Jesse sundquist thank you for joining me today on acquiring minds thanks for having me will pleasure to be here Jesse you've been searching for a business to buy for about a year you haven't found the one yet which of course is frustrating but you've learned a lot and not just about the mechanics of buying a business but really the um the emotional Journey that it is and recently you posted a short essay on searchfunder.com sharing Reflections on what you've learned in this last year and really kind of that that emotional piece and the post really resonated with the search funder Community 119 comments I saw as of this morning which is about I think you posted a week or two ago and that's a ton for a search funder post so clearly there are a lot of people out there trying to buy business and then feeling demoralized and isolated when they encounter just how hard it actually can be especially when I readily admit podcasts like this one like acquiring minds are featuring all these wonderful success stories and that's actually one of the points you make and we're going to get into that so I thought the acquiring minds audience particularly particularly those actively searching would really enjoy hearing these Reflections from you directly so what I would like to do is simply go through them uh but first some context Jesse tell us a little bit about yourself and how you arrived at doing acquisition entrepreneurship in the first place yeah great so uh I come from accounting background I actually am a CPA by training um I did that for about five years earlier on my career but quickly realized that while they're incredibly valuable skills to have it's not something I wanted to make a career of so I uh I fully admit to embarking in my career without a clear plan or trajectory as to what I wanted to do I just sort of you know I moved on to interesting roles following good leaders and just that's kind of how my my career was shaped which you know turned out decently well um but I think you know after about 15 years of working in primarily in the corporate world for in financial services in the last two years I worked for a B2B a small B2B SAS company um after about 15 years of doing that I just it felt like you know no matter how many promotions you got no matter how much influence you you thought you had at a company you were just still so far away from making an impact right and um so I I knew that I wanted more I desired more right I wanted I wanted my you know yeah I wanted to have more control over my future and the output of um you know of what my journey was going to look like and um so I think that combined with um you know my wife works full-time as well and we you know we got married and started having a family a couple years ago and so two working parents uh with three small young kids is is a lot uh and so when you have you know two parents that are spending a lot of time away from your family in jobs that were both kind of meh about you know we started to look at each other and say like this doesn't feel right it doesn't really you know it doesn't really seem to make sense um so as we're we're you know starting to think about what's next you know the pandemic happened and I think that put a lot of things into perspective for a lot of people and you know for us um I was I was you know sort of kicking the tires on ETA entrepreneurship through acquisition and thinking about it for a little bit but the pandemic really accelerated my you know uh desire to pursue this as a path and you know after uh you know reading search funder networking you know kicking the tires for uh about eight months and not really making a whole lot of progress um I sort of made the decision that if I want a higher probability of success in closing I needed to quit my job and pursue it full-time like I said fortunately you know my wife works full time she has you know supervised us with salary and benefit so I'm not you know we are dipping into savings a little bit but we have a little bit of a Financial Security blanket and so um I'm calling myself a spouse funded Searcher because admittedly I am riding on the coattails of my wife um so yeah good good spouse funded Searcher 100 I'm gonna coin coin that term yeah um but uh yeah so last September I quit my job at the software company and embarked on my on my search full-time and Jesse why buy business rather than start one especially somebody who's been up close at a B2B SAS business which probably is you know kind of a traditionally entrepreneurial environment yeah I think you know it's just it's kind of how I'm wired I'm not really a zero to one type guy I think part of you know part of my upbringing as an auditor earlier on in the career I became uh I became good at looking at existing processes and optimizing them right I'm not really uh you know blank blank piece of paper here go make a strategy type guy I'm more of uh here's what we're doing like does this really make sense can it be done better and I I sort of excel at that um and I think you know yeah so I'm very much a buy versus build type person but I did you know have a two-month sort of like detour during my during the past year where I thought really hard about just starting a business instead went all the way to the Finish Line I got my website set up you know I had my tech stack all built out just couldn't pull the trigger couldn't do it huh because you you lost faith in the idea no I think the idea is valid it's just I I wasn't excited about building by myself so so there's also kind of like um part of the part of what attracts you to buying a business is that there's a team there that you would become part of rather than very very slowly building a team if you if you were to start from scratch yeah yeah definitely I think what I I would probably consider building with a partner but I haven't really you know pursued finding the right partner in order to do something from scratch either okay and those eight months that you said you were kind of kicking the