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Selling A Business
183 Plays2 years ago
James Green and Scott Lowe, former partners at Actual Tech Media, discuss their journey of building and selling their successful business. They highlight the importance of having a strong team and the support of their spouses throughout the process. They also share the challenges they faced and the lessons they learned along the way. The conversation touches on topics such as the decision to sell, the role of a CFO, and the need for boundaries and self-care.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guests
00:00:00
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you. Welcome to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living uncommonly. We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path that is uniquely right for you.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, and welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Un-Cominwealth Podcast, where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I'm Aaron Kramer. Thanks for tuning in. We have an amazing show today, one that we don't get an opportunity to do an interview. But we have two people on the show, James Green and Scott Lowe. They are rock stars. I know James Green very well. We've known each other quite some time. And there's four people because there's Aaron, me, and these two cats. Yeah, so keep up.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, hang on. There's a lot going on. I'll have you both introduce yourself so they know your voice. I'd say both of them have amazing voices. They're pretty good. They're pretty good.
00:01:03
Speaker
I would say way better than ours. So I'll try to have them talk way more than us.
Business Origin Story
00:01:07
Speaker
But the reason why I wanted them on the show is because they not only had a successful partnership, but they've also gone through a transition where they have sold their beloved beast of a business and have now kind of crossed over into selling that and then now kind of operating it and all this stuff. So we have a lot of questions, a lot of, I think wisdom just to go through in this. But first I'll welcome James Green and Scott Lowe to the show. What's going on? How are you?
00:01:33
Speaker
and welcome. Hey, thanks for having us. This is James, former partner at actual tech media, business partners with Scott, still friends kind of.
00:01:45
Speaker
Go ahead. Go ahead and be on the show. Awesome. Thanks for taking the time. Scott, come on. Talk, buddy. As much as I don't admit it, James is still a close friend. He's a great guy. Scott Lowe, co-founder and former CEO of actual tech media. And like we talked about, it's been a bit of a journey. Yeah. So let's talk about the actual company in and of itself. Just quick, high level elevator talk. And then we're going to talk about how you got into that business.
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay, so where do you want us to start? Just what it was? Yeah, what it was. You know, we started in 2012. The company grew to be something that was never really envisioned at the beginning. We started out as sort of a content company, creating content for clients. We were going to start a series of websites, all the stuff people think they want to do.
00:02:34
Speaker
And as we evolved, we kept some of that, but we moved into more of the lead generation space and developed some good relationships with clients around helping them drive business. And that's really what we grew the business on for probably around eight years of its 10-year existence before we sold it. And we grew it from fully bootstrapped, never in federal
00:02:58
Speaker
never took a penny from anybody, including ourselves, because we had a client do the initial funding and told it back in 2022. And now we're working for the company that bought it and trying to continue to grow it. All right, Scott, hold your horses there. There's a lot there. You just went from telling us to then selling it.
Founding Challenges and Growth
00:03:20
Speaker
OK, so James, how did you guys meet just friendship wise or business like how did you guys meet?
00:03:27
Speaker
this super fortunate crossing of paths. Scott and one of my other business partners, David, and I were kind of attending the same events, involved in some of the same activities, and we met each other doing that stuff. Scott and David were already working on the project for a while, and as I understand it anyway, kind of got to a point where they needed
00:03:49
Speaker
more help they were at capacity and knew that there was more meat on the bone. And so they said, Hey, James, don't help us keep growing this thing. And somehow I was able to talk my wife into letting me quit a perfectly good, you know, decent paying job. We had a
00:04:08
Speaker
what, probably like three or four month old baby at the time. I was able to let her, I was able to talk her into letting me quit my job and do this with him. And that was 2014, I think, 2015. Oh, nice. For David and I, I had just left the full-time job and was working really as a freelance consultant and doing lots of freelance work. And David Davis and Jordy Carswell and I hooked up
00:04:36
Speaker
And we started the initial actual tech media project. And at the beginning, it was intended to be a side project. And we turned into something else. And all of us kept working for quite a period of time after starting actual tech media. So we all had jobs, like James, and then eventually got to the point where I wasn't going to work anymore.
00:05:01
Speaker
Where did this come from? All this passion that you wanted to do this, like at the very beginning, like who can't David, you or like, were you guys sitting around having beers or, you know, playing poker or what, um, pancakes, wasn't it?
00:05:15
Speaker
No, so the original discussion happened at an event called Tech Field Day, which is actually run by a friend of ours. It was a very sort of tight event. It was only like 10 people in attendance. It sounds weird, but it's the model and it works. And David and I happened to be attendees at this event. It was my first or second, I can't remember, but I had just left my full-time job. David and I knew of each other, but we'd never met.
