Episode #535: From Startups to Scale-Brian Anderson Shares Insights on Business Growth

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I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership

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with The Prospect Wizard. And when I say wizard, I

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mean wizard. Obviously, you have a website. This allows

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you to convert

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call, text, or leave a voice mail. Immediately goes to you, your sales

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team, or anyone else in the club instantly. MIT shows a

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study that if you contact the lead within ten minutes, chasing them

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converting goes up nine times that of the average.

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We got the Atlanta clubs on it, Vida Fitness, Gold's Gym,

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Mountainside, City Fitness Philly, College Park.

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Become one of the next halo companies to

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deploy the wizard. It's easy to use. Go to the

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prospectwizard.com. Get a free thirty day trial. Talk to

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my boy, Dave Gallon. He will get you all set up, and let the

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leads flow based on the wizard. Go get them.

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the

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pleasure of bringing back to the podcast a friend of the

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Square, seasoned executive, and someone we are going to

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be working with in 2025 to put deals together

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and explain how that's gonna work. Brian Anderson

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by way of Connecticut on the road in Austin, Texas,

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an entrepreneur who has had success helping other companies

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grow and, about to get his own little company

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platform, in the near future in the halo sector. So, Brian, welcome back

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to the show. Thanks, Pete. Thanks very much. Excited to be

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here. So so let's, you know, go back as far as you want to

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kinda tell us where you started and then some of the things you're working on

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now, as basically a fractional, you know,

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mentor slash c level executive and, you know, where you wanna

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take this to the next level, you know, as you build out the next

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chapter. Yeah. Sure. So, I'll be

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I'll be quick on the past, but, up until,

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let's call it 02/2014, I I was

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easy to define. Right? I ran companies. I was CEO of

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a hand you know, three companies over a fifteen year span.

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Typical lower middle market, you know, 50 to a hundred

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hundred and $50,000,000 companies where I'd go in, run something, grow

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it, typically owned by private equity or sell to private equity,

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exit, and move on to the next thing. Right? But those were long term engagements.

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You know, you're putting everything you have into four or five years to grow the

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hell out of something and and, you know, make it valuable for shareholders.

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So I was I enjoyed that, and I had some really good

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runs. I mean, all all three of those things in fifteen years were high growth

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and nice exits. You know? Like, first one was was in the outdoor

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apparel space, like, 1 to 45,000,000. The second one was in the fitness

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accessory space. It was, like, 30 to a hundred million. The last thing

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was in the action sports space that was, you know,

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like, start up to 20,000,000. So that was all

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wonderful. My life changed a lot in 02/2014, and my

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career did as well. I became a single dad of three

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daughters, which is most beautiful ten years of my life.

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But I made a very I made a very conscious decision in 02/2014

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to put my daughters first and my career second. And,

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so opportunities that came to me after that, you know, I live

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in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is a wonderful place to to be in the private

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equity world and for, you know, for a finance world, but it's not a

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great place to run companies. Right? Because companies typically aren't headquartered there. They're on

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the West Coast or elsewhere. So, so

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anyway, I hunkered down in Greenwich and, you know, put my daughters

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first over the last ten years, pieced together what is

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still a pretty cool career. I've done a lot of very interesting things, but I've

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I I very, very accidentally turned

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into, kind of a fractional interim CEO

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guy. Like, you know, I'll give you an example. Right now and

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I'm I'm kind of embarrassed to say this because, you know, it's it's easy to

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do two or three things, but doing more than that is tough. But right now,

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I'm I'm fractionally running or helping run three different

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companies. Right? One and one is Melt Method in the therapy space.

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One is Your Reformer, an amazing Pilates Reformer brand that's

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launching in The US. Another one is Drop Fitness, which is a,

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which is a, a booking platform, a

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a start up booking platform in the in the studio space.

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And I'm involved with an investment banking firm as an adviser. I'm

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working on three different start ups right now. One is with a

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couple of professional athletes, Saquon Barkley, notably, in the

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youth perform youth sports performance market. One is in this

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women's sexual wellness space. And, Pete, one is even in the

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cannabis space, in the THC beverage and cannabis space. So it's

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kind of crazy. Right? But I get you know, I'm I'm I have a lot

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of friends. People know me, and they know what I've done in the past, and

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and they ask me to be involved sometimes as an adviser, sometimes as a

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consultant, sometimes as a board member, and often to take an

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operating role. And it so it's cool. So, Pete, you and I have talked

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about this in the past, but, like, your acronym, HALO, is

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couldn't apply to me better because I have truly worked across all of those

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sports, fitness, outdoor, active lifestyle. You know, I'm not

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just a fitness industry guy. So I've done all I've done a lot of cool

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things and and have my hands in a lot of pots, but what changes for

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me in the near future is that, next August, my

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youngest of those three daughters will go off to college, which give

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which will give me, the bandwidth and,

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geographic flexibility to pursue my next thing.