tires on the concept of search were you would you consider those an eight eight months of a part-time search or was it really just kind of really just kind of you know reading finding an hour there or here and there kind of looking at listings you know I think flirting with the idea I was definitely flirting with the idea I think at the time I thought like oh yeah like I'm doing my search but you know now that I have been doing a search for full time it's like oh wow I was I didn't even know what I was talking about right I actually remember early early on I reached out and had a phone conversation with Steve Ressler right and Steve I'm sure he doesn't remember the conversation that was one of as many like walking conversations that he has but like I don't think I knew the difference between a stock versus an asset sale and I'm talking to Steve wrestler about my vision of buying a business and like it seems so naive at the time now um but I thought I was serious then but um though I think you know and this is part of what I said in my post my my learning has just accelerated you know 100x uh by pursuing it full-time yeah versus trying to do it you know in my in my spare time with my job yeah well well let's treat that as a segue then let's just do that one as kind of one one of the first points in your Reflections um what are some of the things that you notice going from part-time to to full-time um just kind of what you said just the obvious that you you learn at an incredibly accelerated rate it's not twice as fast it's 20 times as fast sort of thing yeah yeah I I think so and I think like you know you're when you have a full-time job you're always going to be sort of distracted right because your full-time job your paycheck is you know always going to take priority and so for me especially having young kids as well it's like I I didn't necessarily like have the bandwidth or the energy to sort of like do it a lot at night because after working full time and then putting the kids to bed and things like that I was just so tired you know I wasn't going to be like modeling things out at 11 o'clock anymore right uh like like I might have been earlier on in my career yeah and so I think you know taking away the distraction quite frankly of a full-time job and be able to sort of like think through different business models operating models do I want to have a you know a service based business versus a product based business and sort of you know um items like that I had just had more more time in bandwidth and I think you know I actually got some feedback from the broker um during one of the companies I made an offer on is you know hey like you're doing this full-time uh and so like we we view you as a more like viable buyer because you're not going to get cold feet and just you know cling to the safety of your job and not move forward you know uh with with the process oh that well that's um it makes sense but that's also a really good point to highlight because it's something that Searchers themselves may want to highlight um when reaching out to Brokers that they are full-time searching I actually haven't heard I don't know if that's that is common knowledge that I've just missed but I haven't heard it before yeah so actually you know it was this was a an opportunity where we were you know negotiating an Loi I had a great rapport with the broker and with the seller and um this is one of the ones that got taken off the market after I made an offer um but I asked them before I submitted my Loi as I do have any concerns about me as a buyer before you know before I submit this so I can sort of try to address them right and he said look um you know you're doing this full-time you don't have a job to quit and so like that gives me a little bit of confidence that you can that you're going to move forward with this and it's like and secondly like you're a local buyer like you're not having to move across the country to get this done and so like once again that's another sort of like point for you as a potential buyer because you know when I see people that have a job and are looking to move across the country it's just you know I don't get a lot of confidence as a broker that like this deal is going to get done now don't get me wrong I know a lot of people that have searched while working full-time and moved across across the country for opportunities so it's certainly possible to close that way but at least in this example with this broker you know that gave him more confidence in me as a buyer that I was doing it full time and that I was local yeah yeah yeah and just a reminder to people listening so it's not necessarily that you have to you know memorize all the list of things to say to the broker although you know memorizing a few that you should say to the broker might be helpful um but just there's a there's a there's a core core thing to always remember when dealing with Brokers is they're always assessing you in terms of their belief and your likelihood to close you know likelihood to close likelihood to close likelihood to close I don't think the word was likelihood but I I there was that was the Mantra coming off of the Clint Fiore the business broker um that I interviewed a few months ago um so just whatever you can be doing in your in your Communications with a broker and then ultimately the seller to demonstrate to them that you are a very strong candidate to actually make this deal happen is really what they are looking for the seller's looking for more than that the seller's looking for you know a lot of qualitative or or emotional aspects often as well but the broker who really represents the seller but also represents the deal that's what they're really trying to sniff out about you okay so Jesse what um prompted you to spend a few hours um you know articulating your experience after first year what what really was it and then wanting to share that with the community yeah I think you when I when I first started this full-time a mentor of mine