Started as SBA Searcher, Built to a PE Fund

I was one of the first cohorts there. And then really just started talking to people about this is what I want to do. And that's where the opportunities really came. Great.

Okay, so you did the acquisition lab, one of the very early cohorts, probably even earlier than me. I was in a, like a, I think it was January 22nd. So you would have been. Yeah, I think I was 21.

So what were your criteria then when you settled down to properly go find a business?

Oh man. Early on I didn't have one. I didn't have any criteria. The, the curse of being a generalist in management consulting is that you kind of get thrown into all kinds of industries and situations.

And I just thought I can own any business because I, one of my skill sets was being able to go into a company and quickly understand it, learn it, get the credibility and synthesize what some of the opportunities were. I quickly found out that having no thesis was not helpful for me. So if I was going to go try to talk to somebody, I didn't know where to start and if I was talking to somebody who…

And I said, it doesn't matter. I wasn't really getting any help.

Being a generalist or positioning yourself as a generalist wasn't a negative necessarily because,.

Because it wasn't true.

It was just the, the market responded badly to you being a generalist because if you're, if you're right for everything, you're perfect for nothing sort of thing.

I think that's a good way to say it. And I didn't have enough focus when I was sit, if I was going to sit down and go look for book of companies, I, I, I didn't, I wasn't able to focus my energy enough to define the specific thing.

Right.