Roll-ups, Earn Outs, and a 3-Year Exit with Josh Davis

0:00All right, on today's episode of Interview just Davis, where we talked about what it's like to basically start a company, give it a little bit, and build a large logistics company that's kind of software-backed, and the rapid growth that that brings, right? I think over the course of three years, they went from idea to, you know, 100 employees, 500 contractors, and all the above, and ultimately making an exit to private equity and what that looked like, and then from that right, finding what you're passionate about and really giving back to the entrepreneurial community. It's a KC. What was in your takeaways? Yeah, you know, it's the entrepreneur journey stuff, and everybody has a different one. You hear about people, oh, I exited my first company in three years, and I'm out, and I've learned one of the common things, instead of thinking about the destination, right, of what you're going to exit and how you're going to get there and all those things. You know, I find that the successful guys that we talk to or gals that we talk to, every time on this podcast, you know, they think about the learning experiences that they're getting at every different turn of the events. And I felt like Josh being a very humble guy, but also, you know, he looks at life as

1:04a learning and, you know, being able to go through, go sell his company. Maybe it was an urn out, and all of these things that would really maybe put some barriers for a lot of people, you know, instead of looking at more as like, man, it was a great time to learn and be mentored and be coached along the way. And that's why we start meeting this side of how do you become better? How do you get involved in these things? Mentorship and learning. And so today, it's my takeaway from that was just a wealth of knowledge of what is learning and how he's learning. Yeah, and you know, we dive into just kind of how difficult it is to grow and scale, right? I mean, you, everybody thinks you're making millions and really everything is going back in the company and up top of that, like what it's like to walk away from all that and just kind of the relief of stress of no longer having 30 meetings a day and 3500 emails that kind of follow up on. So those are some of the topics we get to on this one. Welcome to the M&A launch pad podcast with your host, Casey and Ferris with equity launch pad. On this podcast, you will get insights on acquiring investing in and selling profitable

2:05businesses in the lower to middle market, whether you're a business owner, investor or a spying entrepreneur at equity and launch pad, we will provide you with the knowledge, guidance and capital to navigate the world of mergers and acquisitions. Hey, guys, go ahead and just pause the podcast for a second. When you're buying a business, you need to ensure the financial health of the company. The quality of earnings is mission critical. It doesn't matter what size business you're buying, Patrick, O'Connell, advisory group, they're dynamic. They do a great job. They're going to look over your shoulder. They're going to make sure that you're doing the right thing. And this guy's done over 200 buyers successfully, just like you. So reach out to him and it's O'Connell advisory group dot com. Click the link in our show notes. Can't live with that. Hey, Josh. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Yeah. We're excited about this one. So why don't you jump in and tell us a little bit about your background. Sure. Yeah, I mean, I've been an entrepreneur for almost 20 years now. Really started from nothing, really drove me to be an entrepreneur. I mean, there's a number of things.

3:05But both my grandfather's were successful business owners went in the mining industry than other in construction. He was also a mayor of a town that he lived in. And so seeing that as a kid, I was super inspired by them. And just seeing them create jobs and help people and build a life for the family and as well as their employees. So I was always inspiring for me. And then growing up, my parents, I watched them go through some hard things financially, which led to them getting divorced and we lost our family home through that process as well. And so I think the combination of seeing my grandfather's being successful business owners and then seeing the struggles my parents went through just kind of really led a fire to me to want to kind of fall away in my grandfather's footsteps. And then from there, I kind of thought the typical route, I needed to go to college and university, get a business degree. So that's what I started doing out of high school.

4:05Unfortunately, one of my grandfather's ended up getting sick with cancer and I was really close with him. So I ended up dropping out of school to take care of him. So I spent a couple of years taking care of him. Yeah, that's I mean, it was, it was very tough to do, but it was just something that I knew I had to do for my grandfather. And so, yeah, through that, I learned a lot about business and his career and meeting with different business partners and we did some traveling together. And I learned a lot. So that kind of really kind of sparked me wanting to continue to move in his footsteps. Kind of an industry, man, that interested me got more out of the college. I'll tell you that right there. I mean, I, yeah, I, my wife on the other hand, like graduated in like a, a top university for, for my area and so she's very, you know, she's got a business degree as well. And then I, yeah, with the other route got, you know, good mentorship from people like my grandfather and then after that.