was like look you really have to give it a year to give it a fair chance of closing a deal like you're going to go through periods where you get discouraged you're going to be in a high the beginning when you start and then you go through a trough and you're going to get discouraged but like you need to see it through for a full year to really give yourself a fair chance because even if you find a deal you like it may take three or four months to get done and it also may fall apart after three months right so it's like give it at least a year so you know I realized I was coming up to my one year anniversary and I wasn't close to getting a deal done and I was like oh man this like this sucks like you know I know some people search for two or three years like I'm one year in and on the one hand I'm really disappointed but on the other hand it's like I think I've learned a lot during this year too right and I feel very different now as a person and as a Searcher than I was when I started a year ago I was like I want to sit down and like think about what I've learned and really like write it down so I did this for me more than anything else um to sort of like articulate and you know codify what what I learned and then it was like you know what I'm gonna put on search funder too because somebody else might find it useful might resonate with somebody else yeah understatement great so uh take us take us through it Jesse take us through the points sure yeah and so um yeah so there's really four four main takeaways for me and and just for context in case people haven't read the post but um you know I'm doing a geographically focused search using Brokers exclusively right so my wife works in New York City we're about an hour outside of New York City in New Jersey um we have we just bought a house here we have three small kids and so I wasn't really going to do a nationwide search picking up and you know up for doing our family to go somewhere else so um you know I'm doing a geographically folk sir the focus search exclusively to Brokers because I'm industry agnostic I have a sort of generalist background even though I lean more towards you know Finance and Accounting and operations um and I was I had a floor of around 500 000 sdes um what I said my floor was when I started um and so that's how I went about my search when I started last September um and so my first sort of Reflection Point was it's just really really difficult to get any deal done um I I had heard feedback prior to starting that you know you know broker channels um increases your likelihood of success because the Brokers have successfully vetted people vetted sellers that are ready to sell uh I'd also heard feedback that you know the broker Community can be difficult to work with right there are some really good Brokers out there and but I think the bar is generally lower you know in general for for your average broker and so I think you know just as I got into speaking with lots of Brokers looking at opportunities you know even like the seller on the other side of the table um you know having that right sort of like chemistry as a buyer or seller you know just the amount of things that have to happen at the same time all these stars that have to align to get a deal done it's like it's it's mind-boggling right and probably greater than I anticipated when I first started and so if you know three or four things are right but there's just that one thing like that doesn't make sense like then your deal could fall apart or not make sense right and and like your deal won't happen so you know I knew it would be difficult going in but I think it's just significantly more difficult uh than I had imagined which once again is you know it is what it is it's not like oh I'm not going to do it because it's hard like that's not my attitude by any means but I think I'm just a little more like eyes wide open now about like anybody that can get a deal done is really impressive and I have a lot of respect for yeah and so I think yeah I think you know on the flip side and not enough to the acquire Minds podcast because I love the podcast I listen to almost all the episodes but uh yeah like we have a lot of success stories here about people that close transactions and it's like amazing to get that feedback and be able to sort of like learn from them but um I think what's kind of glossed over is just how difficult it is for them to close that transaction to begin with yeah um yeah and I think I think oftentimes it's just getting that first deal done once you get that first deal done then I've I've heard and I believe that every other one after that is is a little bit easier um but man that first one could be can be really hard yeah so that's my first point um I think the second one is you know your search criteria can change and they really should change right I think it's a sign of progress and you know like I was just saying I started out with you know I I read the uh the buy the build book with black or die bill and I had my like Target criteria I had in like three bullet points and it's like industry agnostic three hours from my house 500 ksdes like put that filter in Biz by cell and like oh my gosh look at these 200 targets like this is gonna be a piece of cake um but I think you know the reality is you start to peel back the onion a little bit and you you understand business models more you're like oh like this business model is interesting but there's something about it that doesn't really like that I don't really like so maybe I'm not going to look at these types of Industries anymore um I think the what I found with the STD threshold was there's just not that many deals in New Jersey um that are 750 ksds or more right um and you know maybe maybe uh there are in areas that I'm not looking I don't know but like I just wasn't finding a whole lot of deal volume of of the sde threshold um and then lastly you know I think I set my target at three hours away first the first time you do a site visit three hour