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In the world of business, not all deals are what they seem.
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Fortunes rise, empires crumble, all with the stroke of a pen Mergers, acquisitions, hostile takeovers.
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Welcome to Mergers, she Wrote, where we examine strategies and stories behind the biggest deals in business, because in M&A, the real risks are the ones you don't take.
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Welcome to Merger, she Wrote.
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I'm Paloma Goggins, the owner of Nocturne Illegal and your host, my guest today, believes that in order to scale your million-dollar business, capital is king.
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Thank you, didi Sangoy, for being my guest today.
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She is the owner and founder of DV8 Ventures.
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She's a growth strategist with a track record of transforming founder-led businesses into investor-ready enterprises.
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Thanks, so much for being on today.
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I'm so grateful to be here, thank you.
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So let's hop in.
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I know that you work with private equity and venture capital-based businesses.
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For anyone who is at that, you know, million dollar threshold in their business crushing it wants to get to the next level, you know, tell me what is a way that those businesses become attractive to VC and PE firms.
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That is such a good question and one that my clients ask me all the time.
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I will say you know, as we sit here in kind of mid 2025, there is, I would say, probably like I'm not going to throw out a percentage, but like thousands of businesses right, if not millions, that are raising capital at this very moment.
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I think that and this is why I believe capital is king, because the idea that your business deserves capital and would warrant investment from a VC or a PE firm is wonderful.
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It requires a readiness that I think oftentimes founders and leadership teams don't have, especially if it's their first time raising.
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And what I think is most attractive is that level of sophistication, ability to tell your story in a really compelling way, and also track record and results that are not just driven based on top line growth but actual path to profitability.
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And I think that last piece about how are you either already profitable or getting to profitability is super important.
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So, when you talk about telling a story, you know trying to raise funds, like you said, there's so much competition out there.
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How do you, you know, become as a business owner, how do you bring your what is arguably of already successful business and compete against arguably a bunch of already successful businesses?
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And you're talking about the storytelling you know how do you transform what is on paper, you know, from a financial perspective, into a story.
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Yeah, I think um number one there has to be.
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So I'll take an example of like a beauty business.
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Right, and my background is mainly in healthcare, but this is very interesting because I had a client who is focused in the beauty space and what I recognized about most beauty businesses now is the founder needs to have some level of authenticity.
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We're not looking for perfection anymore.
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We're looking for people who relate, who have the same problems that we have and have a passion for solving that problem.
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I think that is the crux of, or the foundation of, the story.
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And then a lot of what I find really resonates is either I had this problem, I knew people who had this problem.
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I had a like real, just desire and fire in me to solve it, but do it in a way where it's like again relatable and different from what's already being done, whether that's a price point, whether that's like clean ingredients, whether that's just like ability to touch different types of skin right, there's just so many ways that, like you, hone in on the niche within the broader issue or problem, and then it's okay.
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So I started here, but now I have built this team around me that has all these different skill sets that I maybe didn't have as a founder, and that's why we're a force to be reckoned with.
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I like this idea of differentiation and being able to rely on the niche right.
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Everybody always says the riches are in the niches.
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I always like that phrase, but so for anyone listening who they're like, you know what I actually.
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I do need to do this because my business is crushing it, but I'm not capable of taking that.
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You know money that I have bringing in and like essentially parlay that fast enough to grow at the rate that I want.
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You know what does this process look like If somebody wants to go down this road of getting an institutional investor to just grow more rapidly, what from point A to point B in its like, simpler form?
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Like what does this look like on paper?
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Yeah, first off, I'll say I think a lot of people can do it themselves.
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I think the biggest miss is there's an art to doing it and those of us that have done it and have raised money or have successfully exited businesses have learned that art.
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You could take the same exact business and to your point of what are the steps you know, run a financial model, put together an investor pitch deck, reach out to a bunch of VCs and PEs that invest in your space or could have an interest, and basically just ask for a meeting and once you get that meeting with that investor, you're going through kind of the pitch and telling your story, fielding questions, getting an LOI, ioi, some kind of indication of interest, and then moving into diligence from there.
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So those are kind of the key phases or like meaningful steps in the journey is, I think the art and that's what a lot of people miss, which is I could sell the same business for 10 million and I could sell that business for 15 million Fundamentals are exactly the same.
