The First Steps to a Family Holdco

So it's not, not a decision we wanted to take lightly. And, and again for Linh in particular, articulating to me and to herself, here's really how I thought through it and all the options I considered the other things I could be doing and why I'm not doing them. That was, that was very helpful.

Was there a particular argument or three made in this white paper that finally convinced you or was it sort of like the, you know, the medium was the message, the fact that she had the paper itself and its existence was, was kind of enough to convince you?

And so seeing how she really thought about it and really wanted it, that was to me, okay, look, I'll support it in any way that, that's no issue for me. I think she's going to be amazing at it from a sort of outside in academic analysis type of perspective. I would say two things that I liked were.

So I was working in private equity, so I understood kind of all the deal math and all that stuff. But search in particular in Europe is still sort of an underpenetrated asset class where you don't have, you know, 12 PE funds bidding on every business. So there's still opportunity for, for finding good deals.

Much more so than I would say sort of in mid market private equity or, or large cap private equity.

So there's one piece and then also the fact that these are cash profitable cash generating businesses, not with sort of, you know, moonshot valuations, that was very much for me, if also important if she had come and said I really want to do a startup, it would have been a bit more challenging for me because of also her experience in fintech and kind of where valuations were sitting and what…

So it was kind of a pragmatic, realistic type of investment combined with somebody who's super passionate for it.

What do the following Acquiring Minds guests. All have in common? Doug Johns, Morley Desai, Tim Erickson, Chirag Shah, Shane Ursum. They all went through the acquisition lap the accelerator in community for people serious about buying a business, but they represent just a sliver of the Lab 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 an active community of serious searchers. Check out acquisitionlab.com, link in the notes or email the Lab's co founder, Chelsea Wood. Chelseauythenbuild.com.

Let'S hear Linh about how you thought about the the model that you were going to pursue this path because this is this further explores the kind of philosophical approach you had. So you you considered the various paths. How did you choose self funded?