My Guest My guest today is A.J. Wasserstein, the Eugene F. Williams, Jr. Lecturer in the Practice of Management at the Yale School of Management. His research, writing, and teaching concentrates on search funds, entrepreneurship, programmatic acquisitions, and small businesses. In addition to his role as an educator, A.J. is also a private investor inContinue reading “A.J. Wasserstein: Reflections of a Founder, CEO, Investor and Educator”
Tag Archives: buying a business
Strategic Considerations When Evaluating a Letter of Intent to Sell Your Business
Listen to This Blog Post For many business owners (particularly those actively looking to sell their companies), few things are as exciting as receiving a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) from a prospective purchaser. Beyond the sense of personal validation stemming from the fact that a sophisticated counterparty sees an asset worth paying for, many businessContinue reading “Strategic Considerations When Evaluating a Letter of Intent to Sell Your Business”
Busting the Biggest Myth About Purchasing and Operating Small Companies
Listen to This Blog Post In this second edition of our “Myth Busters” series (the first one can be found here), I attempt to debunk a common misconception among prospective acquirors, particularly those looking to purchase a business for the first time. This myth states that the smaller the business in question, the easier itContinue reading “Busting the Biggest Myth About Purchasing and Operating Small Companies”
Having Hard Conversations (Live Panel Discussion from 2022 MIT Sloan Search Fund Summit)
In this week’s episode, we discuss the importance of having difficult conversations, something that CEOs find themselves doing on a near-daily basis. We discuss three primary types of difficult conversations, including: Hard conversations around internal company dynamics (eg: terminations); Hard conversations about dynamics external to the company (eg: politics and global affairs); Difficult conversations thatContinue reading “Having Hard Conversations (Live Panel Discussion from 2022 MIT Sloan Search Fund Summit)”
Quality of Earnings Analysis: What You Need to Know Before Buying a Business
My Guest My guest today is Chris Hutchinson, a Partner in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory Services Group. Chris has over 15 years of experience advising clients on M&A, financings, valuation projects, and due diligence mandates, with a specific focus on private lower-middle-market businesses. Chris and his team have completed an untold number of QualityContinue reading “Quality of Earnings Analysis: What You Need to Know Before Buying a Business”
Lessons Learned in Capitalizing an Acquisition
Listen to This Blog Post Among the myriad variables that must be carefully considered when acquiring a business is the question of how the acquisition is going to be financed. My intent in the material that follows is not to cover the countless options available to acquirors stemming from this question (that wouldn’t be possibleContinue reading “Lessons Learned in Capitalizing an Acquisition”
The Working Capital Adjustment
Listen to This Blog Post In a previous blog post, Busting the Biggest Myth About Selling Your Business, we reviewed a number of fundamental facts related to the sale of any company that warrant being repeated here: The single biggest myth about selling a company is that the seller bears no further risk after theContinue reading “The Working Capital Adjustment”
Considerations Unique to Acquiring a Software Company (Product)
Listen to this Blog Post: In a previous blog post, I discussed several financial considerations unique to acquiring software companies, specifically those of the small-to-medium-sized variety . In this week’s post, I present several non-financial considerations for the prospective acquiror to consider. Much of what I discuss below is intended to uncover how much “technicalContinue reading “Considerations Unique to Acquiring a Software Company (Product)”
Verne Harnish: Founder of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), Author of “Scaling Up” and “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits”
My Guest Few people have done more for Entrepreneurs and CEOs than Verne Harnish: Verne is the founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (“EO”), a global network of entrepreneurs and CEOs that boasts over 16,000 members worldwide. For the past 15 years, Verne has chaired EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants” held atContinue reading “Verne Harnish: Founder of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), Author of “Scaling Up” and “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits””
The Realities of Managing Extremely Rapid Growth
My Guest Anthemos Georgiades (or Anth, for short), is the founder and CEO of Zumper, an apartment rental platform based out of San Francisco that he founded in his second year at Harvard Business School in 2012. If anybody knows anything about running a rapidly growing company, it’s Anth. Consider this: Despite being founded lessContinue reading “The Realities of Managing Extremely Rapid Growth”