waves and you realize like man that's a really far drive you know you start to rethink about like is this something I want to do with the blue color Workforce it needs to be managed and I need to be there in person you know five days a week um and for me the answer was like no um I I quit my job to have more flexibility and ownership over my schedule and you know if I have to do a two to three hour drive one way to to manage my team then that's the opposite of flexibility it's not why I quit in the first place right yeah yeah so I changed my criteria to only an hour and you know that that helped with deals well it didn't help it actually hurt reveal volume yeah but um I changed the threshold from 500k floor to 300K floor uh thinking you know I was influenced by a couple guys in the SMB Community I know nikashka is one of them he's very much like buy small and you can grow it buy small get in the game and you can grow it and I believe that you know that's kind of how I'm thinking about things now that's why I've lowered my threshold to around 300K and um there's a lot more deal volume you know in that in that range which has been helpful since I you know decreased the the geographic threshold decreased the um sde threshold but also that that has increased the deal volume yeah but they kind of cancel each other out so you're probably left with like similar deal volumes before yeah yeah yeah yeah but you have to because I can't I can't reduce both of them right otherwise zero volume totally um but but I think you know the big takeaway for me there is like if your search criteria are not changing then you know are you like are you really self-aware that you're to know that you're you're learning or are you just sort of like you're sticking to your principles and like you just have to gut it out for as long as it takes because you're not willing to sort of like change yeah yeah um Jesse where did you come up with that original three-hour distance number I don't think I had a great sort of like rationale for it yeah yeah no I uh and and went like I'm just curious like you backed off of that but when you had that number still what did you envision um how much time um being at the location of the business did you envision spending like twice a week three times a week sort of thing yeah so I think it's like hey if I can buy a company with 750k to a million bucks of ebitda it's three hours away there's a management team in place I'll come in you know twice a week uh and I'll make it work because I'm gonna buy a bigger company right and that sort of like layer of management can sort of handle it um I don't know about you but I'm not seeing a lot of smbs with layers of management right and so I think there may be some misinformation out there um but that is not common but it is possible but uh it's certainly not common yeah yeah but even if you had found that a three hour schlep back and forth even just twice a week just didn't seem terrible yeah yeah and you know and this kind of goes to my third point about you know search being so so personal right your your criteria your like what's important to you what you're willing to compromise on like it really comes down to the individual like you know for me a three hour drive uh each way twice a week was you know I wasn't excited about it and not something I wanted to do because I've been working from home for the last three and a half years I spoke with other Searchers that are ex-consultants and they're like yeah like I'm used to traveling four days a week so for me like that would be great I'd be home more only have to travel twice a week no matter how far it is you know um so so I think you know that point being the search is so personal and I think I I wasted a lot of time in the beginning comparing um myself and my criteria to others and it's it's just a waste of time right like what makes sense for you may not make sense for somebody else and and that's okay right like the the you know everybody is searching for for different reasons everybody has a different sort of like why and you know the more you allow yourself to sort of like compare yourself to others or think about like why can't I search for something like that and sort of like get distracted um you know the more time you waste and it's just it's just not productive right yeah um and it's not really good for your psyche either your emotional state as you go into the search um I had a little little example in my in my post about you know everybody's heard the story around the uh you know the guy that gets that million and a half ebitduck company for like three times and it's like man what a deal I'm not seeing anything like that but like he's 28 doesn't have a family and he moved across the country for it it's like oh well that's great that's not in my life stage and so it's like I'm happy for you and it doesn't make sense for me yeah yeah no it's such a good point and um and you know as I listened to all of this you you talk I'm just kind of like sending it through the filter of being you know somebody who hosts a podcast about about search and like you know I I always am trying to kind of like pull out the best practices and the key learnings from people um but it is important that I and just kind of those of us talking about this space um don't over index on particular points or or um over emphasize like best practices because just what you said that people are in such different positions who get into this family no family 25 versus 45 versus 65 how much cash you have in the bank what sort of what you want from your search you know and on and on and on so it's so it's so personal that's such a great and important Point um and just the other thing let's let's drill into a little bit Jesse is is just on um I don't know what we want to call this the the Envy point or the or the um you know just seeing these wildly successful stories and when you're not wildly successful how that makes you feel um I've certainly felt plenty of that in my life even