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The art is really finding a the right investor or buyer for your business and also building a business that is right for that end target.
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So I think that's what a lot of people miss in the journey is they're looking to raise when it's like, oh, I just need capital immediately.
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You really should be thinking about that at least six, if not 18, months prior to when you need it.
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That makes sense.
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I mean it's in a way the way you're describing it is like courting or or dating.
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Right, you've got to find the right match.
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You've got to find institutional investors that are interested in your industry because, like you said, actually what's a good point?
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Not every institutional investor touches the same industries.
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So I think a lot of people don't realize, a lot of you know, private equity groups will be very focused on industry specific niches and so they become sort of quote unquote experts in those spaces and they love to.
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Just they know the ins and outs so it's easy for them to make an investment decision as opposed to coming into a brand new industry that they know nothing about.
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So I think that point that you made about finding a good match, not just from a story and solution perspective but also from an industry perspective, can be so critical.
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So touch on for just a second the difference, because I know, you know, in the traditional M&A space where I, you know, play in the sandbox, a lot is private equity coming in and full sale buyout and I feel like that's, you know, in a small business setting, that's the most traditional way that people hear about private equity, especially right now.
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You know it's still hot to be private equity buying trade companies like HVAC and all that.
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So you know, in the industry spaces I feel like that's kind of the word on the street is private equity is buying us out slowly and surely and when they're the highest bidder it can be hard to say no.
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Whether it's the right decision for that business owner or not, I think depends on the situation.
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But you know, describe the difference between that and what we're talking about today on this episode, which is getting capital from private equity.
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So I think both the crux of both is something you hit on and something I always emphasize, which is timing is everything.
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So if you as an individual, a founder or leadership team are in kind of that vein of I want to keep growing this thing, I want to run this thing, I want to own this thing, I see the potential and I want to be part of that upside trajectory, I just need basically something to kind of like turn up the volume and set this thing on fire right.
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That is a classic case of I need that 10, 15, 20 million, maybe even more, from private equity to invest into my business.
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I know how to run it and I want to run this thing to then become a 150, 200 million dollar business.
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The other side of the story is you know, I'm happy with where kind of I've grown my business.
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Right, I'm at that two million dollar mark, feel pretty comfortable.
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I want to take my chips off the table and I want to get a nice payout and a check from private equity and maybe I stay on and I help transition.
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But effectively, like, I'm good with where we're at right now, and I think that's partly also why I would always recommend engaging with an advisor who can talk to you about your options, because you could be leaving a significant amount of money on the table if you sell too early.
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On the flip side, you may think your business has a ton of potential and it actually doesn't.
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And selling now, either based on market dynamics or your performance or you know kind of what's happening in the industry, might actually be a better bet, right?
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So I think people often don't think about all the options that are available to them, and that's what advisors like you and I can help them map out and say okay, so which one is the best fit, based on where you're at personally, but also what the trajectory of this business is.
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That is so true, and I think one way to liken this is you know, from a very simple standpoint, if you're sitting in your home and you're not thinking about all your options, you might have the opportune moment to sell at a peak time in the market and miss out on that, because you're just head down and focused on what you have going on.
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And I think there are people out there that look back and say, oh man, if I only knew that my house was like you know four times what I bought it for during peak market, and now the peak market has passed.
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I think that same concept kind of what you're explaining right, which is that having advisors available to you to talk about your options and to determine maybe now is the time, maybe this last year was financially so good that an exit makes more sense, as opposed to doubling down and getting capital and trying to build it even further, because maybe last year was a huge blip and it was a great year for you.
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So I like that.
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I like that explanation.
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Or technology is going to come in and like, revamp your market, as we're seeing right now.
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So true, so I know you know you and I were having a discussion before we sat down for this episode, but I would love for you to go in and talk about the difference you know we just talked about getting capital from, say, private equity versus exiting.
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With private equity and how you know, one is inherently just getting an investment and continuing operating with the same people in place, while as the other is like a traditional M&A exit where you're, like you said, might be transitioning them or helping them support in the process of the buyout, post-closing, but ultimately you'll be gone at some point in the future when we're talking about the front end of that piece where you're getting an investment you had described to me before we sat down control versus non-control.
