Building Exit-Ready Businesses with Jason Kruger

0:00All right, today on our show, we interviewed Jason Krueger, who is a not only very interesting in the sense of not only a business owner, sold as business, and like living the dream, being an accounting background, but man, just a ton of nuggets from somebody that had an exit, had an intention to grow as business over 15 years, and now helping business owners in the accounting space. So Ben, what were your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think that the big takeaway for me was, I mean, he, how intentional he had been over 15 years span. Most business owners, I even called it out on the show, was like, hey, most people don't think about that. Think about, like, hey, I want to start a company. It's fun. It's, it's like my new thing. He was from day one, because he had come from Deloitte, you know, really like, what are the things I need to do? How do I need to build this company? What are the key things that I need to track, you know, in order to be able to eventually exit? And so he had that all planned out. And so I think it's, it's, it's, it was an interesting story. Now he's working for the company at the bottom. So, you know, he's also,

1:00he's back to working for the man and, and, you know, how that transition goes. So I think it's, it's very interesting because, you know, I mean, he's a younger guy. He's got, he's still got some young kids. And I think, you know, he looks at it like, hey, what was I going to do for the next 30 years, right? Yeah. And so now he's, he's living the dream kind of back to doing sales and, and growing that. But touch us. But touch us on that intentional. Yeah. I mean, that, for those listeners that are getting into this space, I mean, you've got to know why you're doing this. Yeah. He was really focused. You're right. But also in the mindset of documenting. Yes. Documenting what he did, building systems and processes in the business because it makes your company more valuable. Yeah. And so for our listeners that are thinking about buying a business, what are those things you're going to be looking for due diligence for systems and processes? And then where can you make those improvements to make the value go up, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's all about documentation, bringing on the right team, getting your accounting stuff and line, obviously, he's an accountant. So he had playbooks like all of us. Yeah, he, he really, he really did a great job and probably one of the more methodical business owners that,

2:01that we've interviewed on this show. So a lot of great golden nuggets. It's going to be it's an interesting episode. So we look forward to jump right in. Yeah, let's get right into this. Welcome to the M&A launch pad podcast with your host, Casey and Ferris with Equity Launchpad. On this podcast, you will gain insights on acquiring investing in and selling profitable businesses in the lower to middle market, whether you're a business owner, investor, or a spa entrepreneur, at Equity Launchpad, we will provide you with the knowledge, guidance, and capital to navigate the world of mergers and acquisitions. Hey there, this is Casey with the M&A launch pad podcast. Want to let you know about October 25th, put it on your calendar. This is a do not miss one day event. There's going to be incredible headliners, but really at the end of the day, you're going to get a chance to talk to people that have made acquisitions, learned from some of the challenges that they've made because this is definitely a challenging process. But more importantly, there's going to be people there that can help you and support you along the way from great vendors, quality of earnings, how to run the due diligence process, and how do I get financed?

3:06How do I raise capital? How do I structure all of these things? October 25th in Chicago, we're going to be gathering. It's going to be hundreds of people that are all focused like minded people. And man, everyone that's come has given us incredible feedback. So mark your calendar October 25th in Chicago. We look forward to seeing Jason. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Casey. I really appreciate it. Yeah, we're glad to have you here. And you got a great background. A lot of things here to cover. Why don't you jump in? Give us a snapshot about yourself. Yeah, sure. So my background is in the finance and accounting field. Yeah, I guess I don't like this. That's a bad word to me, but yeah, hopefully I can add a little bit more value than that. But I spent the last 25 years in that space, started my career at mostly with Deloitte. So in the big four on the financial statement audit side, so got a lot of exposure to companies and their financial information and what, you know,

4:07kind of really understanding companies from the ground up. You know, I learned at an early age, you know, when I talked to my dad, he was in business and he would say, you know, finance is looking at a company from the top down and accounting is looking at a business or a company from the bottom up. And so there's a lot of value there. And you know, has really helped in my career and really helping to understand businesses how they operate, how they're successful. I left Deloitte in 2008 and I started a company called Signature Analytics, which was basically outsourced accounting, CFO advisory support for companies in the $10 million to $100 million range. They that are high looking to grow. They lack sophistication. They've outgrown their existing team. They have a bookkeeper that they call a controller, but really isn't, you know, isn't meeting those expectations. And so providing that accounting financial leadership to companies filling in the gaps. So