5:06But that was, yeah, getting out real world experience was, was was a game changer for me. And then, yeah. So basically, he was quite sick and he, he sailed a lot after he'd do a business deal. He'd go off and sail to Tahiti in Mexico and all the while, you know, all these places with my grandmother and they were very adventurous and he wanted to, after my grandmother passed away, he wanted to go on one last sailing adventure and I, as a kid, was never allowed to go. He's always got in big storms and lightning striking the past and all that stuff. So he was a bad ass man. He was, he was very, very tough old school guy. I mean, yeah, he was, he was like, he was, he was my best friend and mentor. And so we ended up going on a sailing adventure, I was in my early 20s to finally kind of do that. And it was a bucket list thing for him. He wanted to do one last trip down to Ciacurna as a Mexico. It's a bit of a long story, but the short story is, you know, the first five days it was like out of a movie, you know, we're catching salmon and tuna and we're cooking fish.

6:09And it's, you know, beautiful weather. Then eventually, you know, we got in this massive storm. To me, it felt like 100 foot waves, but maybe they were like 40, 50 foot, totally, totally destroyed the boat. Very lucky to, to make it out of alive. And, you know, fortunately we did. And I ended up getting into shore and then he passed away soon after that. We didn't make it in Mexico, but we made it to Northern California. And even, you know, going through that kind of storm, it really is a lot of parallels to what I do in our business, simply the right people in the right seats, having the right leadership and things like that. You know, we definitely weren't prepared for that trip. One my grandfather, who's the skipper, you know, was dying of cancer and we had a couple of my buddies from school and then one of his friends. And so, you know, we definitely weren't prepared. We weren't kind of monitoring the weather and things like we should have. So like lots of parallels of business having the right systems and the right teams. So that was a big wake up call for me.

7:10And so yeah, after that, after we passed away, I basically kind of did a number of different business ventures, went into some different industries. I followed in his footsteps in the mining industry, got connected with his old business partners and old geologists and that's what really, you know, sparked my interest about doing acquisitions and, you know, I saw, you know, taking over distress mining companies and doing mergers and roll ups and things like that. And so that's something that I really liked. I liked, you know, taking over an underperforming asset, turning it around and putting the right people and systems and things like that. So yeah, after my wife and I got married, she had a business degree but she was working in transportation logistics. She had, she was working in one of the big shipping companies in the world and then a friend of mine who's, who's in the trucking industry, kind of, we're both friends and we're both in each other's wedding parties and he pitched me on a strategy to do some acquisitions in the transportation space and my wife was very in, and this is back about, yeah, just

8:17over 10 years ago now. And especially where we were in, in Western Canada, there was a lot of tech focus logistics companies. So my wife was really passionate about technology, working for, like, you know, an international shipping company. They would send her, and she was in her early 20s then as well. They would send her all over, you know, to learn more about their systems and she'd come back to the office and train them and show them how it can make them more efficient. So yeah, so we ended up, week after honeymoon, started business with another partner and just kind of got going. Yeah, I mean, the short story is that from startup to exit was about three years. We were one of the fastest growing logistics companies in Canada. We built our own technology and I talked about this a lot. I was totally against it. I thought we should just use something off the shelf. I thought, you know, spending all this money on programmers, I thought it didn't make sense, but my wife and my partner really felt like we need to do it and it would really help us streamline operations and so reluctantly I said, okay, let's do it.

