Buying a Wide Moat in a Consolidating Industry

We had investors and different people coming to Tuck, but it wasn't. It's not like a Harvard Business School or a Stanford where you got, you know, 20, 30 people searching a year. It would really only be like 1 to 2.

The partnership aspect of this. Now you don't mean, you don't mean having a partnered search. You mean actually the relationships with investors say just a little bit more about the appeal of that.

Yeah, so you're right. Not in the sense of a partner that is in the day to day with me. But I really just wanted to build this really great council and I felt like it would be really difficult to get that without traditional search.

I know, I know you can do it, but I just felt like I didn't have these. You know, I always got to know the investors, but it's not like I had these like 10 year long deep relationships with people who had run businesses and would just help me just, you know, out of the good of their heart or I didn't know what kind of business I would acquire. So obviously I know sometimes you can give a little…

So, um, I just wanted to set it up that way from the beginning. So I felt like we had kind of like a vested interest together there. Obviously want to make sure I do well.

But beyond that, I really was stress testing the relationships I had with investors while I was picking my cap table because as one investor put it to me, some of these relationships last longer than marriages. I'm married, I obviously hope I'm married for a long time, but we all know the rates, the divorce rates and everything.

So one of the investors really early on was telling me, pick very carefully because, you know, you're going to be with these people for a decade and they care about you as a person, they care about the company and they're going to be there for you whenever you have questions. And so that's really what I was looking for and why I wanted to build a traditional search. And I've truly gotten that out…

Fantastic. I text with several of them anytime I have a question and they always get right back to me, which has been really great.

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 get to know August and the team at Oberle.

To take advantage. Check out oberly-risk.com that's o b e r l e-risk.com link in the notes. Tell us what your search looks like. You, you wait until you graduate Tuck, we assume, and then you proceed.