00:05:44
Speaker
And we spent a good chunk of the trip talking to one another. And he said, hey, you want to start something together? And I said, sure, let's see what happens. And so we did. At another event, we talked about what that would look like. And at the next event, we actually filed a paperwork. So it was very because David and I, he lives in South Carolina, I live in Missouri.
00:06:04
Speaker
So it was tough to get together, except when we were doing other things. And then we brought Jordy in very quickly thereafter, and then James came a bit later. But that was the inception of actual tech media was really just happenstance. We happened to be at the same event together.
00:06:20
Speaker
When you were filing the paperwork, did you and David both kind of think this was a side hustle question? Yeah. Yeah. We thought this was always going to be a side hustle. It wasn't going to be, I mean, that was the intent at the beginning. It was just a way to sort of combine efforts. Um,
00:06:35
Speaker
We were both doing some of the same kind of work. We were writing papers for clients. We were writing blog posts for clients. We were running webinars for clients. I should say moderating webinars for clients because we weren't running at that point. This was intended to be just a way to join forces and do some things together. We thought maybe it could turn into something bigger, but it was not envisioned.
00:06:58
Speaker
So it sounds like there was four owners. Am I right? I'm just listening. So you, David, Jordy, and then James, is that clear? Okay. And then at what point did you decide like, Oh, wait, we're actually, we got something here. We're going to do this instead of a side hustle. This is going to be our full-time gig. When was that?
Commitment to Full-Time Business
00:07:17
Speaker
It was different points for all of us. Around 2015 or so for me was when I basically stopped doing a lot of other things. David finally quit his job. James came on board. He had quit his job. It was around 2015 or so. And that was when the four of us basically made this our full time.
00:07:40
Speaker
full-time thing and started to try to turn it into something. Now, was there a time prior to that that you were like, Oh crap, like this is going to be bigger than what we thought. There was. So I was still doing, I think I've always done consulting in higher ed. I still did even last year when I had time, but I was doing some long-term consulting engagements for a higher ed consulting company and they offered to bring me on full-time.
00:08:09
Speaker
And I said, you know, I think I'm going to hold because this actual type media thing is starting to get some legs and I want to see what happens. And that was walking on the streets of Manhattan with the then CEO of that company having that discussion. So it was around mid 2024 or sorry, mid 2014, where we started. I started to really think this might be something and it turned into something.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, right. I love the for owners type of thing. Each one of you had a very specific gift. So I want you and James to figure out each one of the gifts of the owners that you had. I would love to just see if you guys could just ping them out because here's the deal. I think God uses each one of us in a very unique way and especially successful businesses. You seem like you attract
00:08:54
Speaker
a little bit of the same, but a lot of times people really get attracted to somebody who's like, okay, but you have this skill that I think can contribute to the team in this way. So let's go down the, down the row with the owners. What kind of contributions did they make? What kind of gifts did you see that would highlight the business that you're trying to create? I'm not James start. Well, I don't think we should do ourselves. So I'll start. I agree. I'll go for somebody else. So, um,
00:09:20
Speaker
Geordie, among many other contributions, has a particular skill for building an MVP and coming up with a really good idea and doing it fast. One of the things that I have seen not go well in a lot of businesses is sit there and think about it for a long time and make it just perfect
00:09:40
Speaker
And, you know, it never really gathers the steam it needs. And one of the things that Jordy's always been really good at is, you know, we have an idea and he's like, all right, we've put this thing together and in a couple of weeks, we're going to go sell it. And I think there's a number of times over the history of the business where he did that and it was very helpful to where we ended up. Good.
00:10:01
Speaker
I had to talk about David. I think David has an incredible gift for connecting with audiences and for teaching people things. That's the other thing he's done all along is create training courses and stuff like that for people. And he knows what people need to hear and how to basically disseminate that information out to the world.
00:10:27
Speaker
of it. Okay. And then James Scott. So again, among many other things, one of the things that Scott is very good at is sifting through the noise to figure out what people actually care about and are going to be willing to pay for and then reverse engineering. How could we support them in that? I think what a lot of people do is what could I offer or what
00:10:51
Speaker
do I like or whatever, and they try and package an offering around that. And something that Scott's always been good at is seeing where the need is and then building something to meet it, which goes really well when you try and sell it versus going the other way. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Scott James, come on down. Really not a whole lot. No. He brought to us an ability to bring process. We really needed to
00:11:20
Speaker
It's super easy to launch something and just brute force it all the time. It's a little harder, but much more scalable to bring things from a process perspective into play. So he brought some of that maturity that we are some of that intentionality that we needed to the organization as well as running a big part of the business.
