but he's followed along your career and, and of course…
Yeah, I think back then, you know, it's humbling, right, because everyone is interviewing and you're this weird person calling people and learning about business models and what made them successful and why they fail, and, and they're working on case interviews. And I, I must have just been such an alien. I remember my friends being like, what are you doing?
You're not taking any interviews. And I think the only interview I took was with the CIA. I thought that was pretty cool.
And I'm gonna buy a plumbing business or become a spy.
Yeah, apparently. Apparently I wasn't to their standards, so.
So plumbing business, it was.
Yeah. But then, you know, it's interesting because then, you know, I, I'm sure I felt a little arrogant back then, like, oh, you guys are all interviewing and I wasn't. And then the. It's. It's funny how life has a way of circling back, right? Because then in search, all you're doing is this interview.
You're meeting all the investors and being interviewed. Then you're meeting, you know, thousands of business owners and, and being interviewed. And then you're on this, like, lifelong interview of running a business and being in the arena, and your employees are kind of interviewing you daily.
Like, is this a place I should work? Your customers are interviewing you. So, you know, never, Never really ends.
Yeah, no, I'd never heard it put quite that way. I have heard, of course, that we're all selling all the time, which is kind of another, another way of saying the same thing. I mean, we're in the, we're all in the business of persuasion in every conversation, whether or not we realize it.
Yeah, yeah. So great, Ned. Okay, so oddball career decision to go off and buy a business. And just to underline Jim Southern in Pacific Lake, of course, Pacific Lake today is one of the, if not the biggest name in search fund dedicated funds. Yeah.
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