long before you know doing acquiring minds um and yeah it's just that'll that'll that stuff will eat you alive when you when you see other people that are having a lot more success than you and you're you're you feel like you're really trying you're really really hard at this and you're just not making not making headways so um yeah just want to um applaud that point yeah yeah thank you I I think it took me a while to sort of like really own that and be like yeah like that's okay for people to have different criteria for people to close deals faster than you with you know larger larger sdes that lower multiples and like that's okay they got a deal done deals are really hard and like I'm really excited for them yeah yeah and and also you know one of the many variables for have people vary from in this space is where they're coming from so you know if you're somebody who comes from private equity for example um you're going to be you know you you will have spent years seeing how deals get done so somebody like that obviously has has an advantage um over somebody who's just you know read Walker's book and and just decides to go out and buy a business absolutely uh Jesse I want to Circle back to um on the search criteria changing or how it should be how it should evolve two points the buying small and uh which I'll which we'll do second the first point is have you given that your deal flow is um challenging as as it is for many but geographically confined and so on have you considered looking at online businesses uh yes I've considered them um I think you know there's a couple different varieties of online businesses right there's sort of businesses that are fully remote there may be like a like a service type business that's fully remote and I would be very interested in something like that which is like location agnostic you're doing a lot of the work through emails on conference calls and you know maybe every once in a while sort of like in person site visit I'd be very interested in those I think the second variety of online business that I think about is like any sort of like like true e-commerce like fulfilled by Amazon type you know 3pl um I would not be as excited about those uh personally I think those are those deals can be really expensive and I have no expertise and I think there's a lot of really sharp people out there in the space um and so I think you just can have a lot more sophisticated buyers um out there uh and so I've shied away from those sort of like direct to Consumer e-commerce or like fulfilled by Amazon type businesses just feeling that e-commerce is like too competitive for somebody who kind of is brand new to the space yeah yeah okay and then to the point about um buying small so um you you referenced Nick hashka he was a very early guest on acquiring minds and um he made a splash a couple of years ago saying you know buy you know very loudly and proudly do buy small as opposed to all the conventional wisdom which is by as big as you can um and it was really I was I I loved that and um and people refer to it a lot the in in some of the the benefits were you know one of the big ones is just getting in the game you know uh there's a there's there's so much you know um more opportunity that comes in your way when you've actually done a deal and when you're actually now a player in the industry um but and you did look at a deal that was really small you actually for a moment there considered extremely small maybe even smaller than Nick hashka you know would be talking about um take us through that sure yeah so I I looked at this um you know one of the things that I'm really interested in when it comes to buying businesses is really like old companies right um companies that have a lot of history you know you have a second or third generation owner that's retiring like they want to pass over their baby to somebody who's a you know a capable Pair of Hands to continue their their legacy right um and so I looked at a very small company which is a specialty manufacturer of pumps um molten metal pumps right something I knew nothing about right um but uh it was the company was I want to say 70 years old um revenue and cash flow was a little bit erratic because the owner uh yeah the owner was in her 70s doing everything 100 passive not doing any outbound Outreach right and so like if an order came in she fulfilled it if it didn't come in she was happy to sort of like sit at home and so I uh I pursued it because it was listed by a broker friend of mine and I was like you know what like maybe there is something here to bind really really small if I can sort of like put in just a couple of processes optimize it so that it can only be five hours of my time like that could be a nice little like cash cow that I sort of manage while I continue to search for a larger opportunity and who knows like um you know there may be something else adjacent to this little Pump Company that I could like buy because I'm in the game additionally it would be like an easy way an easier way to get a deal done and so I could go tell a broker like hey I own this company I acquired it six months ago and said like oh you've acquired a company okay great you know what you're talking about like just instant credibility they never ask you how how large the acquisition was that you did they just care like have you done a deal yet or not yeah um so yeah I I pursued it and uh I I think what was um the light bulb moment for me was going to the machine shop where these pumps were put together and just seeing the operations and um you know it wasn't it's not rocket science right but but I realized in order to get to that sort of like Nirvana of five hours a week managing it it was probably going to be like a full-time Pursuit for me for at least six months um and so when you look at the opportunity cost of going heads down in this for six months and then not really being able to sort of like continue to search effectively for the cash flows that were there because part of