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Gotcha. So if somebody was to say, you know, hey. We brought

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Brian in here. You know, here's some of the things that he does that

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are kinda either unique or, like, has his own playbook on but, you

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know, what what a couple of things that that that you highlight is, like, here's

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how I approach or attack a situation. And, you know, I'll go in

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there and kinda necessarily prescribe something that, you

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know, is kind of just what was done before, but I really need to understand

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the DNA of a company and then the culture of a company, and now, like,

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this is how I kinda drive things. It's a

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really good question, Pete. To me, the very simple answer is the first thing I

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have to figure out is what they need. Right? I mean, when you when you

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run companies, you have to be involved in all functions. Right? You don't have a

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choice. So I've got pretty decent experience at every function

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from soup to nuts, from legal and finance and accounting and growth and, you

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know, growth and revenue generation and marketing and digital and, you know, you

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you have to be involved with all of it. Right? The boring back end stuff

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and the sexy front end stuff. So I have enough

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experience at kind of any function of a company to contribute and

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help out. So when I get involved in a company, the what I really need

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to understand is what are they good at and don't need my help, and what

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are they what are they lacking and and could use my help. And then I

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kinda work with the founder or the board to figure out, okay.

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You seem to be good at these three or four things. You seem to be

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you could be better at these other five or six things. Let's focus on those

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and and, you know, and and figure out how to make the company better in

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those ways. And so it really depends on what a company needs. Sometimes they need

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to grow. Sometimes they're a mess operationally. They need they need cleanup

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and and, efficient operation. Sometimes it's people. Right?

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Sometimes the team is culture's wonky or the,

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members of the team, some of them aren't performing, and it needs to be cleaned

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up and and improved. Got it. And and when you take a

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look at some of the success stories on the

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fractional side, you know, give us a little bit of insight into

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that went in there. This was the problem. You know, I was able to

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figure out a way to to address that

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or deliver that, in a way that caught buy

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in. And, and and basically, the founder

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then or or whoever you your you know, the stakeholders

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were basically say, hey. Look. Even though he's fractional, like, he's helping

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us drive the business externally, Yeah. You know, versus

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internally. Yep. Really really good.

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There are a couple that come to mind. So last year, I had the privilege

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of working with p volv. You're aware of p volv. Right? It's kind kind of

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a darling in the industry now, franchise business. Great low

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impact, fitness modality, and I had the pleasure of working with them for about

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six months. Same thing. You, like, sat down with Julie Cartwright, who's a

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beautiful leader. She's amazing at what she does. And just just looked at the

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organization, like, what are the weaknesses here? What can be improved? And

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plugged into a few holes to help out. And, you know, like, one example

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was sourcing. Product sourcing, they did they had beautiful product, but they were paying

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really high cost. So, you know, we worked on, reducing their

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sourcing cost and got their you know, delivered a solution that got their cost of

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goods down more than 20%, which is gigantic. Right? And

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there were other functions of the business, you know, with which we were involved as

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well. And I did that as a team. I did that with Moe Iqbal and

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and also Deborah Struggo, both OGs in the industry, and we kind of

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each helped Julie at various functions. Deb sort of dove into

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franchising and and studio operations. Moe dove into the tech

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side, you know, and and after a few months there, you know, Peeval was just

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operating a lot more smoothly and and good shape and and improve their pro form

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a EBITDA by many millions, which was cool. So, like, that's an example.

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Right right now, I'm working with, you know, a a US

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startup, a a company called Your Reformer that makes,

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Pilates reformers and and digital solutions for Pilates. They crushed it

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in Australia over the last couple years, are just now launching in The

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US, and they're really good at d to c. They're they're really

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buttoned up at digital marketing and customer acquisition and building their list and selling

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to d to c. So they didn't really need me there, but what they need

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is exposure to the commercial market in The US. Right? Gym chains and Pilates

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studios should be buying their product and using it because it's, you know, it's pretty

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awesome. And, you know, worked on some legal things and worked on some

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finance things. So, it's kind of a it just depends on what the client

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needs.