00:11:39
Speaker
He was his directly for a while, which is our content business. So he brought a lot to the table in terms of looking at systems, looking at processes, and a little more intentionality about how we build things.
00:11:51
Speaker
Very cool. Love that. OK, so this is now you guys have jumped off the proverbial bridge. You guys all kind of quit your jobs. You're in this thing. Everything's fun and exciting. Rainbows and butterflies. And then it isn't.
Partnership Dynamics
00:12:06
Speaker
Right. Has there ever been a point where you're like, oh shoot, like we're in the garage. We're looking at each other. Was there any moment when you thought to yourself like, oh no, what did we do? Or was it all just cupcakes and candy bars?
00:12:21
Speaker
I mean, everything has its bumps. I don't, I mean, we were in the incredibly fortunate position that we never had experienced a downturn. And we also experienced some relatively rapid growth, although that's a double edged sword in and of itself. Um, I would say that the, I don't think we had anything like, it was like, Oh my God, what are we going to do?
00:12:52
Speaker
I had one. This will be fun to talk about. So there was a time, uh, about a year in for me. So there's a couple of years in for you where, uh, we had not been communicating super well and we were on kind of different pages and yeah, we were misaligned and we came to a point where we had a conversation where it was like, I don't know if we should do this together anymore.
00:13:11
Speaker
Do you James? Can you remember anything like that?
00:13:22
Speaker
This, this happened after I moved to another state, um, because our businesses pretty much entirely conducted online. So I could really do that from anywhere, but you know, where I moved from, I had a good professional network locally could have gone and got a job on Monday if I needed to do something else. But now I moved to a different state. We've got, uh, you know, uh, still a baby. She was maybe one at the time, you know,
00:13:50
Speaker
Uh, and I was like, what have I done? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's there. Was it all four of you guys having that communication problem or was it just between the two of you? Well, I don't know. You can talk about this, Scott, but it was specifically related to, you know,
00:14:09
Speaker
what were, what the main focus is, what the goals are, what each of us should be doing. And specifically in this case, it had to do with what I was doing. And I thought I should be doing one thing and Jordy and Scott thought I should be doing another thing. And I don't recall what David thought. Um, and
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, the real only problem was we hadn't really talked about it enough. They were frustrated with me and it was only because we weren't really talking about it. What's your recollection of the situation?
00:14:44
Speaker
Pretty much the same thing, but one of the things that what I can remember from that is it actually was not a, oh my God, what have we done moment? And the reason I say that is because I recall the conversation that Jordan and I had with you. I don't recall the specifics because at this point it doesn't matter. But I remember the way you took the information was not to get defensive and put your walls up and get, you know, like some people would, but you actually reflected in what we said and said, okay,
00:15:14
Speaker
here's what I'm going to do differently. And then we never talked about it again. And so that's why I didn't look, I didn't raise that as sure in the grand scheme of things. It was just a little bump in the road. Right. And I think from like, right. Yeah. From a partnership health standpoint, like that moment could have gone nuclear. Like that could have been a major fork in the road for us. And the way that we all handled it is why it turned out okay.
00:15:43
Speaker
I can see how James, like you think that was a huge moment because you're the one getting told something. You're the one on the outside being like, oh, I'm out. I'm on the outside because everyone else is thinking something different. Right. I would say this too, like just on this specific case or this topic.
00:16:00
Speaker
I feel like no matter in any relationships, you're always going to have that one time and you're like, oh shoot, we got to talk through this. And it is, Scott, to your point, it's how they receive that information and then what they do after that information. And so to me, it's not like, hey, every relationship is going to go through this. We're going to talk through it and either we're going to get better.
00:16:20
Speaker
the relationship is going to get stronger or we're going to dissolve it. And we should have dissolved it a lot sooner if we can't get through this. And right. So you guys just had a very good example. And I think James, your character, it's lining up to who I know you of, of like, okay, let me really internalize this. Let me try to figure out what I need to do different and let's make a better team with it. And I know how unifying Scott, you must've been like, holy cow. Like there's nothing we can't address now.