that six months was you know understanding uh the landscape better doing some outbound sales efforts trying to grow it a little bit make the revenues a little bit more predictable versus erratic um and if you look at the opportunity cost of pursuing that full-time versus continuing to look for business given the sort of like meager cash flows that it had for me it wasn't the right equation um and so and so I just declined to pursue the opportunity anymore and but just to be clear like that light bulb moment that occurred when you actually visited the the site what did you see there um yeah so this one was interesting in that you know there was a third-party machine shop that actually was assembling the pumps all the parts were um uh you know fabricated elsewhere shipped to machine shop and then this machinist has sort of like put it together and send it out so you know the owner was not doing any manufacturing herself the really light bulb moment was they had a part that was shipped to them from the casting company and it was off uh and The Machinist knew it was off because he's been putting together these pumps for years and um they had to dig up a blueprint from like the 50s a paper blueprint from the 50s roll it out on the table put the part on top and say like look it's two millimeters off and so they had to like photocopy it cut it send it to the casting place and they you know they owned up to their mistake to fix it but if that owner who was a second or third generation owner if she didn't have that blueprint from the 50s like the event is massive back and forth on like it's off no it's not it's to my standards no the casting is fine you know um and I was like wow there's a lot of institutional knowledge here that you know I wouldn't necessarily have and it could have fallen through the tracks during a transition and then you know everybody always says buying small is risky I totally get it right and I agree but I think there could be still be opportunities there but for me seeing it firsthand and hearing about a couple of these stories I was kind of like I don't know that this is where I want to spend my time right now yeah yeah that's great Okay carry on with your Reflections please uh yeah so I think you know back to the um criteria changing I think the other the other thing I'm considering a little bit more now is uh franchise resales um I think you know for whatever reason when I first started my search I was like I'm not going to buy a franchise why would I give away you know 10 to 12 of my you know Revenue as a royalty like I want to have my own brand and develop my own brand you know and I literally remember responding to a broker probably like six months ago saying oh I'm sorry like I didn't realize this is franchise I'm not interested in personally franchises like end to stop um but now I've changed my tune I I would be very interested in uh you know acquiring a franchise should the right one um come along and I think part of that is because I've spoken with a couple of uh multi-unit franchise owners and they have some some really you know tremendous cash flowing businesses um because they've owned they own so many locations and I think there can also be some um some benefits of being within a franchise Network like a captive sort of like franchise Network and as owners are retiring they're always looking to sell to somebody in network versus you know posting it on the open market so I think there can be some really interesting opportunities there as well uh and actually I am pursuing one franchise opportunity now as we speak but that's just another example of you know something that I um you know my criteria has changed and I think you know for the better that's that's a that's a great one Jesse like to open your mind to franchises um because that's something that so many of us I and I include myself in that um are kind of not open to um and maybe should be and in fact it's so timely that you're saying that because I have three interviews in the queue for people who have acquired franchises um and they're all quite spectacular stories again you know kind of um just just showing that just showing the good stuff here unacquiring lines but these are really these are really impressive stories um and um and and at least in one case the individual was like yeah no I don't I don't want to buy buy a franchise and then you know got down the path and kind of opened his mind and it's and it was a it was a great decision um and so anyway and by the way there's a lot of people who have written me kind of requesting this um requesting that I talk to people who have actually acquired franchise businesses so so this is this is something that people are contemplating a lot more that has maybe talked about at least at least here on acquiring minds so yeah I I look forward to those episodes I know one of your guests and I think I think he's gonna be great yeah yeah James Temple Vlog there great go ahead um yeah and then my last one was you know there are a lot of solo Searchers out there myself included but this is not a solo Pursuit right um your network really is your lifeline and I think this you know this SMB Community has been uh phenomenal right I can't tell you the number of people that I've reached out to um sometimes it's an introduction oftentimes without an introduction and just said hey like I've got this deal I'm looking at can you know can I pick your brain on it or you know uh or anything right like you know Twitter has been great search vendor has been great but I remember like there's been a couple tweets that I've done that I said hey if anybody know anything about Niche manufacturing right and like people that people will reach out and say yeah like I know something about it and like lo and behold you know these people who don't post anything on Twitter they're just sort of followers lurkers so they say um have you know some tremendous experiences and are more than happy to share 30 60 90 minutes of their time or you know had