5:08they have confidence in their financials and they can competence in the confidence in the financial process and they can produce good timely financial information they can trust and make decisions off of. We built that company up to about 75 full-time employees. Nice. Supporting our clients. And then we were acquired in November of 2024. Congrats. By Citroen Cooperman. Thank you. And at that point, I became a partner at Citroen Cooperman. Within our what we call BPO business process outsourcing. So same thing, outsourced accounting, practice, it's been growing. It's probably the fastest growing division of our firm. And so they had grown it internally. They were looking to expedite that growth. And we we matched up really well with them on how we service our clients, our culture, those types of things. And so now Citroen Cooperman is a national firm. About 15 top 15 as far as size focuses on, you know, core audit and tax work for clients.

6:16Really focused on the small or the mid market. So we're not really, you know, some overlap maybe between like a big four, but really our focus is that small mid market. That's where we we really thrive. Companies, you know, that you guys same types companies you guys work with. And then we also have an advisory function, which is the services that I mentioned I perform, but also transaction advisory, you know, supporting companies through the due diligence and the M&A process. So they can, you know, ultimately succeed in their sale. Along with other, you know, anything you can think of from a consulting advisory side on the finance financial and accounting side of a business. Love it Jason. No, I mean, you know, obviously a lot of experience over last kind of 20 years. And, you know, I guess how was that just to kind of kick it off? You know, were you A, were you looking to sell, you know, and B, how was that process, right? And now you're now you've sold and now you're you're working for the man again, right? You know, like, how is that?

7:17You know, you know, I mean, it just kind of talked to us because I think that's what are the strategies that we've heard on from other guests, right? But I love for your kind of perspective as to, you know, how did this all kind of come about? And, you know, how is it kind of switching gears not no longer being the owner, but now being a partner? Yeah. Yeah. So when I left Deloitte, I was a senior manager at Deloitte and my next step would have been to, you know, go the partner route. And at the time, I was like, yeah, I don't want to be a partner at a public accounting firm. I want to go off and, you know, do my own thing. And, um, and then now go full circle, you know, 15 years later or 16 years later, I'm a now partner at a CPA firm. So, um, I, so I'm, you know, I've gone full circle. But, um, when I started in 2008, um, I was fortunate in that, you know, I was one of the earlier adopters or early to market for the types of services that we performed. Um, and a lot of CPA firms also at the time, you know, they're for, they're quote,

8:19for focus was audit tax. And so I was able to develop good relationships with CPA firms, bankers in the market started in the San Diego market. San Diego is a very general market. Um, there's only one fortune 500 company. It's really run by the mid market, small mid market business owners. So it's a great place to start a business like what I did. Um, and, you know, learned a lot of flying by the seat of my pants at first, trying to figure everything out, playing every role in the company as every business owner does. I'm sure. And then over time, I was always looking, you know, at my ultimate goals, which was ultimately to exit at some point in time. Um, and so from the beginning, I always was looking at, okay, how do I maximize value of this business? Uh, what are the long term metrics I want to be focusing on to be able to do that? So that I can position myself to be a very valuable business for a potential buyer. And, you know, really separate myself from separate myself from anybody else they might be considering.

9:23So it's curious. Do you think without that Deloitte, you know, experience and kind of, I mean, obviously they, they work with other firms that are probably looking to do M&A as well, right? Do you feel like that kind of put the bug in your ear to, because not a lot of business owners start off day one and be like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to maximize the value because I eventually want to sell. Most people are like, I've got this idea or I've got this problem that I think I can fix. Yeah. I have this hobby that I want to turn into something, you know, like that's how they look at it. And then it's down the road. Somebody might encourage them to sell. And then they're stumbling their way through a sale process, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely. I mean, I learned in my career, spend 10 years in, you know, in public accounting beforehand, you know, where the, you know, what was important? And so just the high level key parameters are one, you have to be able to build a business that's not relying on Jason, right? So you have to build the infrastructure. So day one, yes, it's only Jason. Jason's flying by doing everything. But over time, you have to be able to build a business that is self-sustaining