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Can you explain that for those that are listening?
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Yeah, absolutely so.
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I think what people often and I'll take a step back actually, what people often don't realize is there are many forms of capital and they're not created equal and they also don't serve necessarily the same strategic purpose.
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So there are private equity firms typically less venture firms, but more private equity firms that just want full control of the business.
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They have operating teams, they know the space in the industry, they've done all their research.
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They may even just want to fold your business into another business that they've already acquired.
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That would be like basically a full buyout, as we mentioned, or sometimes even just a control investment, whereby they've got more than 50% of the equity in your business and in many ways, as a result, they kind of call the shots.
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So, while you're still there and you're still operating it, if they decide, hey, we need to pivot in this direction, or we want to rebrand or we need to bring in this technology, you know it goes to the board of investors and or, you know, board of directors, and effectively the number of votes that they have may outweigh yours.
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So that's a controlling investment, a non-control investment, which most people that are looking to stay in their business and grow their business is again just simply less than 50%, and even with that, there can be clauses.
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So you have to be really careful, because there can be clauses in agreement terms whereby, over time, certain investors are either allowed to double down on their investment, buy more, or you, as the original founder, get diluted down, and what that means is you could be at 50, 60, 70% and, as other investors come in, unless you're somehow co-investing, your piece of the pie is getting smaller and smaller.
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These are all things to consider, because if ownership and control is really important to you, you want to be very careful about how you're structuring these deals and making sure that it's not just a what percentage do I have today, but what could that look like in the future?
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A hundred percent.
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Could not agree more.
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And I would say too, from a legal perspective, the structure right is, it comes down a lot to your organizational documents.
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So, um, you know people will think of the investment as just this one-time transaction.
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And in reality, you're actually renegotiating a lot of times with investors, whether it's private equity or not, and when an investor comes in and they're renegotiating your operating agreement or your bylaws or your shareholder agreement, and all of a sudden you have a board that's half people that you don't know and, like you said, there's priority of right first, first right of refusal.
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Or, you know, ability to create essentially preferred versus non-preferred classes of voting.
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You know people always say like well, you know, I, I always love it when startups come to me and they're like I'm gonna do.
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You know preferred and non-preferred classes of stock and I always ask why they're like well, at some point I want investors and I'm like so you're giving them a headstart because they're going to want the preferred like they're never going to come in and not want the preferred.
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They're going to want you to have the non-preferred.
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Um, and then you know, everybody has to put a pin in it and be like wait, do we not understand the difference between voting rights?
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And so I think you made some really solid points there, which is that this isn't just about obtaining the capital.
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You also have to be able to think, you know smart, be you know, be defensive and make sure that when you're signing on the dotted line, you know all the terms and conditions, the fine print of what that investment really means absolutely, and I will double down on that point because I've actually seen a lot of fodder on linkedin lately about uh early stage investors in startups, like angel investors etc.
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That are saying I ended up with nothing right, even when this went to to IPO, or even like the success story all the way, because of the way that either they couldn't continue to keep their investment percentage in line and they got diluted down, or, after the preferred investors and after you know the transaction fees and all the other items on the list, like the debt, they had nothing right.
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So I think that that is probably the biggest shame in the industry is like your early believers were left with the smallest piece of the pie.
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Yeah, no, that's so true.
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And I think too, there's some sort of I don't want to say it's positioning, because, well, maybe it is a little bit of positioning.
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But when you have, say, an operating agreement that gets renegotiated by a heavyweight investor and they restructure the distributions even if you don't lose out on your percentage, those distributions could be drafted in a way where, when you used to get distributions every time that the company took distributions, all of a sudden you're at the bottom of the waterfall and it's all dried up by the time you get to the bottom.
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And so I do think people have somewhat, um, I think when anyone's talking about capital, they get stars in their eyes and sometimes lose sight of the fact that their ultimate goal should be control, retaining control of form, especially when they want to grow and continue to exist within their company.
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Because what's the point of it all at the end if you come out with nothing?
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Absolutely and taking care of your employees.
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Right, like some of the early people that were in there in the trenches with you.
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Same thing, right.