9:21And yeah, we ended up building this amazing system, streamlined everything. It helped us recruit, talk talent, you know, right out of the university, we were able like, you know, bring people into like an old school industry and yeah, it was a lot of fun. So we scaled it rapidly, really, really quick. So you started the business from scratch, right? What was the vision of what you guys were going to actually go make? And also, what was the problem that you guys saw that you were actually trying to solve? Well, just to mean, honestly, it means whatever you wanted to me. Yeah. So let's get a little bit more like, what were you, what was the problem, it's all what we were trying to solve? Yeah. So originally, when my partner kind of first, I mean, if it was about a year, he was trying to pitch me on it, but he showed me like how there was a lot of like small, you know, mom and dad trucking companies and there was a ability to do our roll-up strategies. So that was what we thought we were going to do. So we started out asset based, did an acquisition in asset based trucking and, you know, we thought you know, the vision was to like scale, you know, a large trucking company, you know,

10:24across Canada and into the U.S. After kind of dabbling in that for a year, we realized like, we're not trucking guys. We're not maintenance guys. What we really liked was technology and sales and building teams. So about a year into it, we pivoted and then we focused on asset light transportation. So we totally changed what our model was and then we focused on being as asset light as possible. So we did acquisitions in the space. We would keep trailers. So we would never keep any trailers that we always do like fat, whoa, sorry, full wet lease program. So we didn't want to have run maintenance and have shops and things like that. And then we like scaled up the technology, the freight management, the freight broker side as well. So we were basically, we turned into like an asset light carrier slash freight management broker and that's that's how we pivoted and we scaled quite rapidly and we got into different streams from long haul to short haul to LTL to where I'll say, so we did a whole bunch

11:26of different lines of services where we could do an acquisition and cross sell. All right. So you said a lot and I'm not an expert logistics. So I'm going to help them down for the audience is so like at its core, what was the actual software doing? Yeah. So the coordinating freight getting moved between places, between different companies was it, you know, helping lease in for, you know, providing a simple system for people to treat for you to inventory manage your product and, you know, your trucks and having people lease it. That's all the above. None of the of. Yeah. I mean, originally in startup it was like dispatch software. So it focused on asset light. So we want to do like basically make it as efficient as possible for our team with this less clicks and streamline everything so they could move the freight as quickly and efficiently as possible. So that's how we originally designed it. And then when we get into, we do acquisition in a different area, then we build new modules like LTL consolidation modules so that we could make sure the trucks are fully loaded and

12:27visibility. And so from there, we just kept building off of it. And that's why, you know, building in how it's a lot of people, I don't always recommend this. It's a big change because when we acquire a new business, we would build a new module. So we get more visibility, making sure we're being more efficient, make sure we understood the business. And then I got really focused on, you know, gamifying the business and understanding, you know, the scorecards and the metrics and the growth profit and also giving visibility to each team member. So they knew kind of where they were at in regards to the business as well. So that's kind of where it started and then obviously, you know, getting into like the invoicing, accounting side and making sure everything's talking to each other. But yeah, it originally just started off as like, hey, let's make the dispatch as efficient as possible. And then from there, we just saw the power of building out systems to streamline things that make, yeah, give you more visibility. Yeah. So I've had a, I've had my fair share of logistics, right? So right off of COVID, the company I had acquired was in the, is in the Lurfield. Yeah.

13:28And right after COVID, which absolutely, there was no business in the Lurfield, we had to put a plan together within six months to explain to SBA, hey, we are going concern because they deferred six months on the note. So in that month, you know, we, we bought, I went ahead and just bought, you know, trucks. And over that next year, we bought about 18 trucks, trailers, hopper bottoms, and then we just loaded up. Well, rates just got crushed in 22. Yeah. A lot of, like, there's a lot of theories around it, but there was just a lot of drivers taking lower rates. It just became very difficult. So we just pulled back and we, today we run about nine trucks doing local grain hauling. But what we all want to do in that space is to be asset light because the cost to buy that truck, right? You know, 200 or 200 at the grand, if you have a nice one. And the problem with these pack hours and some of these new trucks is that they're, they're using these computer chips and the chips, the chips, if you, if it goes down, or that thing shows, you know, whatever error on it, it's very expensive to, to fix that chip,