00:16:44
Speaker
right? It's a time when you just kind of like pull back, like, I don't really care, whatever, let's just keep going. That's a detriment, like to any kind of relationship, talk through it, see how you're going to get through it, as well as don't fall victim. James, you didn't, you really, one of the things I think, you know, we were struggling with roles for a while, like, because as when it was just, you know, the four of us, I mean, we had some support people helping us, but it wasn't the staffing plan wasn't as intentional as it became. But
00:17:14
Speaker
we were all sort of out there just doing our thing as a loosely conglomerated group of guys, right? I mean, coordinated, but not always on the same page. That was also a period of time where we actually did some specific, okay, here's the role you're gonna perform in the business, because we need it. And I think that sort of aligned with some of that, James, if I recall, was around that time, we also started to say, like, we need someone to basically be the front of sales, we need someone to be the front of the company, or somebody to be the front of marketing.
00:17:43
Speaker
front audience and, you know, content creation. And so we, that gave us, I think that was also at a time where that was one of the turning points of the company was figuring out who was actually gonna play what parts. And I think that conversation came as a part of that to a point. And it helped us, I think, create a structure that became a launch point for further growth. That's good.
00:18:13
Speaker
Okay, so at the end, how many people did you have working for you staff-wise in 2022? With all of us, I think about 30. Okay, so I love this part of the podcast and every time I talk about it.
Support Systems
00:18:28
Speaker
To give you both kind of opportunity to talk about how instrumental your spouses have been in you getting to where you're at.
00:18:35
Speaker
A lot of times I feel like they're kind of on the back burner, but I feel like they are the people who like hold this thing together. They just never get named. So please talk about the role that your spouse has played in the success of the business and that your success personally is you talk as much as you want. Cause I love this topic.
00:18:52
Speaker
I'm going to start here because I would not be here right now if it wasn't for my wife because she carried our health insurance for, she still does actually. Um, so she went off, she was still, she was working, but we moved to her health insurance because as a tiny company with four people getting health insurance as an utter nightmare in America. Yes. Um, that was a huge contribution. She was always there, always just,
00:19:19
Speaker
for moral support and to sort of keep me level set too. And she joked around, you know, can I can I can I use a well, I'll use a bit of a bad word. So she
00:19:34
Speaker
As a joke one year, I said, here's how we did last year. She jokingly said, that's not bad for a bypass company to run out of your basement. But no, she was the rock for me. And if we hadn't been doing what she was doing, she was also doing a ton of travel for this.
00:19:57
Speaker
and you know this is going to sound terrible because it was not what i expected but she did it the entirety of me prepping for a trip was dragging the suitcase out that she had prepared for me like she was extremely supportive and remains that so i wouldn't be able to do this without her and my kids
00:20:15
Speaker
My son actually became my constant travel companion when he was in school. So I was doing all this work, traveling. James used to travel with him too. He would, he had a, I had companion pass on Southwest cause I was traveling so much and he literally would pack a suitcase and get his boarding pass on his phone and jump on planes with me and go all over the country. That's so awesome. That's cool. Thanks James. All right, James, thanks Scott.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah. The travel thing specifically is what came to mind for me too. When I was thinking of like, where was Carly just absolute rock star in this whole thing? Uh, there was a period of time. I want to say it was maybe 2018 or so where sky you and I were on the road every other week, you know, maybe every three, when we were on a slow stretch. Um, and you know, none of this is important in comparison with what's going on at home for me. And, um,
00:21:09
Speaker
for Carly to give me the flexibility to go and do what needed to be done was a big sacrifice for huge because I left her at home with real little kids to stay on top of everything. And, you know, you guys have been there for anybody who's there now, you know, it's like.
00:21:29
Speaker
When they're real little, it is intense. And if you can get a little hour break, that's a game changer. And when I'm gone for a week doing work, there's not even an hour break. It's no breaks. And so that was really intense for her. And I've always been super grateful that she was flexible and on the same page with me that in the long run, it was good for us to do that. But it was really hard for her.
00:21:59
Speaker
You know, that was back in those days, in the early days, we had to do some scrappy stuff. And I think about some of the stuff that's stupid. I mean, insane. But we got to where we were, but we wouldn't have been able to do it if I hadn't been for the support we had at home. Yeah, that's good. OK, so now we're transitioning into the sell of your business, like been there for
Decision to Sell
00:22:21
Speaker
what? Well, a little bit over eight years. And were you looking to sell? Did it just come by happenstance?