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If you've given them an equity piece, but they're common or they're, you know, lower in the kind of tranche, then they may like not get left with much and they've probably been working in that business for the equity and then the upside.
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Yeah, All the people who did the sweat equity at the beginning and don't actually get to cash out at the end.
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Yeah, no, exactly.
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Well, I know, you know, based on your background, you, you know, have participated in and been a, you know, key person in this successful eight-figure business exit to UnitedHealthcare.
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I'd love for you to tell that story.
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And then, you know, tell us too, like what can the smaller business owner learn from what you went through in that process?
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Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway from that story and I like to start with this at the top is not all growth is good growth.
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So people just think, oh, I'm growing so fast, I have like 10x, 15, 20x whatever growth top line.
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That doesn't necessarily mean that your business is actually sustainable, nor doing well, and that for me was a huge lesson through the process.
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So the business that I you know I'll back it up.
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I have had the good fortune of both being working for institutional investors like JP Morgan and BlackRock, but then also being recruited by much smaller investors that are still institutional, like venture and private equity firms, to then be in the trenches as a senior leadership member within their portfolio companies.
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And this was that case.
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So I was brought in as chief strategy officer of a healthcare services business.
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The business had been growing tremendously and they actually recruited me to help them raise a Series B.
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So they had raised $20 million from a venture capital firm and because they were growing so fast, that money was obviously not lasting and the runway was starting to run out and they needed to raise again.
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The market when we started to raise was pretty frothy, especially on healthcare, and there were talks of this business being valued at close to half a billion dollars, which is significant.
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That being said, as I was kind of liaising with our investment bankers said as I was kind of liaising with our investment bankers and over time, as kind of months were progressing and this was around 2021, 2022.
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So, post COVID, healthcare was super hot, and then it was like, oh, like, let's rethink some of these valuations a little bit I started to see that, like, what the founders were looking for from an evaluation perspective on the Series B was probably not realistic.
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In addition to that, the cash position of the business was starting to become precarious and I think that's another key point.
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It always takes longer to raise capital than you think.
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So many people think, oh, I could have capital in three months, four months, five months, you could, or it could take six to nine, and anytime an investor sees that you are capital constraint and that maybe you're even going to run out of operating cash to run your business, now they have leverage.
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So what we noticed was okay, this is now starting to look like a much tighter window, given that several months have gone by and we have not found someone to raise in the right way at the right valuation for the B, and that's when I suggested along with, you know, kind of talking to our founders, our leadership team and the investment bankers that we pivot and start thinking about strategic exit.
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This was a clear case of we had grown, I would say probably well over 10x, and the cash flows of when we would collect money in versus had to outlay capital did not align and so, effectively, effectively, we'd grown over our skis and didn't have the capital to support that growth.
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When we started talking to strategics, the story was very different, because they A have very deep pockets but B understand that, like, that growth is something that they absolutely want and can operate through.
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Private equity often wants to put in capital and they want it to be as, like, less capital intensive but high growth, whereas a strategic, especially in the healthcare space, can often put up the money and then wait and like let the growth come in.
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And so it was definitely a much better fit and a better strategy for us.
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At the time we had a couple of different.
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You know, we kind of went through the pitch process.
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We had multiple upfront meetings with different strategics.
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Eventually, we had two or three that were like serious and had submitted meaningful LOIs and one of which we went exclusive with.
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The diligence process was incredibly difficult compared to what we thought.
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So, to give you a sense, our leadership team was six people.
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The first diligence call that we got on with, unitedhealthcare, there were.
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We asked like how many people from your side, you know, should we expect?
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And they had said probably close to 100 people.
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Holy smokes, because they have so many departments that this one acquisition would touch that they needed someone from every single department to be on the call.
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So these are the kinds of things that I think so many people underestimate right when they're going through this process and it's like how do six people match like the litany of questions coming through from all of these departments and hundreds of people on the other side?
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Um the deal thankfully, I would say say we were just incredibly responsive on diligence, partly because we knew we had a dwindling cash position and needed to kind of thread the needle, and thankfully we did so.
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In under six months we successfully completed diligence.
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There was definitely some negotiation of the initial LOI, and that's the other thing I always tell people of negotiation of the initial LOI, and that's the other thing.