10:28and you build the infrastructure, the management structure, the layers, et cetera, so that Jason ultimately can walk out of the business or leave and it still operates effectively. And so that's and that's huge, hugely important and really drives the business value up. The second was, you know, for our type of firm was, you know, we wanted to not be a single location in San Diego. We wanted to be multi-location. And so this was in 2008 when it was a lot more, you know, everybody was in the office. Zoom was, I don't even know, Zoom existed back then. Did not. Yeah. And so, you know, it was a lot of that. And so we started to establish office presence in Orange County and Los Angeles. We built out offices there. We actually had some trial and error, some other offices in Arizona that didn't pan out. But we started to expand beyond our core, you know, our local presence. And then as technology ramped up, you know, through COVID, we started to then focus on, you know,

11:30supporting clients fully remote and being able to support them all over the country. So we started to diversify our client base from that perspective as well, which is always something that I wanted to be able to show that we were, you know, multi-location. We had diversification of clients. And that's very important as well. But those are probably the two of the three of the bigger things, which is, or two, which is building the infrastructure so that you have, you know, processes, define processes, document and processes, playbooks, all of that stuff just adds value and separates you from your, you know, anybody else that you might be, might be looking to be acquired or be competing against. And Jason, in the audit world, you know, so I'm able to call you a being counter. I went to school for accounting. You know, I understand that we're not, you know, that, but accounting really helped me. One day of my first business, I realized everything I did not learn in school, a book, and then I also had to apply it. But when you start thinking about the audit process,

12:35I've gone through an audit before, you know, it really makes you think about your accounting systems, your processes and those kind of things. So I can imagine 10 years of doing that when you went into your own business, you're like, hey, I've got to immediately create all of these processes at some point, right? We're going to build into it. And document it because I heard you say document and record them and do all these things. So you're not going five years later and going, oh, crap, I got to go find all that stuff, which can kill you. So having that mindset right off the bat is like a, as an auditor, man, we've got to build systems and processes and document them. And I think the one thing that that I think was interesting too is, you know, because again, we were trying to sell to maybe a bigger firm, right, a private equity. I mean, they really do look for that diversification of clients too, right? They don't want to have that constant, customer concentration and one thing. So I think any business owners that are like listening to the podcast today, right, be taking that into consideration, right? If you've only got five or a handful of clients and they're all in one market, you know, what happens if, you know, one of those

13:39goes away. You just lost 20% of your revenue, right? Or what if that market that all of your clients are in goes bad, right? Now you've just lost potentially 100% of your revenue. So I think it's in the same industry and, you know, all that stuff as well. So I think it's really important when you're starting a company or or you're looking for a company to potentially buy to really have those in mind, right? You know, have their processes. So it's not wholly dependent on, you know, the Jason's of the world to be running it post acquisition, you know, do they have the diversification, right? I think that that's important. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ultimately a buyer is looking at risk, right? And risk drives the value and the ultimate purchase price. So the goal of the business owner is to get into a point where they've de-risked the business as much as possible to maximize the purchase price or the valuation. And so I like to use a, you know, I like to talk about you have, you have a business owner who says, hey, I want to sell my business. And you say, okay, the first

14:43thing is what industry are you? How does the outside world value your type of business? And a lot of times we always, you know, it's, it's usually a multiple of EBITDA or maybe a revenue multiple. But let's just say it's EBITDA. So on a, on a million dollar business, if you're 20% EBITDA, your, your bottom line is, you know, after some depreciation interest back, you know, back in now, you're at 200 grand. Well, if you're at, if you've built a business and your industry, you may hear that while the multiples in your industry are between four and eight times EBITDA, well, if you're four times EBITDA, you're going to get 800 grand for your business. If you're eight times EBITDA, you're going to get 1.6 million. And, and so what, what I talk to clients about and myself is, how do we move you to the higher end of that range? You may have the same profitability or revenue as a competitor, but you may be able to sell for twice as much or,