00:22:28
Speaker
Hold on, I got one quick question. The other owners are still involved, correct? Yeah, everybody. Just wanted to make sure. Good question. All right, so tell me, were you guys ready to sell? Did it just happen? How did this all come to fruition? It really was a factor of, I think somebody asked the question, gee, I wonder how much the company's worth. And I think we all, I don't think any of us were actively looking to sell the company, but we're not, you know,
00:23:00
Speaker
maybe behind the scenes a little bit, I don't know. But it was more of a, I wonder what this is worth. And then if it's worth enough, maybe we consider selling and being able to move on with our lives a little bit. And then we had this, we talked to, we were actually been, we actually looked at selling a number of years ago. One of our competitors came to us and very early on and wanted to acquire us and we declined. And
00:23:30
Speaker
Over the years, you get those, you know, you get solicitations from brokers and all this other stuff. And then one time last summer, yeah.
00:23:38
Speaker
was it summer 20, I guess it was the summer 2021. We got a solicitation from a competitor that said, hey, we're interested in buying you, give us, you know, tell us a few things. We were very careful, we told them. I think that sort of piqued our interest a little bit as well. Like, okay, maybe this actually is worth something. That was sort of for me, that when I look back, remember that one, James? And it's like, maybe there's something here. So James, spread your thoughts.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah, I remember so there was there was a couple of times that we were approached kind of cold by somebody saying, hey, we want to talk about it. So that was kind of validating and got the gears turning. And then there was one specific instance where one of the partners had a connection with somebody
00:24:24
Speaker
who could give us some idea of how you might package it up and what it might be worth. And so we kind of agreed together like, yeah, let's just explore it and find out because it's hard to make a decision without any info. We don't even know whether it would be better to sell, better to not sell. So let's just get a little more information. That's really how it started. And then to me, it feels like there was kind of like a 18 month period of just
00:24:50
Speaker
exploring a little bit further down the road until one day I'm signing the paperwork to sell it. Pretty much. I would say that the initial, I think it was like July of 2021 when we got that first ping and that
00:25:05
Speaker
made us all start thinking, maybe this is worth something. So the connection Jordy had, he actually had moved to another, well, he's a whole different story, but he moved to a different company to handle smaller deals because we were not a huge company.
00:25:23
Speaker
we signed with, he told us, here's what I think the potential valuation could be based on these factors. And it was a number that we've said, okay, that would be interesting. Now the reality of the matter was they were off, but in our favor by quite a bit. But I wouldn't say they were off. I think they were probably being very conservative so that they didn't set expectations in a,
00:25:51
Speaker
in a negative way. You would want that direction versus the opposite. Like I'm just like, what? No, no, no. It makes them look really good, right? They give you the number that, you know, that, you know, you're willing to continue down the path. And then all of a sudden the offers came in and you're like,
00:26:08
Speaker
Oh my God. Where do I sign right now? Almost. Yeah. Um, I was probably the straggler of the four and wanting to do this. Do you recall that James? I do. Why do you think that was Scott? Can I say why? I know why it was. Okay. Give it to me. Um,
00:26:28
Speaker
Everyone felt this way, but Scott most strongly was very, very concerned about making sure that the entire team was taken care of and that we didn't do anything that would
00:26:42
Speaker
you know, unfairly net us some gain at their expense. And so we were extremely careful to make sure that we, we believed this deal was good for everybody. And it took the longest. Yeah, exactly. We would not have been in a situation to even be considering selling the business if it hadn't been for every person on the team. And so Scott was methodical and insistent about seeing the big picture of believing this is really good for everybody.
00:27:13
Speaker
Right. Cause there's a lot of people that'll say that, but then, you know, the smoke string comes up and it's like, Oh no, that's the whole, yeah, you, yeah, you, yeah, exactly. Knowledge science can make a ton of money and everybody else got screwed. Yeah. Right. So how did you vet that? Let's say it again. How did you vet that Scott? Like I get your hesitation, but then how do you actually know? I mean, there's gotta be a point of step of faith where you're like, well, it seems like it's fine. I mean, yeah. I mean, when you start seeing,
00:27:41
Speaker
Well, number one, you have three other three of the four are really wanting to do this. And I don't want to be the one that's dragging their heels. But I also want to be very careful to join this point of the team. Because number one, if this fell through, we still need them. We said we still need them now and the buyer needs them. So I didn't want to do anything that was going to mess us up long term if
00:28:03
Speaker
this if this whole thing just you know went to hell right um and at the same time i wanted to make sure that they were you know reasonably taken care of because everybody played a part in this um i mean to be
00:28:18
Speaker
sort of capitalistic about it. The four partners took the risk. So, yes, we got the brunt of the reward. But we were the ones that laid awake at night wondering about payroll at times and things like that. Everybody got paid all the time. And people got taken well care of along the way. This wasn't just a transaction. They got a couple thousand dollars. We took care of them along the way. Everybody got paid well. We tried to take good care of our people. And we wanted to continue to do that even through the sale process.