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I always tell people what is written in the initial LOI versus what the terms and even the valuation will look like by the end of the deal is likely to be different, so prepare yourself for that.
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But it was still a really good outcome for both existing investors as well as the founders and the leadership team, and the business was acquired and integrated into UnitedHealthcare and their Optum division.
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Nice.
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I think it's worth saying that even in a private equity buyout, I think people can underestimate how intensive that diligence process can also be.
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It doesn't just have to be like the conglomerate giant corporation that comes in and inundates you Although I think a hundred people on a phone call is is something I have yet to come across.
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So that is, that is absolutely bananas.
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But like I closed a deal in April where they, you know, hired a heavy hitting law firm it was a private equity group, most private equity groups have heavy hitting law firms and, you know, hired a heavy hitting law firm it was a private equity group, most private equity groups have heavy hitting law firms.
00:26:10.721 --> 00:26:29.435
And you know we went on a diligence call and they had 10 attorneys from 10 different departments and you know, I've got my one founder fielding questions from HR to you know benefits and litigation and I mean he gets done with the phone call and he's like I'm exhausted, yeah.
00:26:29.435 --> 00:26:46.903
So I think you know businesses to your point that grow really really large, successfully, wise, and then maybe don't have a really large C-suite team or executive level team, aren't always prepared for the level and depth of diligence that comes with such a large transaction.
00:26:46.903 --> 00:26:49.175
So I love that point.
00:26:49.457 --> 00:26:57.413
I want to back up for just a minute for anyone listening who doesn't have the background knowledge of LOI stands for letter of intent.
00:26:57.413 --> 00:26:59.518
You also mentioned IOI.
00:26:59.518 --> 00:27:01.803
Go ahead, tell everyone what IOI stands for.
00:27:01.803 --> 00:27:05.056
Indication of interest, very similar concepts.
00:27:05.056 --> 00:27:10.065
You had mentioned the word strategic buyout.
00:27:10.065 --> 00:27:14.356
What would make something strategic Like why call it strategic?
00:27:16.211 --> 00:27:42.201
I think typically when I think of a strategic buyout, maybe it's just a fancy term but effectively it's somebody who is larger, most likely, than your business, and has some use, purpose, ability, strategy to take your business and incorporate it into what they're already doing and their existing strategy and create multiples of value off the back of that.
00:27:42.201 --> 00:27:46.336
So it's your business as a standalone entity has its value.
00:27:46.336 --> 00:27:50.633
The strategic is part of the, or the nature of that is.
00:27:50.633 --> 00:27:55.497
They can then multiply that value based on who they already are and their strategy.
00:27:55.497 --> 00:27:57.017
I could not have said it any better.
00:27:57.057 --> 00:27:57.601
That was great.
00:27:57.601 --> 00:28:07.258
Okay, and then to kind of come full circle on your story, you had mentioned originally looking for series B funding.
00:28:07.258 --> 00:28:16.080
For anybody who's not familiar with the ABCs of funding, what's the difference between seed a Series A and a Series?
00:28:16.142 --> 00:28:16.162
B.
00:28:16.162 --> 00:28:27.338
That is a great question and even I would say you know in kind of investor circles that there's no clear cut like hard lines between these things.
00:28:27.338 --> 00:28:33.381
But where I always think people start is some kind of angel or seed investing.
00:28:33.381 --> 00:28:36.449
That effectively means friends and family.
00:28:36.449 --> 00:28:42.852
Often before that, actually, you've probably bootstrapped the company right, so that's like number one no outside money.
00:28:42.852 --> 00:28:46.683
Then you've got some outside money which could be friends and family.
00:28:46.683 --> 00:28:52.857
It could be what is called angel investors that are just early stage believers in what you're doing in your business.
00:28:54.525 --> 00:29:03.839
And from there when you move into Series A, I typically think of that as now that's a transition to something institutional.
00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:10.689
So a Series A investment and then from there it goes B, c, d could go to E.
00:29:10.689 --> 00:29:18.874
Then IPO is effectively just additional rounds of funding that typically get larger and larger.
00:29:18.874 --> 00:29:31.115
The valuation you hope is going up but in some cases and this is a key point too could be a down round, so you could actually have a valuation come down from what it was in a previous round.
