Why Choose Ownership Over Being a CEO

Ah, 51%. A magic number in the world of business. Today's guest discovered just how important it was to her after working as the CEO of a private equity held business and seeing up close what it means to not be owner of the business that you're running.

This insight, as much about herself as it was about private equity, led Katherine Butler-Dines and her husband Rahul Desai to embark on a self funded search and what they ultimately acquired is a travel business that offers guided tours to women.

At less than 1 million in revenue, it's very small, the opposite end of the spectrum from the PE platform that Katherine ran, but it suited the couple well in ways that you'll hear and they saw it as their own platform with more acquisitions.

Hopefully to come, you'll hear Rahul say effectively that all tour operators taste like chicken and and he's built back office tech that they hope will allow them to bolt on other tour operators and quickly realize the same efficiencies they've gained in their first year of this business. Katherine and Rahul expect revenue to have almost doubled next year, their second as owners.

If you're into travel businesses, also listen to our interviews with Shell Zhang, who bought a tour operator that does trips to Italy, Jared Benoff, who bought a travel agency in the destination wedding space, and Greg Geronimus, who bought a large tour operator with 5 million of EBITDA. That interview with Greg hasn't dropped yet. Watch for it next week.

Okay, here are Katherine Butler-Dines and Rahul Desai, owners of Women Travel Abroad. We talk a lot about SBA loans in our world, but of course there exist other sources of debt for buying a business. This Thursday, attorneys James David Williams and Bill Barlow return for an Office Hours webinar and the topic is debt financing for both SBA and non SBA deals.

They'll be joined by guest Adam Steiner, who represents both banks and borrowers on SBA and non SBA deals. Bill, James, David and Adam will go over the latest SBA rule changes as well as what's different about borrowing from SBA vs non SBA sources and how searchers and independent sponsors should navigate that process. That is this Thursday, November 13, noon Eastern.

Link to register for the webinar is right at the top of this episode's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiring Minds co 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 talk to the people who do it. If you Ask owners in the ETA and search community which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs. One name comes up again and again.

Oberle.

Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two time successful searcher, August Felker, which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. And if you've got a business under LOI, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy no risk way to…

To know August and the team at. Oberle to take advantage. Check out oberle-risk.com that's O B E R L E- risk.com link in the.