14:33right? And so we find it's up behind the old trucks that don't have the old technology, but you've got to have maintenance on that side. So if you can go to just drop in trailers, doing all of those things, orchestrating that and freight, man, that's why you guys scaled, you got, you didn't get in the trucking business, you got into the, the, that's where the logistics conversation is. They're organizing the freight, you're dealing with the carrier, you know, the groups that need that product to get that stuff there. That's where the, and it is a very challenging, competitive, highly competitive space, and you guys, and I'm sure in Canada, so no, that's, that's a pretty incredible story, man, because I think about it all the time when it comes to our, our company and just to connect all those dots, it's, it's, it's a lot to connect. Totally, I mean, exactly how you said it, like, that's our vision to like build and scale, you know, the largest trucking company in Canada and move across North America, it's just yeah, it requires a lot of capital, we bootstrapped everything, you know, we, you know, basically

15:37all lines of credit from, from the bank, and so yeah, we didn't have any outside investors, so we, we needed to move to asset life for necessity to continue to scale and then, yeah, we just use our skill set in building technology and sales, and then just, you know, rapidly figure out how to provide solutions, but yeah, like you said, it's very competitive industry and margins can be low as well, so you got to, you got to figure out, you know, ways to, to make sure that you're profitable, and that's why like really managing the metrics of the business is super important, then, yeah, I mean, it was, it was a wild ride, and yeah, I mean, I learned a lot, I mean, from a, from a business standpoint, and some of the new, the things we're doing now, I mean, yeah, I definitely got my MBA learning how to, to run a logistics company. So now in the three year one, so in three years, you guys accomplished, so what happened in the third year? Where'd you grow into and then kind of, you know, how did the transaction itself happen for the sale? Yeah, so the plan was never to, I mean, I

16:43don't want to say never sell, like when we first started, we talked about it, but I mean, we just put our heads down and got into it, and we loved it. I mean, seeing our team scale and, you know, moving across Canada and doing acquisitions and turnaround strategies, we were just having a lot of fun, especially, you know, my wife and I, just getting married and built, I mean, the whole business revolved around, our whole life revolved around the business, so obviously that can be a little bit challenging and marriage, but it definitely made us stronger. And so kind of what happened was after, you know, close to three years into it, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we, yeah, she basically just said, you know, I don't want to continue kind of running this business 24, 7, 365 in her role. So she said, you know, when we, when we have our child, I think I want to be out of operation. So for me, it's like, even though I'm paper, you know,

17:44it looked like we're making lots of money and the business is scaling, everyone, our head count was growing like crazy. So people think, you know, we're just piling in the money, but when you scale like that and in the little margin of business, everything goes back into the business. So even my wife saying, hey, I want the ability to possibly be a stay-at-home mom, I was kind of panicking a little bit. I'm like, we're barely paying ourselves anything and, you know, how are we going to make this work? And so that was kind of like a point where we thought about, hey, should we, what should we do next? So I went to my partner and talked him about it and, you know, he, he felt like it was, now is the right time, especially, we got to a point where if we want to keep scaling, we needed to get more capital and maybe take an investor like, you know, it's just, you know, it's a capital and test of business. So that was kind of the tipping point. So we, yeah, ended up, you know, going to market and, you know, doing the, the dog and pony show and meeting with different, you know, strategic buyers, private equity. And, yeah, so that's kind of what happened. And

18:45unfortunately, we found a transportation company that was privately equity backed in the US. And so they had a couple large assets in our market. And so, yeah, we ended up choosing them. So privately backed plus a strategic. And so their group was like, one of the biggest transportation companies in North America. And so it was, yeah, it was a good fit for us. And then I worked with them during a transition for about two years. And then, yeah, at the end of the transition, I just, I mean, the difficult decision to step down as CEO, they, you know, gave me opportunities to move into a larger, larger role inside their organization. And, yeah, I just kind of felt I wanted to kind of be able to control my own destiny and get back into acquisitions and build something again. So I ended up stepping down, coming up below four years ago. So really quick, because there's a lot in that. So how, you know, how big were you guys? And then