00:29:31.115 --> 00:29:42.528
But essentially, as you kind of go up the chain of letters, you are bringing in larger and more sophisticated institutional investors.
00:29:42.528 --> 00:29:45.694
The diligence can be more intense.
00:29:45.694 --> 00:29:56.656
But a great point that you mentioned is sometimes investors that are writing checks, that are, you know, a million, two million, are conducting just as much diligence as someone who's writing a $20 million check.
00:29:57.205 --> 00:30:17.132
So I think the ethos on diligence has changed really significantly from what it used to be changed really significantly from what it used to be 100%, and I will say this, too for anyone who's considering, you know, the angel investor route right the small group of wealthy individuals who are just looking for you know, outside investment opportunities.
00:30:18.164 --> 00:30:38.932
Sometimes I think people will assume, setting aside the diligence piece of it, they'll assume that they're, you know, investors because they're more like friends and family even if they've just met them will be an easier sell or they'll be easier to deal with as investors because they're just normal people like you and me as opposed to an institutional investor.
00:30:38.932 --> 00:30:54.398
The disconnect I see a lot of times with my clients is that those angel investors or the seed round funding especially if it's friends and family they're not sophisticated enough to know quite how business works and that you have to weather the storm.
00:30:54.398 --> 00:30:57.269
And so you get these random questions of like when can we get our money back?
00:30:57.269 --> 00:30:59.976
You know, why are you showing a deficit?
00:30:59.976 --> 00:31:05.817
All these questions that you're like, don't worry, we've got it under control, but like also, this is not how this works.
00:31:08.345 --> 00:31:09.126
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
00:31:09.126 --> 00:31:09.428
I would say.
00:31:09.428 --> 00:31:31.888
This is also why it's really important to know effectively who you're getting in bed with, because you may think that either A like there's a number of variables there, right Level of sophistication of the type of investor that you would want, sophistication of the type of investor that you would want.
00:31:31.888 --> 00:31:33.853
Two, I would say, is time horizon and how patient is that capital.
00:31:33.853 --> 00:31:41.433
And three is risk tolerance Because, exactly as you said, some of these investors are like wait, why is everything like valued?
00:31:41.433 --> 00:32:05.590
You know, now, if you and these are all paper valuations, it's not even real money, that's like moving hands, but it's like, oh, I thought this was going to be like a, you know, 2x return or a 30, 50 percent return, and now I'm only seeing like 18 percent, you know, and it's like but it means nothing, because until you've had an exit or until you've had a recap or like an additional investment, come in at a different valuation.
00:32:05.590 --> 00:32:06.996
It it's just paper money.
00:32:08.244 --> 00:32:10.329
Well, and I think too, to parlay off of that.
00:32:10.329 --> 00:32:17.613
You know, people always love because of the low hanging fruit of friends and family as their first round of investment.
00:32:17.613 --> 00:32:24.036
But people underestimate how much money changes relationships and so.
00:32:24.356 --> 00:32:34.786
I mean, it's true even in you know, business partnerships right, where both people are contributing capital to just bootstrap it, is that money really can change the dynamic.
00:32:34.786 --> 00:32:36.530
It can change people's perspectives.
00:32:36.530 --> 00:32:52.096
The minute that the business really starts to take off and revenue gets generated at a level where holy smokes like this is something real, People all of a sudden can get greedy, they can get angry that they're, you know, carrying a lot of the weight of the business.
00:32:52.096 --> 00:33:03.736
Someone's maybe doing less, and so I always warn my clients when they're looking for their first round or or they're looking to get into business with a sister or best friend or somebody.
00:33:03.736 --> 00:33:16.365
I'm like this is arguably more complicated than getting an institutional investor in some ways, because you have all these trappings of the relationship and not wanting to ruin that, and what happens when things go south if they don't go right.
00:33:17.086 --> 00:33:18.269
Yeah, I would totally agree.
00:33:18.450 --> 00:33:40.767
It actually reminds me of a prospect call that I was on and I had spoken to one of the partners pretty significantly, and then he was like, okay, you know, I, I, he had a very clear vision of, hey, we need to bring in this outside capital because a business can do X, Y and Z and we need to hit like within this timeframe, et cetera.