multiple phone calls with you to sort of like just educate you right and like that's been a big part of me you know 10x 100x in my learning it's just people have been so generous with their time because they want to see you succeed and I've just been like blown away right uh I think you know oftentimes coming from Corporate America it can be a little bit like a shark tank doggy dog like why would I help you because I need to perform better than you because we're all going to be compared against each other during like year in ratings you know stuff like that but like that has not been the case with the SMB Community people have been very collaborative more than happy to share their time um and that's that's quite frankly like the most encouraging aspect of it and so I think you know while you are doing a solo search like it really shouldn't be a solo Pursuit it's not good for you for it to be a solo Pursuit like you need to be constantly going out there and learning from other people and just sometimes it's sharing your experiences other people too because we're all dealing with the same stuff right like we're all dealing with crappy deal flow High multiples this broker is asking for this like you know this person's being unrealistic about that like my banker wants this you know and so like the more you can sort of rally around each other and share your stories you know the better and and um you know it's it's been a real boost to my spirits every time I have a conversation with with another Searcher and um I think probably one of the most helpful things is you know we had a a New Jersey SMB Meetup um in the spring I want to say something like that sometime and there was probably like 40 or so people that showed up we had a pretty good turnout and um since that event there's been you know four or five of us that have been in this like little group chat that we that we text every day about things that are going on and one guy's a broker uh four of us are Searchers three guys are under Loi right now and so like being able to talk about what they're seeing in The Lending process you know the the pace of diligence requests how much is too much to ask for how much is not enough um it's just been it's been really really helpful and as a good sort of like perspective I think you know everybody's spouse or significant other or friends have a sort of like tolerance level for how much they can they can hear about a pest control company or you know something like that um but uh you know I think having having this other Outlet of like-minded people who are in the same boat as you are has just been you know it's Priceless and so I think if you're not if you're not out there every week you know engaging with with others uh whether it's you know people you already know and you're sharing your stories or whether it's be you know meeting new people um I think you're really missing out uh and I think you'd really benefit from you know just get it out there and being more active with with other people that are searching yeah that's great Jesse and just to kind of recap if somebody's out there completely isolated not connecting with anybody what you've kind of feel like you've done all the things but just to recap what those are you know search funders are great Community SMB Twitter um is a great Community let's see if there's local meetups I mean even host your own Meetup meetups are actually they don't have to be a lot of work you can you can put together a Meetup yourself in your local community um and then you kind of have from your Meetup it sounds like Jesse sprung this kind of informal Mastermind now that you have with what four or five other local folks and so you know if you can actually develop a little a small network of people who are who are really in it um along with you uh sounds like that can be good did I miss anything oh no no I take take calls you know feel free to reach out to people and ask for calls yeah no 100 I mean I think like I've I've just met so many you know people that have had lots of conversations with and like you know people were so generous with me when I was first starting and didn't know anything that you know if anybody reaches out and said hey like I'm I'm on this part of my journey do you want to like catch up like absolutely like happy happy to chat right um and I think I've I've gotten so much from those calls and I hope I can sort of like you know uh provide value to somebody else are there to reach out and have a conversation as well cool that's awesome that's a great message um Jesse so that that was your last point in the essay correct uh yeah the last point I think you know I that's my last sort of like lesson learned I just wrap up the essay by saying like so where's this where does this leave me yeah it's been a year I'm not close to a deal so um so what's next uh I think the dream is still very much alive for me you know I I definitely go through days or weeks where I'm just pretty down and saying like am I ever going to get a deal done um but you know you sort of like you talk to your friends for some perspective right um uh and you pick your head up and you keep on keeping on and you know I still have a goal of of buying a business probably a little maybe a little bit late in 2022 we'll see but uh you know within the next six to nine months I'd like to close on a business I think you know if I'm if I'm at this point um you know the start of next summer and I'm still not close to closing a business I'll probably have to reassess because um you know it would have been you know over a year and a half and with nothing nothing clear I may need to sort of like reevaluate what's best for me and my family um but at least for now like the dream is not dead I'm gonna continue on and I think I'm still gonna use the broker channels I'm not committing to a proprietary Outreach yet uh but what I am going to do is do I'm going to try to do some more Outreach to local advisors so attorneys wealth managers um potentially accountants