19:50whenever you were selling, this sounds like you guys went out and found and sourced your own buyers, or did you guys use a, you know, some broker or somebody to kind of help facilitate just finding you buyers? We actually ended up using an M&A advisor. So we had a guy who was kind of specialized in or group, those specialized in trucking. So that was really helpful for us, because we could continue to operate the business. Yeah, as far as like numbers, the size wise, I mean, we were one of the largest in British Columbia, Canada, and one of that fast growing in, in all of Canada, in logistics. But I'm going to be a little bit careful about numbers, because it was a private company and I sold. So how many people it was just to kind of help maybe the audience can kind of gauge? Yeah, we went for about three of us to about a hundred, like kind of the internal office staff. And then we had, you know, that's not including like all of our contracted, you know,

20:51carriers and things like that. We had probably about 500 contractors on top of that. And then we had different warehouses across Canada. No one's that we're fully operating. We're basically outsourcing them. So that was kind of the size. Okay. And then in terms of the acquisition rate, how did it get structured? How much of that can you share in terms like, was there, you know, sounds like there, you were required to stay on for two years. Was there an urnite component? Was there a seller finance component? Was there a role? You know, or did they just want the whole thing? I mean, yeah, there was a there was an urnile period. So I mean, that that's kind of common knowledge in the deal, but yeah, it was a two two year urnile structure. And especially for us, like we were such high growth and technology focused. Yeah, we found kind of going to market that, you know, people were concerned about buying us, like the there's a lot of questions not understanding, like how do we continue to scale so fast? So yeah, that seemed like a risk to when we're going

21:54through the the buyer process. So there was always going to be a component of urnite in any way that we went. Okay. And you guys are already familiar with that. So wasn't because some buyers or sellers, right? They're like, why? I don't want to earn out. You know, what if they screw up the business, right? And they don't understand the value of it or not. Why it's there? Yeah, like I knew about urnones from being in the mining industry. And so yeah, I mean, ideally, it would have been, you know, yeah, I mean, it would have been nice to not structure. I don't know if you could, I always tell that to bars, if you can get away with it, you know, you know, I mean, try try to do it without an urnote, but if you get enough upside, it can definitely be worth it. And one thing I will say about working with this group and especially them being private equity backed, I actually got my eyes really open to a lot of things, especially on the finance side and you know, them doing acquisitions. And so, you know, being part of like the executive team and,

22:55you know, working with the CEO originally, I was reporting to him. It was an amazing learning experience and you know, working with the CFO as well. So yeah, the the urnote was a component of it, but it was also like an amazing learning experience for me, you know, running the company, and then fortunately, the way that we had a structure, we were running fully independent lean. So we got support from, you know, back office and financial and things like that. So that was, you know, that was great. So I, it was a, I mean, it was a great experience for me. So yeah. We had a good friend of mine called climate here on, on this podcast probably about three, four months ago. And he said something very similar what you said. He was like, you know, he didn't really want to say on that position about rolling in equity and doing all these things, but he kind of just trusted the process went through, went through it. And he made that observation that man, the learning that I got through that whole process was stuff that just elevated my entire

23:57entrepreneurship game. And then it's around him to go to another company now and we'll take advantage of all those skills that he got. Plus he, I mean, his role ended up being very well. I think his role three times, didn't he? Yeah, well, very well. But, but again, you reflected similar to you, but man, he's like the education to be able to sit in that group and to learn that stuff. Man, it's taken me to a whole other game in this other company that I came to do years later. Totally. And I would say the same day, and I told, you know, the group, when I left, like it was an amazing learning experience, I am very grateful for the time that I had with them for the couple of years that I've definitely been able to, it definitely up my, up my game in acquisitions. And even like some of the things learning about how they do the financial budgeting and stuff like that, stuff that we did, did nothing, especially when we started the business. So, yeah, I took a lot when I've learned there and I've been able to apply it in our kind of next next venture. And, yeah, very grateful for that opportunity. And that's why I tell people