00:33:40.826 --> 00:33:43.931
And he was like, okay, I want to bring my partners into the conversation.
00:33:43.931 --> 00:33:51.740
And he was like, okay, I want to bring my partners into the conversation and I have learned from that conversation that it's best never to assume that everyone is aligned.
00:33:51.740 --> 00:34:22.530
So I went into that thinking, okay, I'm just here to kind of pitch how I can help them, like both from telling their story, finding the ideal investor, getting through diligence and ultimately securing the capital investor, getting through diligence and ultimately securing the capital, as I kind of was, you know, getting into like, hey, here's what I've discussed with so and so, and I realized the other two investors- both were just a, not on his page, but not even them on the same page.
00:34:22.550 --> 00:34:27.880
So one felt like, oh, we can continue to like, put in our own money to do this, we don't need to get institutional money.
00:34:28.485 --> 00:34:38.809
The other was like, oh, I don't even see why we need money at this stage, like, we're fine, kind of petering along as we are, so it just.
00:34:38.809 --> 00:34:54.289
It was a great learning experience for me because when there are partners, whether that's family, whether that's just business partners, whomever the big part of it is, are you even aligned on the vision and what the right strategy is to meet that vision?
00:34:54.289 --> 00:35:00.172
Because I also think you know in their conversation one is saying, oh, I think we could sell this business in three years.
00:35:00.172 --> 00:35:04.911
The other is like, no, I want to sell it, like in a year, right, very different.
00:35:04.911 --> 00:35:13.297
And what you would do as a result of like what your ideal outcome is like today, what you would do, is completely different.
00:35:13.297 --> 00:35:19.061
So I think, yes, the more as I say cooks in the kitchen, it can be pretty difficult.
00:35:19.061 --> 00:35:30.188
But I also think that having that alignment is critical because, especially if you're going to get in front of an investor or someone and you're not, aligned.
00:35:30.268 --> 00:35:31.954
I mean you've lost the deal immediately.
00:35:32.114 --> 00:35:40.873
Oh yes, no, I think that could quite possibly between going in front of an investor and not having your story straight and going in front of a client and not having your pitch straight.
00:35:40.873 --> 00:35:43.789
I think those are two of the worst things you could possibly be doing as partners.
00:35:43.809 --> 00:35:51.030
And people do it, yeah, and sometimes it doesn't even come out until someone pushes the button and asks the right question, and then you're like wait, what's going on?
00:35:51.913 --> 00:36:23.007
So true, and maybe that underlines a more soft topic of this whole episode, which is that communication and the ability I mean back to storytelling the ability to convey not just to your potential institutional investors what you do in your business, but also convey to your partners what you want from your business and what that looks like, which can drastically change what you're going for, because, like your story you know exemplifies, if the partners don't want to bring on institutional capital, then your idea of growth is totally different.
00:36:23.007 --> 00:36:29.972
Yeah, um, so you talked in that story a little bit about what you can do for clients that work with you.
00:36:29.972 --> 00:36:32.018
Please just expand on that.
00:36:32.018 --> 00:36:35.492
Like you know, the four kind of key concepts that you brought up in that story.
00:36:35.833 --> 00:36:37.077
Yeah, absolutely so.
00:36:37.077 --> 00:36:48.041
I think for me, what I always tell all my clients and what I kind of learned through my career is that my MO in everything is growth.
00:36:48.041 --> 00:36:57.871
So I literally I mean this is funny and a little tangential but like I will go to my hairdresser and she'll be talking about her business and I'm like, have you thought about doing this?
00:36:57.871 --> 00:37:00.905
And like, oh, what about this avenue and this customer base?
00:37:00.905 --> 00:37:06.657
And so I'm just wired to think about how do we grow, whatever it is.
00:37:06.657 --> 00:37:31.179
So thankfully, having had a background in finance, management, consulting and sales, I kind of understand a lot of what it takes within a business to grow, and so I would say the ways that I typically engage with my clients is people that know that their business has the capacity to grow at scale well beyond what they're doing today.
00:37:31.179 --> 00:37:33.686
That is kind of a ideal profile.