although I've heard a lot of accountants will kill deals uh they don't fully understand valuation so I may steer clear the accountants but uh start to reach out to a few more advisors uh locally to see if they can sort of provide owners that may be thinking about transitioning but are not on the market yet and see if that can lead to some increased deal flow well we're rooting for you Jesse I am personally I'm sure everyone listening to this is and I think this is going to be um a really reassuring uh episode for for people who find themselves exactly where you are um just to hear so thank you very much for your transparency your candor by your emotions and the whole journey um and just let's let's kind of try to distill all of this um you know I feel like some of what you've experienced here you just gotta go through to kind of really you know internalize it um because you yourself had done a lot of research you'd read the books you'd listen to the pods you know you knew a lot of these things but it was only like once you really kind of experience it yourself that you really did it really kind of sink in but the question would be is like if somebody listening to this is in month one um you know can they really just kind of accelerate through some of the pain the emotional pain um to get where you are in month 13 from from your hard-won wisdom and I guess it I and I guess it's just just really to hear to hear the points which is like you know getting any deal done that's my favorite it's a point you lead with but to emphasize getting any deal done is really really hard a single deal like anybody who completes gets across the Finish Line deserves a lot of Kudos even that is is really hard um your search criteria can and should change that was your second point so just don't be too married to your criteria be a little a little more flexible a little more open-minded franchising for example size yeah everybody says by including on this podcast and you know buy as big as you can find finding that 750 000 K sde business is ideal sure but it just might not be realistic so so maybe you know expand your expand your lens some right at the outset um don't let all these awesome stories on acquiring minds get you down you'll be you'll get there don't don't compare yourself too much to others um that they they all probably experience a lot of pain and this is just very very personal and very um there's a lot of Randomness to it you know there's a lot of Randomness to to that your success in finding the right business to buy um and then just use you know just reach out to people don't do this alone um Jesse enumerated a lot of a lot of ways that you can connect with other people doing this um you you should do all those at the outset to to get smarter quicker and to protect your own sanity and and protect against loneliness so yeah I mean I think the last thing that I would say is this is advice I've given to a lot of people that have reached out is just um you got to get started right like spend a lot of time thinking about your search criteria right because the more focused you are the more the greater likelihood you'll have a success but you know I wasted probably like six weeks at the beginning of my search like trying to think of the right name and have my website copy up and like think about my tech staff and which CRM I'm going to use like do I need to form an LLC now or should I wait until later I'll perform the LLC now like just wasting time on a lot of things that are not essential to start your search like you're really going to learn a lot once you have that first broker call and they give you feedback on you as a buyer uh and you can have the opportunity to sort of like ask questions about the business model um and you don't need a website for that you don't need an LLC for that like you don't need any of that so you're gonna You're Gonna Learn by doing and so just pick up the phone and call broker and ask about a listing and get started right and like that's how you're really accelerating learning so yeah just just get started yeah I will just add to that I do I do think it's good to at least have a really nice tight one-pager about yourself and so that you don't act like a total or sound like a total Noob or non-serious when you get on the phone with a broker because remember they're they're just trying to sniff around to see if you're you're the real deal that you could actually close so but you can put together a one or two pager on yourself um in a few hours um and but I would argue that that is very time very well spent and that you should do before you make that first call or or ask for that first listing yeah so you have your criteria to have a little bit of you know like a one-pager about me to to give them confidence but like that's all you need right like you don't need a business bank account you don't need an LLC like right just you know you can get started with with very little uh and I know I wasted like at least six weeks trying to like think of the optimal name and I ended up with not the capital which nobody's ever asked me about right it doesn't matter where with what capital I didn't hear you uh not Sophia Capital Mount Sophia capital okay yeah um well since you spent so much time on it Jesse do you want to give us the origin of the name it's just it's just a street I lived on as a kid that's all yeah okay uh Jesse how can people reach out to you um speaking of networking um yeah so I'm on Twitter at jsunquist uh you can do that I'm also on LinkedIn you can go to my website Mount Sophia Capital Mt sophia.capital uh or email me at Jesse at Mount sophia.capital great Jesse thanks for making that post on search funder you've really benefited that community and I think you've benefited the acquiring minds Community here today sharing it all uh with me live so thank you very much sir we're rooting for you to get that deal done and when you do um you'll you'll I'll have you back in the hot seat great thank you will great to be here