25:00if you're going to exit, make sure you find the right group that you're going to enjoy, if you are in an Erno, that you're going to enjoy working with and making sure that going into it, you know, there should be some sort of, you know, learning experience, something you can gain through it as well. If you're going to, you know, sell your business, sell your baby, you know, I talk about, you know, selling your business and working in the business, it's like almost like giving your kid out for adoption and living in the same house, right? So, it can definitely be emotional and challenging and especially when you've got, you know, a larger entity, you know, purchasing you and, you know, you've got to, you know, make sure that you're kind of fitting in and you don't want to be the bottleneck in certain things. And, you know, ultimately, you don't own the company anymore. So, yeah, it can be emotionally challenging, but overall, I had a really great experience with these guys. And, yeah, it worked out well. I think it,

26:01there was a win-win in that. And were you able to roll anything forward as well or no? Not in this deal, no. Okay. So, yeah, the next thing is really, you know, what is good and negotiate with them in terms of like, hey, how are we going to grow this company? But I guess it's a little bit restrival of it in that scenario. Yeah, I mean, we definitely continue to scale together. And they provide me a lot of back-end support and things like that. So, it definitely helped us scale. Like, we could do to scale quite significantly over the two years. So, I felt good about transitioning out with the business, continuing to growing. So, yeah. Okay. That's great. So, then, from there, what's the net? What did you do after that? Tell us what you had today, all that good stuff. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, to be totally honest, once I actually stepped down, I kind of hit this wall, like, you know, having hundreds of people, you know, either recording to you or needing things from you and all this stuff and your emails getting shut down. It was like, you know, I walked out of the office,

27:04you had some tears, you know, with my team and everything. And, you know, people that going through that and building and scaling and, you know, the business, you know, working long hours, it was really hard to say goodbye to my team. I really, I still care about them. I still have relationships with people from the company, you know, it's been four years, but they were like family to us. So, once I actually kind of, yeah, made the decision, I kind of went through this, like, not like a depression, but more of like, you know, who am I? Like, what is my identity? And obviously, I had, you know, I had quite a bit of capital in the bank. I didn't need, I don't, I didn't need to work if I didn't want to. And so, I really spent, I had another baby at the time. So, we have our two kids now. And so, I just spent time with the family, ported them, getting to know, you know, my kids really well. Obviously, I was really busy in the business when they were first born. And so, I did some bucket list trips, you know, my mom and our mother-in-law to Italy and, you know, did a whole bunch of things with my family.

28:05And yeah, then after about six months, my wife was basically like, okay, I think it's time for you to get going now. And I, you know, I'm really passionate about people and business. And so, and yeah, so that's kind of how we started. And then we, you know, went to some different mentors and trying to figure out, you know, what we wanted to do. So, we sent up our own family office. We're not a massive family office. We're a Boatee family office. It's all our own capital. And yeah, we started making strategic investments and acquisitions in different industries. And one thing I realized, so yeah, that's what I thought. I thought, you know, we'd be like, you know, small private equity arm, you know, controller owned destiny, we're making investments. And then maybe I'd sit on a board and, you know, give some strategic advice. And as I started doing that, I realized a lot of these companies, you know, founders were, you know, stuck in the weeds, you know, they're involved in all the stuff that I went through, you know, involved in all the big

29:06decisions and the sales and the firefighting, you know, they didn't put in the right systems, even like, you know, the right financial or the right, you know, CRM system and all that stuff. So it was stuff that me and my wife were very skilled at. Like we've done some pretty nasty turn around situations, companies losing a lot of money to that, you know, getting over, you know, a million bucks in EBITDA within, you know, 12 months and things like that. So we really like when we were making it, but even these business that were stable and, you know, had, you know, a decent amount of EBITDA, they still had challenges putting the right people in the right seats, getting the founder out of the weeds, all that stuff. Through that, we set up a business consulting arm. And so that's where we started, you know, originally we built it to like make it, when we made investments into a company, we come in, we help them with their human capital side. My wife and I, we built a leadership development program to help, you know, people upskill and learn to be managers and, you know, all the kind of soft skills stuff, you know, having critical conversations, all the people capital, all that stuff. So we started doing that

