Growing Profits 30% in the First 1.5 Years

As his 40th birthday approached, today's guest started to feel the now or never pull of entrepreneurship. So Jonathan Taylor left a 15 year tech career to journey into business ownership. Jonathan closed on a distribution business a

year and a half ago. Like many distribution businesses, AEK Technology has concentration, but not on the customer side. Many of the products it sells come from a single supplier.

Jonathan and I unpack this risk and how he's mitigated it. Note how common this is in distribution businesses. The acquisitions of my last two interviews with entrepreneurs who bought distribution businesses.

Phil Kohler and Sean Stimson links in the show notes both of those businesses had supplier concentration. Also listen for the segment on over equitization. Jonathan elected to raise more investor capital than necessary to put his project on firmer footing and he gave up some ownership to do so.

There is wisdom in this Self funded Searchers it's tempting to own as much of the pie as possible, which typically means more leverage and or less cash post acquisition on on both your business's balance sheet and on your personal balance sheet. But as you know, the reverse less leverage and more cash reserves is more likely to set you up for success.

And speaking of success, Jonathan has grown revenue 40% and EBITDA 30% in the year and a half that he's owned his business. Here he is joining Jonathan Taylor, owner of AEK Technology. Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses.

My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs, and on this podcast I I talk to the people who do it. What do the following Acquiring Minds guests

all have in common? Doug Johns, Morley Desai, Tim Erickson, Chirag Shah, Shane Ursam. They all went through the Acquisition Lab, the accelerator and community for people serious about buying a business.

But they represent just a sliver of the Lab's success stories. The number of deals across the Lab's

cohorts now stands at over 120, with over $300 million in aggregate transaction value. The Acquisition Lab was founded by Walker Deibel, author of Buy Then Build, the book that introduced so many of you

to the very idea of buying a business. The Lab offers a month long, intensive, almost daily Q and A sessions with advisors, live deal reviews with Walker, Deal

team introductions and in an active community of serious searchers. Check out acquisitionlab.com link in the notes or email the Lab's co founder, Chelsea wood. Chelsea buy then build.com Jonathan Taylor welcome to Acquiring Minds.