15:46you know, a multiple higher because you've done all these things that de-risk you that want, in which we'll want a buyer to, to pay that higher multiple for you. And so those are things that are important is one, you know, I didn't even talk about knowing your numbers is critical, knowing what those targets are, knowing how to maximize profitability, but knowing how to do it as it relates to, you know, what your ultimate, ultimate goal to sell at is as well. Yeah, and you think financials, right? So you want to make sure that you can be reviewed and you're audit ready. Yeah, I think those are, you don't necessarily have to have an audit, depending on size, but wow, we're about to go through our opening balance sheet on a company that we closed, which we should have done the opening balance sheet audit when we closed. Now we're going back cleaning up the balance sheet so we can do the opening balance sheet on it next month. And so it's been a seven months that we have been cleaning up the balance sheet, right? So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really important because you've got to do that opening

16:48balance sheet because the bigger financing like the private credit guys, this group, they're going to ask 100% like, yeah, did you, are you audit ready? Have you done your audit? And it's just a different level of the game. Now the two million, the 200,000 EBITDA business probably reviewed financials, right? Yeah, but that's one box you check. Then there's operating systems. So in your business, when you were developing the accounting firm, did you have an operating system to use? Were you using EOS? Were you, did you have some kind or did you just kind of create a process yourself? Yeah, I'm familiar with EOS, I'm familiar with the process. We didn't use that. We actually did work through scaling up, which is basically is from, it's related to EOS, same cons, similar concepts, same, I think some of the same people actually. So scaling up is a great program. EOS is a great program. It helps you to hold you accountable and create structure in your business. Some of the best things that we ever did is we hired a consultant to a number

17:53of years ago to help us define and document our sales process. And so we developed a sales playbook and how we were going to market, how we were, you know, what, how we would approach things. And that was one of the best investments we ever made. And then we also invested in building out a client service playbook, meaning how we, you know, operations, how we service our clients. And how that ties into the technology that we use. And how we, you know, ultimately the value that we drive to our clients. And so those things were critical. Love it. So to take a step back, Jason, so you've been building the company up for, you know, what, 15 years, 15, 15, 17 years, right? You know, was it somebody approach you or did you go through, you know, an investment banking process or a business broker kind of talked to us about like how that that sale process worked.

18:55And maybe some of the pros and cons, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, for sure. I think I had been keeping my eye out. I had been talking to other kind of bigger or firms that were similar to us in the market. So I had a sense for, you know, what was going on. There's been a lot of consolidation in the CPA world. CPA firms are looking at diverse fine outside of just tax and audit to other service lines. As we see a lot, there's, you know, even more recently, you know, Moss Adams and Baker Tilly just merged together, which was a big, a huge transaction, probably what echo he's getting in the space. And so, you know, there's the demand has been up, which also was, you know, part of the decision making process to understand. We did not hire an investment banker. I did, we did talk to a couple, but ultimately, you know, through just kind of general relationships that I had in the market, we were able to, you know, communicate and build a relationship with Citroen

20:00Cooperman over a period of time. Everything that we heard and talked to them about, where, you know, felt like it was really an alignment. And the great thing is, you know, that it's been seven or eight months and, you know, Citroen Cooperman has lived up to everything that they've said during that process as well. So it's been a, it's been a great relationship. The firm is, as very collaborative, has a very collaborative approach to everything. It's not, you're not siloed. They want us working together. Because ultimately, we know that we have a lot of services that can provide value to our clients. And we want to be able to work collaboratively there as well. And that was another big draw to the company is the culture that they have or that we have now. Absolutely. And running a business, it's exhausting. So I can imagine after 15, 16 years of doing what you're doing, it was probably, and tell me if I'm wrong, but it was kind of like, hey, I've gotten to a point where I'm happy. And I'm ready to, I'm ready to not be the business owner,

21:03right? Yeah. So is that really also another trigger event for you as well? Yeah, I mean, we were at a point where it was, hey, do we, you know, reinvest heavily to take it to that next level? Or do we look to join a firm like Citron Cougarman? And, you know, where we were at that point, we decided that it made sense to, to join Citron. But yeah, I mean, there's, it's, you have a lot on your plate as, you know, when you're running a business and you're, you're trying to, you know, you're in charge of making sure you're covering payroll for all the employees. And I mean, there's a lot that goes to that. Obviously, being part of Citron now has allowed me to, to focus in a new role within the firm. And I, that I'm, that I'm excited about as well. But yeah, for us, just, it was a combination of a lot of things, you know, timing, the market, what we were looking to do with the company are employees and how we could continue to help them to grow in their