30:07inside the businesses and then when I was doing acquisitions, I saw, you know, business owners that business that we didn't want to buy, they were kind of stock. So like, you know, they really wanted to buy, you know, we're a high integrity group and, you know, we've got a good reputation, but maybe their business just didn't fit our criteria criteria or fit our vision in values. So then we just started to consult and so helping them, you know, put the right people in the right place, building the right systems, bringing in the right technology, making sure it talks to each other, building the right score cards. And then so originally when we built it, it was out of just supporting our own deals and then we saw there's actually a big market for that in helping other businesses and I'm very passionate about helping entrepreneurs. So yeah, it kind of took off from there and so we've done a few acquisitions in that space and we've got a technology company and so we do like AI and we can build software as well, but basically kind of putting in the right technology, making sure it talks to get together. Then we've got a human

31:08capital firm as well inside there. So helping, you know, recruit top talent, develop leaders, all that stuff. And so yeah, as it started as like kind of a side project, it's really taking off over the past couple of years and I'm really super excited about that as well. And so I like the fact that I can still impact and help small to medium-sized businesses. I mean, we have some large organizations that we, you know, consult on their, you know, human capital people side, but I'm really passionate about helping small to business small to medium-sized business owners through that. So that's basically the case. I'll tell you then, you know, after some of the that's in the weeds have operated being in the company part, right? It's to be able to lead to consulting, you've got to just breathe a little bit differently, right? Because yeah, you're, you're not having to do all that, but you're able to think we're about the 30,000-foot view to help them make the right decisions. And buddy, that is a much more fun place to be than actually in the grind operating the company every day, right? Totally. And yeah, and the thing about that is

32:13like I learn through getting around guys that were way further along than me and like guys with real-world experience. So like, you know, even though some of the founders are helping, like they're, you know, wouldn't say twice my age, although some are close, it's like the, from my experience, I can help make them make quicker decisions on what they need to do as opposed to them just keep being in the weeds. So I get a lot of joy out of, you know, using from my experience. And I mean, yeah, I say this as well. Like, I've had a really good 10-year run. Like me and my wife have been on a really good run together. It's been really hard. But yeah, we, we, we're very good at doing acquisitions and turning businesses around. But yeah, at first 10 years of my journey, a lot of hard knocks, a lot of failed mistakes, a lot of, you know, not knowing how to be a leader and getting the right people in the right places and all that stuff and being in the weeds and just focused on revenue is going to solve all my problems. Like, just bringing the revenue. And so, yeah, I love the fact that I can give back by advising these guys about the things that I made

33:15mistakes on. Awesome. I love it here. It's always, it's a lot more fun to kind of coach and guide and nurture, you know, the problem is you can't force change like you can if you were, you know, running the show. But at the same time, right, you don't have the grind of the day-to-day to kind of deal with because it's, you know, working on a business is very different than working in the business. And I think a lot of times a lot more fun to work on the business and strategize. Because that's the stuff that can really impact and move the needle. So yeah, there's a lot of the people listening on our podcast. These are, these are people that have been probably mid-level career. They're thinking about making the acquisition leap. Maybe they have started a company, they went back to their career and now they're thinking about buying a company and running the day to day. So, being a consultant and having the experience you've had, seeing a lot of deals and stuff, where's just a few of the kind of like key tips that you would tell our listeners that you've kind of taken away when you do your consulting? What are some of those key things you really help them focus on? Okay, so the first thing, I mean, there's a couple things. It's always, I say if you're