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This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this

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company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from

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retailers that allow you to incentivize your

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members without having to do zero down and one month

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free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts.

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What you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts,

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that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.

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So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards

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vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.

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They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be

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able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your

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club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and

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outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them

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to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded

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properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.

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You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is

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real.

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The one thing I find unique about you, and you can either validate this or

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not, is, you know, you kinda go into these fractional

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opportunities and basically say, hey. I'm gonna drive change. I'm gonna try and

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move the needle, and then I'm gonna figure out a way where you don't need

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me anymore. So is that, like, a mentality? Because a lot of consultants a

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lot of people from the outside are basically trying to, like, lock in recurring

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revenue and saying, like, hey. You know, here's what I need to do, and let

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me, like, create a new assignment for myself where you seem to

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contact me on an episodic basis and be like, yeah. I kinda

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I I I I went in there. I got it done. And now I'm getting

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my I'm, like, working my way out of it instead of, like, working my way

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deeper into it. Exactly. I

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love it. Dude. So very much so. But, dude, you know what I love about

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this? You're a Harvard MBA. I'm a Wharton guy. What is

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the first thing you learn about capitalism?

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For profit companies exist for the benefit of

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their shareholders, period. Right? For their

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shareholders, not their employees, not their consultants, not their leader,

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not their whatever. It exists for the benefits of the share for the

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benefit of the shareholders. That is my job. Right? If you're a CEO of a

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company or if you're hired as a consultant or if you're in any role, your

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job is to increase valuation because that is what was right for

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shareholders. And, you know, if all of us thought that way, companies would

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probably be a little more successful. But when I go into a situation, you're

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exactly right. I'm not trying to perpetuate my own deal. It's the opposite.

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I wanna impact the business as positively as possible

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in a short period of time, get the company operating better and

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making more money, and then get out of the way unless they unless they continue

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to need me. And it's not good for me maybe to not have an ongoing

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engagement, but it's what's right for shareholders. Right? That's adding value.

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You know, like, the election was three days ago. This is a

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perfectly analogous thing. I'm not gonna talk politics because I hate it. But but one

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of the things I can't stand about politics is that almost all of those

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people, all they're trying to do is get reelected. Right? Everything is

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about trying to get that next election or get that promotion to the bigger position

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or whatever. And that just so they're not they're not doing what's

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right in many cases for the country, for the state, for the city, for the

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town, for the whatever because all they're doing is trying to get sound bites for

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the next gig. And when I work with a company, I don't wanna do that.

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If it's you know, whether it's right for me is not the point. What's what's

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what's important is what's right for shareholders. So I wanna I wanna improve

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EBITDA, help out, and get out. I'd say every year or

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two, I I I get signed up on a deal, and

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then I I realized, like, this this this is not gonna work.

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And and I get their wire information. I send them back to a retainer.

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Have you been in situations where you're like, hey. This sounded great.

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You kinda said everybody's open to change. Everyone's open to, like, a a

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fresh way of looking at things that you got in there. You'd be like, look,

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I I just don't just either from a cultural standpoint, from, like,

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a product standpoint, you know, it sounds good, but, like,

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it's just I I don't think it's gonna happen. Can can you give us a

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little insight into certain things that you walked into and said, hey. Look. I got

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an exit case left here because I don't think you're gonna be happy, and I'm

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definitely not gonna be able to to execute. Does that happen?

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Damn, Pete. You're good at this, man. I I I have been in

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I have been in situations like that. I'm not gonna bring up specifics, but, yeah,

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there it happens. Right? Sometimes it's cultural fit or a rub or, you

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know, these things aren't good. Another another, reason for which that

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happens sometimes is, you know, what it takes to get

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a company created and off the ground is often a very

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different skill set and very different mentality than it takes to get it from off

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the ground to something bigger. I'm not good at the prior of those two things,

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but I'm pretty good at the latter of those two things. But in order for

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a founder strong founder led business to work well with

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that person who's gonna try to take it to the next level, you've gotta collaborate

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well. Right? And I've had some wonderful situations like that. Sue

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Hitzman at Melt Method, who you guys just interviewed recently. Sue is that

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strong founder. I came in to help the company get make the company better. We

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work really well together because she didn't have pride of authorship. You know, she sorta

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let go of the functions that, you know, on which she trusted me to make

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it better. But there have been other situations where the founder just can't let let

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go of their baby. And Mhmm. You know, and it's it's a little tricky because

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if you're in an operating role, if you're in a w two operating role, then

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I'm, you know, I'm gonna do what's needed. Right? But if you're in an advisory

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or consulting role, you're not really in a position to mandate what happens. All you

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can do is kind of advise and and guide guide the guide the shareholders

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on what's right. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Right? So

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so that leads me to to to the question of, like, when we work

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together in 2025, we say, okay. Let's identify platforms.

