My Guest Nicholas Andrews is the Founder of Aspen Consulting Group, a company that performs finance, accounting, and operations consulting for a wide range of small and medium sized businesses. Aspen’s services include technical accounting, corporate finance, valuations, operations planning and M&A due diligence, among others. Prior to founding the Aspen Consulting group, Nick wasContinue reading “A Finance Survival Guide for SMB CEOs: Liquidity, Hiring, Budgeting, Capital Allocation & More”
Category Archives: Podcast- Managing Your Business
Is Home Services Still a Good Bet? A Veteran Operator’s Take on a Saturated Market
My Guest Collin Hathaway is the Founder of Skylight Capital, a micro-cap private equity firm investing in companies with less than $5M EBITDA. Prior to founding Skylight, Collin led the deal origination team at Alpine Investors, where he managed a team focused on locating and evaluating new investment opportunities. In addition to currently serving asContinue reading “Is Home Services Still a Good Bet? A Veteran Operator’s Take on a Saturated Market”
A Playbook for Growing People-Intensive Service Companies
My Guest John Ratliff started Appletree Answers, a telephone answering service, from his apartment in 1995. After growing the company to 24 US-based locations and more than 600 employees, he sold the company to a strategic buyer in 2012. Since selling his company, John has served as CEO of Scaling Up Coaches (2018-25), worked asContinue reading “A Playbook for Growing People-Intensive Service Companies”
How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers—with Casey Brown
My Guest If you have ever had to decide how to price a product or a service, or if you foresee yourself having to make such a decision one day, I implore you to listen to today’s episode, in no small part because of how many practical takeaways you’re likely to leave with. I’m joinedContinue reading “How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers—with Casey Brown”
The Art (and Science) of Building a High-Performance Sales Organization
My Guest One of the most common investment theses among acquisition entrepreneurs revolves around building an internal sales function where no such function has existed in the past. While this makes intuitive sense on the surface, just how easy is it to build a sales team from scratch? Do you hire the leader first, orContinue reading “The Art (and Science) of Building a High-Performance Sales Organization”
Long Term Holds: With Zac Carman, CEO of ConsumerAffairs for 14+ Years
My Guest My guest today is Zac Carman, CEO of ConsumerAffairs.com since 2010, the year in which he acquired the company from its founder, Jim Hood. ConsumerAffairs is a user-review website that helps over 7 million people per month make decisions on big questions like home warranties, debt consolidation and elder care planning. Prior toContinue reading “Long Term Holds: With Zac Carman, CEO of ConsumerAffairs for 14+ Years”
Achieving the Entrepreneurial Dream Through Franchise Ownership
My Guest Michael is the Founder of Streetlight Capital, a firm that invests in search funds and other forms of entrepreneurship through acquisition. Through Streetlight Capital, Michael successfully acquired, operated, and exited Buckeye Restaurant Group, an operator of franchised Wingstop restaurants. Michael acquired Buckeye’s first restaurants via a self-funded search in 2018, and via newContinue reading “Achieving the Entrepreneurial Dream Through Franchise Ownership”
From Combat to Classrooms: How Jim Vesterman Went from Special Forces to a 13.5x Return in 8 Years
My Guest My guest today is Jim Vesterman, currently a lecturer at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty at Wharton, Jim was the CEO of Raptor Technologies between 2012 to 2020, where he grew the company from serving 7,000 schools in the United States to serving over 40,000Continue reading “From Combat to Classrooms: How Jim Vesterman Went from Special Forces to a 13.5x Return in 8 Years”
Profit Before Anything Else: With Mike Michalowicz, Author of “Profit First”
My Guest Today I’m joined by entrepreneur, investor, and best-selling author, Mike Michalowicz. Mike is the author of nine books, most notably Profit First, which boasts ~8,700 ratings on Amazon.com with an average rating of 4.8 stars. The book outlines a deceptively simple yet highly effective system to help businesses hit their target profit numbersContinue reading “Profit Before Anything Else: With Mike Michalowicz, Author of “Profit First””
Michael Girdley on The Rise of Holding Companies
My Guest Michael Girdley is an entrepreneur and investor who has spent the past 30 years building a personal holding company boasting over $100M in annual revenue, comprised of 12 businesses across software, technology, consumer retail, and education, among others. Outside of managing his holding company, Michael is deeply involved in the North American SMBContinue reading “Michael Girdley on The Rise of Holding Companies”