34:20going to, you know, acquire a business, you've got to be really focused and making sure you get the right people in the right seats. And so, that's always where we start, you know, when you do an acquisition, you've got to look at the team that you're acquiring, especially, you know, hopefully you've got some industry experience in that. But if you don't and you're passionate about a certain industry, you got to make sure that the company you're acquiring, they got the right people in the right seats. And if they, if you feel that they don't, you got to like make a decision, how are you going to manage that? And so, a lot of times when you're doing an acquisition and founder, like business, you got to take over their responsibilities as well. So, you got to focus on the people, you got to see like, is this strong team? Is this something that I can step into and that got the right team that's going to support in the right culture? And then the second thing is always the systems. Like, do they have kind of a clear playbook for the right systems and technology so that you understand how the delivery of the service is going to happen? So, those are the two things I always talk about people, the systems. And then a big one for anyone

35:23who wants to be an entrepreneur, business owner, or if you're going into doing acquisition, you, I mean, I've got lots of books on this as well. And I tend conferences and get mentors. You better learn to level up your leadership skills because ultimately, the way that you're going to be able to attract hotel and or retain them is they got to look up to the leader and they got to be a visionary and you, so that's one thing that I spent a lot of time is really developing my leadership development skills, being a strong leader and understanding how to be strategic, set a vision, hold people accountable and get the right people on the bus. So, those are those are the big things. We'll go ahead and move on to our rock around where we ask our guests to save their questions. So, first question, Josh, what would you like to do? What do you like to do you free time? In my free time, I mean, funny enough, even though I went through a big storm and almost died, I love boating. So, right now, just got a, I'm fortunate enough, we live, you know,

36:27right on the water here. So, we've, we've got a boat and right now it's just a kind of a ski family boat, a little bit of a fishing boat. But yeah, now my wife and I are talking about going to that next level. So, I'm sort of something a little bit bigger somewhere we can go to the islands and sleep over. But yeah, I'm not ready for the the open waters. Yeah, but yeah, PTSD from that, right? Yeah, life defining moment for sure. All right, next question, what's your most memorable moment in your business journey journey? Whew, my most memorable moment. There's been so many. I think, yeah, this kind of goes together, but definitely starting a business with my wife and her, you know, me leaving an opportunity in the mining industry and her leaving her job, and just like doing whatever it took to make that successful, that was, yeah, that was very memorable, and ultimately,

37:30you know, doing that together, building and scaling it up, and then having that exit, even though it was bittersweet, it really validated, you know, the years of grind and sacrifice that, you know, we did for for our marriage to set ourselves up for our family and our kids. All right, fair enough. Beautiful question. And last question, what's your favorite tool resource? My favorite tool or resource. Yeah, actually, I'm going to go a different way on this. So, the best resource that I personally have is getting around mentors and peers that have actually operated and scaled businesses or things that are further along to me. That's always been my best resources, you know, getting around people that have been in my shoes and are further along that's, I mean, I always tell people, you got to, you got to get in the rooms with the right people, and I guess, tool, obviously, you know, customizing, you know, AI and chat GDP and, you know,

38:31and then integrating that stuff with HubSpot CRM, I think, right now, those are my two kind of favorite, favorite tools. All right, fair enough. Awesome. Beautiful. All right, so Josh, how can people get hold of you? Yeah, people need to hold me on a very active on LinkedIn. So, you can find me on LinkedIn at scaling what Josh Davis, or you go to our family office website, which is jldavisenterprises.com. And yeah, we got a bunch of free resources on there. Or if you have me to LinkedIn, you can DM me the word scale. And I send people a playbook that I have. It's frameworks that my wife and I use to scale, acquire, and exit companies. So, if anyone wants that resources, feel free to reach out. Man, and with that in our show notes, so people have that, that is incredible. Well, Josh, thank you very much for spending some time with us today and tell your story. It's pretty incredible. I appreciate it. Thanks so much guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Josh. Thank you for listening to the M&A Launchpad podcast. If you've enjoyed today's podcast and would

39:34like to support us, please leave us a rating and a review after you listen. If you're looking for guidance on your next 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 Menchew and I look forward to talking with you next week.