22:04careers. And, you know, we've always had a growth mindset. And for us, the next step in that growth was to join a firm like Citron, who's also looking to continue to grow and has continued to grow as well. When your customers were they were, so I would take it from being outsourced, was it pretty sticky? Like these were customers that are going to stay with you. So you've got really good sticky revenue. You've got, you know, all of those recurring revenue model. Yeah, so it was a recurring revenue model. So multiples change very different when you're trading, recurring revenue to transaction. Yeah, unfortunately, it's not 97% like software, because it is, you know, professional service, but it is a recurring revenue model. And, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that happen with businesses too. I mean, we would celebrate successes of our clients that would sell or exit as well. I mean, they might leave us. They're not a client anymore, but that would be a success. We can talk about that with new opportunities and our existing clients. So we, yeah, our goal is to work consistently with our clients on an ongoing basis to support and

23:13really provide the leadership that they don't have and finance and accounting to ensure that, yes, the day-to-day activities are being done. There's good processes around invoicing and payables, but then ultimately, do you have a good monthly close process and then what's critical to ownership and, and the executive team is, do I have visibility into my numbers, am I getting good financials, good reporting, good KPIs? Do I understand the cash flows of my business so that I can make decisions ultimately to achieve the results and goals that I have as I move forward? Love it. So the question is, so how are you seeing AI playing a role in accounting right now? Because we're seeing a lot of great tools. Everybody talking about it. Everybody's talking about it, but how are you guys seeing it for your customers and clients? Are y'all on the forefront of helping the internet systems and processes around these tools? Yeah, we haven't seen in the world. Yeah, so we have a, we have a digital team as part of Citroen Cooperman that is focused on

24:15that has an AI team as well. That really helps our clients to get their foot in the door. And so when you're talking about the, the small mid market, AI means different for them than it does to Apple, right? Of course. Amazon or whatnot. So a lot of it is like what, what really is AI, right? And how do I, a lot of people say, you hear AI, but you know, how do you actually define it? Right? And so where we, we partner with Microsoft. So a lot of the tools we use with from an AI perspective are Microsoft like co-pilot. And some of the easy or basic things that we're able to do is really improve process flows for our clients on kind of the mundane things that happen or to free up time of their, free up their existing time in what they're trying

25:20to accomplish on a day-to-day basis. So things like where it can, you know, scan emails for certain information, file emails for you appropriately or summarize certain emails so that you don't have to go in each email one by one. You know, just, just different process flows based on the company that we can really create efficiencies over. And so the first question is really it's, you know, every business is different. So talking to the business owner or the team actually that's doing the work and saying, hey, you know, where do you, where are you spending a lot of time that you feel is a manual process or help us understand how you're, what you're invoicing processes, what your bill pay process is. Customer support is a huge area of, you know, AI change in AI, you know, as a relates to customer support or how you support your clients in a certain way. So those are some of the things that our digital team is focusing on from that ties into the

26:23accounting function as it relates to accounting processes, of course. But then, and then also, also streamlining ultimately the day-to-day, the monthly close, and then reporting. And that's the, and that's the stuff that I'm seeing with, yeah, where I'm not talking about like all this magic guru stuff, but like we now have one controller at H&M that's able to consolidate three divisions. Quickbooks has gotten really advanced as well as automatic recording. So, closings, much simpler reconciliation has been much simpler. There's all these different things that we're watching and witnessing right now that are going, hey, man, that's really speeding it up, where I used to need three or four people to manage all of this. Now we can really get it down to having one person managing the business, which is powerful. Yeah, yeah, and that's why I was sorry, sorry, Ben. No, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. As I say, that's what I was getting at too, is our digital team is doing customized solutions. But on the accounting side, a lot of the systems

27:25now are improving, you know, every day. And so they're like, we can leverage the AI within the system, whether it's a QuickBooks or we have a couple of different technologies we leverage for reporting that will tie into a QuickBooks or NetSuite or other system to be able to pull out all of the information into the reporting structure and format that you want it to do. And then ultimately, basically help you analyze that data and the trends of that data as well. So that's the direction that we're going is one is if you have it's it all that you got to have good data, of course, you got to have it set up appropriately. But once you do, you can pull that data out, you can get instantaneous reporting. And then you can start to analyze and leverage this, you know, the AI to analyze, but then ultimately, you know, help you to make the decisions you want to achieve or to make to achieve the goals that you have. Yeah, I mean, I think data analysts analysis that is is really where I see and especially in your space, we're really in any company, right? You know, as long as like you said, you got good data in, right? They can they can determine trends and