00:28:44
Speaker
And ultimately, though, when we were trying to decide whether to engage the brokers, I said, sure, let's do this. But I made the partners aware that I wanted to make sure we took care of the team. Right. And I think part of your question was, how did you decide whether they were taken care of? And how did you get this opportunity? And I can say one of the ways was
00:29:06
Speaker
we took control of some of that. So we said, here's how we want it to go. And we actually had in the purchase agreement, some things that were going to happen for our team so that it was like, for sure, taken care of. It wasn't this hand wavy, like, Oh, when they get over here, we'll do this and that. No, it's in the purchase agreement. It's going to happen.
00:29:25
Speaker
It's in writing and you signed your name on it. It's in writing and a couple of the things that we did is at closing we actually we wanted to have some retention bonuses for the team to stay through 2023 and also we have an earn out so if there's if we if we receive any of the earn out to participate in that and also that would act as partially retaining them for 2024. On the initial retention bonus
00:29:53
Speaker
We actually, at closing, have money in escrow for that. It was out of our pockets in escrow, and the buyer is holding that until December 31st, and then they're going to distribute to anyone who is still on the team as of December 31st. It's already worked out who's getting what, and that's all done. In the earn-out, we have
00:30:15
Speaker
also similarly set up. So it's not set aside because we haven't earned the earn-out yet, but the staff will receive a portion of the earn-out and then we already have a defined percentages. So that's all in the agreement and the buyer can't change those things. In fact, they're all going to get pretty healthy bonuses at the end of the year where it's not a pretty ball. Right. So what would you have done different now looking back at the whole transaction?
00:30:45
Speaker
Or would you have done anything different? Maybe you'd be like, I wouldn't have done anything different. Okay, so there are lots of things I would have done differently. We should have had a CFO five years ago, like just pulling together the financial data was
00:31:00
Speaker
A nightmare. God, I have panic attacks from diligence because we just didn't think we needed a CFO. We had an outsourced controller and accountant and all this other stuff.
00:31:22
Speaker
and thought we had what we needed, but we didn't have information that was really important for diligence. I think, I wish we'd done better document management over the years, just so we could have pulled together all of our contracts more easily. And it was just a brute force effort for eight weeks or so, basically trying to pull together. That was just after we signed with Future, we signed their LOI, the letter of intent. Prior to that,
00:31:52
Speaker
for the other interested parties, we were doing, pulling together a multitude of data requests from about July, July and August and part of September last year. Pretty much all I did was data analysis. So I was at a CFO and done that kind of, had a more corporate structure at the company a lot earlier.
00:32:22
Speaker
James, let me add a little color to why that was such a huge deal. So this is a months long process, probably a good six months of the rubber meeting the road.
00:32:37
Speaker
And at some point in that process, when we're working with interested parties, we start to provide numbers around how the business is doing now and the trajectory of where the business is headed. And so at that point, they're not necessarily promises, but it's like, here's what we see the business doing. And of course, the chart is like up and to the right, right? Well, the reason it was such a problem that we didn't have resources dedicated to this kind of stuff is,
00:33:04
Speaker
We have shown this attractive picture of the company is not only going to sustain this pace, but grow at the same time as the most critical people to making that happen are buried in Excel trying to do all this analysis to get the data that they want. So all of us, but particularly Scott, was saddled with.
Transition and Reflection
00:33:25
Speaker
Literally, I'm not exaggerating, probably two full time employees worth of
00:33:30
Speaker
work burden while he's the CEO that's supposed to make the projection that's on paper happen and not dip because he's focused on doing this. That's why that was such a. It wasn't just a two week process. No, it was, I was, there was three or four months, I would say a very intense data collection and analysis and cleaning and all that stuff.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah, we have not dipped except for one month this year. We've been double digit growth year over year. And this is after we sold, we started to see problems in the tech market. So we were incredibly fortunate. So even through all that, we, you know, probably lost some momentum, but the team has excelled in 2023 and we're
00:34:21
Speaker
doing much better year over year than a lot of tech marketing companies are doing. A lot of receipt downturns and we're not. So I gotta ask this because this is just my personality here. You guys have such good growth in building something so great. Is there any part of you that's like, man, just growing this all the way to take on the big dogs would have been fun.
