Product founder and consultant turned to self-funded searcher. MBA @NYUStern. CEO @BeaconWifi. Nerd 🤓. Search investor. Avid listener of @aquiringminds. #smb
Grand Rapids, MI
Joined May 2008
- Tweets6.5K
- Following590
- Followers940
- Likes11K
Pinned Tweet
I'm a self funded searcher who spent my career in software as a product manager, business plan comp winner, 7x founder, landlord, corporate W2. 345 days to find and close my deal.
Today, I'm the CEO of the market leader in marina wifi, access controls, & surveillance systems.
We're close to securing the acquisition pipeline with a client. All because we were willing to take small jobs at the beginning to prove ourselves. They were not meaningful jobs, but they have potential to be 1-2 orders of magnitude larger. – at Grand Rapids, MI
Took 2 years of pushing but we finally got the lynchpin of stickiness for our NOC with a major customer. Hbd to me. – at Grand Rapids, MI
I spent the first decade of my career chasing a mission.
I spent the last decade focused on showing I was capable in corporate settings.
My next decade will be about scaling a small ETA business that I brought back from the brink of distress and stabilized. It's been a wild two years in the operator seat. Entrepreneurship is an incredible high with incredible lows. Glad to be doing it alongside so many other operators and a team who is bought in. Inspired and delusional every day! – at Grand Rapids, MI
Nothing like asking your biggest prospect point blank about intentions to move forward with you (MSA redlining) to really wake you up.
They said YES. – at Grand Rapids, MI
Had to sub out work to suit a customer who said it was an emergency:
- sub said they were available
- confirmed the work order
responded this morning saying they will be there
Result:
- no show, not responding to our calls
- angry customer
This is why we have mostly run our operation by bringing field techs in house. – at Grand Rapids, MI
We added enterprise sensor monitoring to the Beacon NOC. Been working on this for 18 months. – at Grand Rapids, MI
We're not home services but we implemented this role immediately post close — it's been huge for us.
There was so much service revenue available we weren't trying even attempting to be aware of, let along earn. It's a sticky way to stay close to your customers, too.
This alone 10x'd our service revenue, from five figures to six figures. – at Grand Rapids, MI
Couple thoughts on risk-reward.
1) Make it worth it to PG anything. If you lose everything you've worked for, that is a terrible outcome for you and loved ones who depend on you. That has to be worth more significantly more
2) Bigger is just better. When you're acquiring, it's the same amount of work for big or small. It's also going to be a similar amount of work post close to professionalize what you can afford as a self-funded searcher.
And now thoughts on main self-funded search strategies:
1) Buy a stable co you can gradually pay down debt and keep it low growth but stable (not shrinking, not hugely risky, just straight elbow grease blood sweat and tears to the finish line). This is the safe strategy. It's are working for the seller and now you can do the same thing but a little better and not lose your shirt.
2) Buy high growth opportunity (buy without growth with vision/plan for the high growth). This is not a common path. I did this and it has unique challenges. @BigDemoPrez clearly is there too. This is about managing ROI and cash flow. This is way more stressful and risky, fewer capital partners until you're proven.
- National footprints can easily be this given market size and likely niche.
- Home services, not so much, but maybe if you're @therobertbrooks.
Bottom line:
Only buy a company if you're getting paid in life-changing terms. – at Grand Rapids, MI
I told the CEO of a much larger VC-backed firm that I was feeling a bit out of my depth. Without pause he said, "We all are!"
That has stuck with me.
Trust your gut (and data!). You're why you're here, now. – at Grand Rapids, MI
At my 6yo son's soccer game, a girl showed up in a full [Lilo and] Stitch onesie, with hood, jersey over top. Youth soccer is a wild place. – at Comstock Park, MI
We started doing NPS surveys every 6 months to align with the beginning and end of boating season.
6 months ago this person gave us a 0 with an 8-10 yo install. They were very noisy about it withon their org. They approved a mandatory repair which cost them more than they'd paid in a long time, but we significantly upgraded their infrastructure.
Now: – at Grand Rapids, MI