28:29do better projections and do it instantaneously. And I think that that's going to be really the power of it moving forward. How do you leverage it in a way? You can make real-time decisions. I mean, like, instead of like when you close at the end of the month and you're looking at your data, that's the past, right? You can't make any real decisions. Yeah, for all your projections. Now we can make decisions every day with the data. And there's really no excuse that I'm talking about. It's listening right now. There's no excuse not to have a great set of books. Like there was just so much opera. There's just so many things nowadays to help people have a very good accounting process without having to hire, you know, the top level out there. The tools getting so good. And so that's probably one of the big selling points for you guys. I get an outsourced group. Help me get this set up. Help me get going. And now I can take my controller and really take everything out of that person so we can really be a very efficient machine. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And we're leveraging, you know, even like Microsoft Power BI is a great tool. But to your point, you have to have everything in place and and accurate and and timely and you have to get

29:35processes to get there or else the data is not going to be good enough to be able to to do anything with. But if you have the right processes in place and you're set up in structure the right way, then you can pull that data. Like you said, on a real-time basis and you can have real-time information that you're analyzing every day so that you understand what's happening with your business now versus waiting until 15 days after month end to get some basic level reports. So taking a step back. So you sell the company, right. You know, and did they encourage you to stay in as a partner? Did you want to stay in? And then the second you fall up to that question is, you know, how has it been and you know, are you excited to you know, be a part of this bigger thing that's continuing to grow? Yeah, yeah, it's both because you know, I saw a lot of opportunity within the firm. It's exciting that now we can partner, we have so many different options and resources

30:36that we didn't have before. You know, our focus was outsourced accounting and advisory support for companies. And then we'd have to work directly with their tax advisor to make sure their tax advisor was, you know, being was, you know, driving value. And now we have that internally. And we have all these other solutions internally that we can provide even more value to our clients. So that part is exciting. And the firm as a whole has been a fast growing firm both organically and through acquisition. So that adds some layer of excitement as well to, hey, you know, there's a lot of opportunity to do some fun stuff here. And that's what, you know, going back to when we were just running the company independently, that's one thing that we always wanted to have is we were, we said, hey, we're a growth firm. And that's what excited our people to want to work with us. And that also, you know, we can also still say the same thing to our people that, you know, now are part of Citroen Cooperman. Love it. Yeah. And I think I think the growth always see,

31:39yeah, as a, as a business owner, right, you want to sell, you want to see your baby, not only taking care of it, but like, how do you grow the baby, right? You know, and how do you, you know, so it's, so it's cool to kind of sell to a group that's like, hey, you're, you're going to be one, but we're going to continue to grow this. We see a lot of a lot of opportunity in this space. And that's exciting too, as well as this one. Because you're just kind of like, what is my next move? What am I going to do? But this also kind of takes away like, oh, I got to go golf for the next 20 years, right? I think that's the, that's always the seller's dilemma is, yeah, what the heck am I going to do for the next 20 or 30 years or maybe even in some cases more, right? You know, I can only golf or fish so much. Yeah. But no, you can be a part of a, of the bigger parent company and go out and do some additional stuff, right? Some additional work while also having the opportunity to exit that company. So yeah, we've talked to a couple of guests on the show. Yeah, find your fit, right? I mean, you don't want to be a square pegging around hold. So, you know, find where you can add value and hopefully the company that's acquiring you allows you to do that

32:39and you, you can see where that is. And then, you know, make sure you have alignment and then go after it. Absolutely. I love it. And that's a great, that is a great way for us to jump into our rocket round. Yeah. So Jason, this is some of the, so far our listeners, this is the rocket round. We jump in and ask our guest three very important questions. All right. So Jason, first one, what do you like to do in your free time? Yeah. Well, I have three, three girls daughters. Okay. So I have a 12 year old, 11 year old, and a seven year old. And so that takes up a lot of my free time. Yes. I, I will say actually, I, I just started working with a personal trainer for the first time in my life. I've always kind of worked out out on and off and not being consistent. And that's actually created a lot more. That's, you know, got me more energized about things and has created actually better structure, I think. It's, you know, made me commit to something like that and has been great too. And so, you know, right now I'm in the think of it with the three