00:34:49
Speaker
No, not for me. I mean, if it says anything, I stepped out of the CEO role back in May and took out a new role at the buyer. I still think media is still part of my portfolio of things I support, but I was ready to do something else.
00:35:09
Speaker
This is a, it's a tough business. And there's a lot more in the way of, you know, regulatory frameworks coming along and stuff, and stuff I just didn't want to deal with. I was through, I was over dealing with legal contracts and okay, it was just, I was doing all, and that's the other thing I wish we'd had, you know, someone that could have handled all of that stuff for me. That's the other hire I wish we'd made. But maybe if I'd had some of that support stuff,
00:35:35
Speaker
It would have been more fun, but it was part of the challenge we had. I talked about the growth being a double edged sword. We saw, you know, 50 percent growth from 2019 through 2022. I mean, pretty much not quite in 2022, but it was significant. But you're just constantly. There's no time to think. Yeah. And we didn't expect to see that kind of growth.
00:36:01
Speaker
And we just hired people as we needed, but it was, it was, there was never time to stop and step back and really consider what the right foundation would be for making it what you're talking about. Take it on the big dogs. Yeah. Um, but, and maybe that would have made me want to do it longer. Um, but because I wouldn't have had to do, and that was tiring. I mean, I was exhausted at the end of the process. I was, you know,
00:36:29
Speaker
It took everything else out of you that you had. And James can speak to that a lot. And then some for both of us, for sure. Yeah. So let's talk through that. So post-cell, how has it been? Has it been exactly what you thought it was going to be? Has it been challenges? Let's talk through that. Go ahead, James.
00:36:53
Speaker
It's been both. So it's been really exciting, seen some cool stuff. One of the things that we were excited about that has materialized is we now have all kinds of resources and connections to do things that as a standalone business, we never could have done. So Aaron, when you're talking about just build it big and take on the big dogs,
00:37:19
Speaker
We now have, let's just say we have a vision to go and build a thing, but it's going to require two or three bolt on acquisitions to do it. Um, we could probably pretty easily do that now. Whereas as a standalone thing to do that would have required either to take on debt, which we had never done and probably would never have done. It's just not kind of the way we operated or take a significant hit on profit.
00:37:43
Speaker
you know, to reinvest in the business, which I'm not sure we would have been willing to do either. So... Or going to P.E., which we didn't want to do either. Yeah. So like none of those options were palatable. So the upside is we've been able to do some cool stuff now. I'll just speak for myself. It definitely has been challenging as well, especially emotionally. I came to find out after it was all done,
00:38:09
Speaker
that even more of my identity than I thought was wrapped up in actual tech media and my role in the business. And when it became someone else's and the relationship was different, that's been hard for me to work through and kind of figure out like what's
00:38:31
Speaker
almost, this sounds like kind of extreme, but like, who am I now? Which has been a really healthy journey for sure. I've learned a lot about myself, got to re-examine kind of my priorities and what's important to me and stuff. But I have to say, I didn't see that coming, at least not as intensely as it did.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, I would echo a lot of what James said. There's been a lot of upside. There's been some challenges. I mean, big companies have...
00:39:09
Speaker
red tape. There's a lot more if there's a form for everything. And there's definitely a lot more opportunity if we wanted to do another acquisition. We pitch acquisitions, we can if we want to, to bolt onto actual tech. And we'll probably do more of that. I was fortunate to take a new role inside the buyer. So I've sort of gotten an opportunity to think a little bit differently about my future than some of the others that are full time on actual tech still.
Future Aspirations
00:39:38
Speaker
And so to James's point, like, I don't know what I would do next at this point either. Like, I think what I need is basically if I'm eventually done with this role, which I don't know, I don't have any current plans to leave it. I'm going to take like a six month break and just figure out what I want to do when I grow up.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I'm going to be 15 a couple of weeks. So there's that, you know, whole midlife garbage coming along to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my, you know, quickly dwindling career. And it's been it's been different. One of the things I have done is impose some limits on my.
00:40:16
Speaker
uh, availability. I mean, I used to work in stupid. I mean, it was just con. It had to, I mean, we had startup. You don't get a chance to know what your hours are going to be. You just work. Two phones now, one's a work phone, one's a personal phone. There are no work apps on my personal phone at all. Um, if I do need to access something for work, I can technically do it on my personal phone, but I've made it intentionally hard. Um, and the work phone stays home on weekends and
00:40:46
Speaker
Um, when I'm traveling and I don't kind of work before, you know, eight 30 or nine o'clock, um, because that's when I am comfortable working. Uh, unless I have a meeting or something that I have to do. I mean, there's exceptions to all of it, but at the same time I've put some boundaries in place and I've done a decent job sticking to them. And that's something I don't think I could have done before.
