Started Mid-Career, Grew to $38m in 3 Years

Sure. So I, you know, I did my, my MBA at Babson College. I was working in Wellesley at the time, Wellesley Mass. Which is where Babson is, and did their part time program over two years.

And for anyone that knows Babson, it's, it's all about entrepreneurship. And so you know, during my time there, you know, I just met a lot of people that had alums that had gone there and you know, made, you know, career moves into, you know, buying a business.

And yeah, I remember sitting, you know, going to a Babson alumni event and sitting next to a guy that joked, you know, he was in, in the corporate world like I was for, for 20 plus years and eventually got sick of it and left and bought a painting business.

And you know, I imagine him you know, up on a step ladder painting houses and, you know, after some, some diligence, you know, figured out that he owned a fairly large, you know, commercial painting business and in the Boston area.

So I always, you know, thought if I ever got fired or, you know, I ever got, you know, downsized, you know, instead of, you know, trying to go and find, you know, another, another place that I would, you know, make the leap and buy a company. But, you know, I imagine it happening, you know, in my 50s and, you know, much later career.

And so why then did it happen? Did you get fired?

No, actually, I left on a pretty good note and I, you know, I started exploring search after a meeting that really kind of changed my life. I was having lunch with one of the advisors that I worked with at bank of America Private bank, and, and the gentleman we were having lunch with was one of his clients and a gentleman that had made his, his wealth and in the private equity space.

And you know, I asked him, I said, you know, Bill, how'd you make your money? And you know, he explained to me his, his story. You know, it's the first company he bought, you know, they bought it for 4 million bucks and they put $900 in equity into the deal, this is back in the early 80s, and, and borrowed the rest.

And he sold it five years later for a multiple of what he purchased it for. And he did that 50 more times. And that's how he accumulated his wealth.

And the first thing I thought walking out of that meeting was, man, you took the wrong classes in business school. At Babson, I didn't take any type of corporate finance, deal structure, financial modeling type classes. And, and so the second thought in my head was, you know, maybe I should do a little bit more digging and, you know, figure out how this guy, you know, did this.

And, and that's, that's kind of when my journey started. And so I actually went back to Babson at that point and took a couple of classes via a certificate program that they offered. In the second class that I took, which was entitled, I think M and A for Entrepreneurs, they introduced the concept of search.