33:43girls. So it's hard to think of anything else outside of that right now. But it's all matter. I love it. It's time. Maybe it's, that's incredible. And I also have an 11 year old daughter. So I'm, I'm right there with you. I feel like I'm a glorified chauffeur with all the stuff that she had. She just turned 11 on Monday. So on Friday, last week, we had a birthday party. And we had, I think it was like 12 to 15, 11 year olds over to our house. And it was, it was interesting. And this is my youngest, my youngest about to be 17. And they were, I'm about, I can't believe that whole, that that's happening that fast, but it is a life. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. All right. So second question to you Jason. So most memorable moment in your business journey. Yeah. Um, I think, uh, well, obviously, you know, the transition from, I had some significant transitions. So the transition from Deloitte to starting a new company. I was very ignorant

34:45as to what it really meant to start a new company. And I'd like to say I had a business plan and everything drafted, but I, I didn't, I had to kind of in my head, um, and starting a service company, I basically started a service company with no clients. I said, okay, well, we're going to start it here. We're going to go and I'm going to go figure it out. And so that was an interesting time and very memorable experiences that I experienced trying to do that from the beginning. Yeah. And then the tail end of that, obviously, um, is where, uh, the, you know, where we joined Citroen Cooperman. In the middle of that, I, I did, we hired a CEO. I always feel that I could use all the help I can get. Um, could you go aside and let's just go achieve the goals we have. And so that was a big decision and a memorable point in my career as well when we brought on our CEO, who's now also a partner at Citroen Cooperman. Um, and we were able to, you know, take things in the next level from that perspective as well. Love it. Beautiful, man. All right. Last question. What is your favorite tool or resource? Yeah. I, um, I guess that would say a couple.

35:49So from a tool and resource perspective, I mean, I know, you know, you, you get a lot of the chat GPT and, and co, Microsoft co pilot. We use co pilot at our, our firm. Um, so, you know, those are obviously great resources from a business perspective. Um, I'm also part of EO, which is entrepreneur's organization. Um, and so I joined that before I we, we sold and so, um, have developed a strong relationship with the individuals in my group. And so they're a good sounding board. And good resources for me, uh, just generally from a personal and a business perspective. Um, so I would encourage business owners out there to look into entrepreneur entrepreneurs organization. Um, because it can add a lot of value to your business, um, and really provide the sounding board that you're looking for as well. That's great. Love it. Love it. Very nice. Well, Jason, it has been great. How can people get a hold of you? Yeah, I love talking to business owners. So,

36:53if they want to reach out, um, I can easily be found on LinkedIn. Jason, it's a, you know, Jason Krueger, K-R-U-G-E-R, uh, and Citroen Cooperman and probably pop up pretty quickly. Uh, you can email me directly, the letter J Krueger. That's K-R-U-G-E-R at Citroen Cooperman.com. And I'd be happy to talk to anyone who wants to reach out. Um, I usually, if I don't know the answer, um, I'm, I'm pretty sure I would know someone who does, whether it's in our firm or outside, and I'd be happy to, you know, connect, uh, whoever I need to, uh, to help them continue to grow their business. I'll stand up. We'll put all that in the show notes as well. So people can get a hold of it. But yeah, Jason, incredible stuff. Man, congratulations to what you're doing. Sounds like you're continuing helping companies, which is even great. So, man, thank you for joining us today. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it. Alrighty. Thank you for listening to the M&A Launchpad podcast. If you've enjoyed today's podcast and would like to support us, please leave us a rating and a review after you listen. If you're looking for guidance on your

37:54next business acquisition or sale, capital to support your next business transaction or to invest in a private equity opportunity, visit equitylaunchpad.com to learn more and to connect with our team. If you know of an individual, you would be a great guest for the show. Head over to equitylaunchpad.com or slash nominate where you'll have the chance to refer yourself or someone else to be a guest on our show. I'm Casey Menshu and I look forward to talking with you next week.