00:41:11
Speaker
Right. When you're an owner, there is no boundaries. It's just, yep, we gotcha. I'll be there, especially a service industry. Oh yeah. I mean, the client has a problem or something. You got to take care of it. You're in. Yep. You're called James. Are you going to start something new or are you going to like, after all this, like, you know, you, I mean, cause you still got the age on your side. Scott, you have the age on your side too.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yes, I don't know what, but I think I will have to. I mean, what I know from having built actual tech media is it's super fun. I love it. Very rewarding to be a business owner. And so I have no idea what that looks like. It's not imminent, but yeah, I have to imagine I'll build something else. I've got some ideas kicking around. I keep the little list of things I might like to build someday.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I think just edify Scott, just taking a break is not a bad thing. No, no. Here's why. I mean, it's, it's so interesting for me just to hear that because once you start getting into this, especially when you have a sell of a successful sell of a business, it would be easy for my personality to jump into something and be like, well, now I have all this money to help.
00:42:25
Speaker
when you used to just have hard work and determination and grit, where now, especially as much as the emotional toll has taken, it would be easy for me to jump into something and be like, well, I've got money now. I'll just throw money at it. And that isn't always a good recipe for a good, successful business, right? There is sometimes where you just have to jump into it. And so without that healthy break, I don't know if you could really
00:42:52
Speaker
discern what would be a good idea or a bad idea. So I think that's solid. What were you going to say, Scott? No, I agree. The break is also just to not think my brain doesn't stop. Even when I'm trying not to work, my brain is still. And as you know, the last real break, I actual honest to God multi-week break I took was like 2021.
00:43:18
Speaker
So I've taken a week or two. I took two weeks over the summer, but they weren't consecutive, which I wish they had been. And I actually have been, at the minimum, talked to my boss about next summer. I'm taking a month off next summer, assuming I'm still there, which I probably will be. So I need that break that's long enough that I can actually truly recharge because I feel like I'm just
00:43:46
Speaker
forcing my way through sometimes still because I haven't taken the time to actually refresh. Yeah. Right. And you know, it does some, it does take a toll. It just takes a toll. I have anxiety now that I never had before. I used to, I mean, I generally tolerate, I've always been all tolerated. I have a little stress, not always well. Um, but you know, like now I just feel, I can feel the adrenaline in, when I'm, when something
00:44:15
Speaker
happens. So it's like, okay, this is not good. I need to, I need to be, I need to take a break. So I'll just go take a bit of time.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Well, James and Scott, thank you so much just for your wisdom and just like letting us have a little glimpse behind the curtain a little bit in this because one, congratulations to, I couldn't think of a better company and better individuals to get up and then do something in a successful way. You guys have done it. I'm grateful for that. Glad you guys are doing so well. Thank you again for imparting your wisdom. Is there any final thoughts you'd have for our listeners?
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, if I could just tag on to the end of what you were saying, Scott, I think one really big lesson for me out of the whole thing was that I would artificially limit the pace in my next business a little bit in the sense that
00:45:12
Speaker
that lack of boundaries you were talking about, Phillip, where when you're the business owner, especially in the service industry, you just do what you have to do to make clients happy. Well, yes, but there is a point where your ability to do that runs out. And what I found is really tricky is if you don't start that way,
00:45:34
Speaker
You're in a position then where your commitments to your clients and your expectations for profit are such that if you want to pull back now,
00:45:44
Speaker
because you're five years in and you realize, oh, I'm over committed. Well, now your clients are gonna be mad because you're changing your SLAs and your spouse is gonna be mad because you're gonna take a profit hit to do less work. And yeah, I think next time I would impose some limits on myself. And basically if the business was doing better than I was saying it should, then we'll accumulate some profit and find something to invest in or something.
00:46:11
Speaker
I need more margin than I was allowing myself. And I didn't find out until it was too late that I was propped up by adrenaline and hustle. And, um, it burned me. So don't do that. Now, 100% saying like, that was the, you got to take time for yourself because that's all you got. Right. It's a valuable resource, probably the most valuable resource that we have. So yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
Thank you. You've been listening to the UnCommonwealth Podcast. I've been your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I'm Aaron Kramer. Until next time, don't get burned out. Yeah. But also work hard and just give yourself margin. Thanks again, guys. That's all for this episode brought to you by UnCommonwealth partners. Be sure to visit UnCommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.