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Platforms come in different shapes, different sizes in revenue and

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EBITDA. On my front, I've invested

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in seven businesses, and they're all like series a or

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like, you know, friends and family hybrid series a.

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And what I've learned, unfortunately, from experience, like I say all the

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time, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want, is if

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you don't really have enough EBITDA for me to hire a team,

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or if you have, like, a great software platform, but you don't have any

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sales guys, and you don't have any money and and your investors are

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kinda worn out or, like, you just can't keep going back because you're, like, boy

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who cried wolf. Like, that doesn't really constitute a platform. So

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as you've kinda looked at, like, all the businesses you've worked with, either from a

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revenue standpoint or from an EBITDA standpoint of where you're starting

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from, do you say, look, I can't really affect change unless I have x amount

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of revenue and x amount of EBITDA? Because to me, that's like

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an Anderson platform, and anything else is, like, subscale. And, like,

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I can't really I can't boot I'm not a bootstrap guy. Like,

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I want capital. I don't wanna redeploy the capital. I wanna get the return on

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that capital, and I don't want somebody to say, you know, well, we we're we're

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on an austerity budget. So if you're on an austerity budget, maybe I'm

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not the right guy to come in here, and maybe I'm not trying to take

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a a distressed business and turn it into a healthy business. Maybe

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I'm trying to take, like, a healthy business that, you know, is, I'll

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use, like, a, you know, football analogy. You know, went eight and eight last

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season. I think it's still 16 games. You know, we're nine and nine, whatever they

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got on the new NFL format. And, like, I'll take that

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that that team, and I'll I'll make them twelve and four. You know? And they'll

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get a buy into plus. So so as we think about, you know,

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what do I wanna run and, like, what's the investment criteria?

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Where where do you wanna start from a platform? And then

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where would you say, like, the largest platform for me, you know, where I could

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actually, like, double or triple the size of the company? Then I wanna start a

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$50,000,000 EBITDA company, you know, because we're gonna have to overpay for that, and

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that's probably pretty healthy. You know, I wanna start at three. I wanna start filing.

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What what what's your, like, sense of, like, size criteria?

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Yeah. I I mean, I'll give you the size question, but I wanna throw an

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extra element of this. Right? You're right. I I'm not a bootstrap. Yeah.

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I'm I'm not a bootstrap guy anymore. Twenty years ago, I would have been. Twenty

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years ago, you would have been. Right? But you kinda get to a point where

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you you've done a lot and you know the resources to pull in to make

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things better, but you need capital to do that. You need working capital. Right? Or

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or you need cash. Right? So but the one element you missed there,

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like, so what's the right revenue number? What's the right EBITDA number? Or

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is there a capital infusion that can get you there? Right? Because that's a big

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part of it. Right? A company can a company can be not profitable. It can

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have negative EBITDA. But if it as long as it's got the outside capital to

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give you what you need, then then it's okay. So, yeah, I I'm,

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you know, I'm kinda beyond the point of, you know, 27 year

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old scrappy crazy startup. Just make it happen out of thin air.

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It I admire those people, and I'm not that person anymore. So I need some

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scale. To does it now, Alex, try to go to your answer on size? I

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I'm a, you know, I I I'm not I

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I'm not really very interested in going sort of sub 10,000,000 in revenues

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unless, you know, unless it unless I detect a lot of growth

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potential. Right? If something's a $5,000,000 thing and I really think it

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can be 25 or 50, sure, I'd take a crack, but, you know,

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I'm I'm kinda more comfortable with ten, twenty, and up. You know, I've done

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companies that were 50, a hundred, up to a 50, and I and I'm comfortable

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with that scale. But, you know, I think my wheelhouse, you know, it's

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not the pure startup world even though I'm involved in a couple right now as

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an adviser or a board member. And, you know, and now that I'm

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freeing up next summer, right, in terms of my personal life, I'm freeing up

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a private equity group like El Catterton or North Castle Partners or whomever might

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call on me and say, Brian, we've got this thing. We want you to turn

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it around. It's 200,000,000 in revenues. Go for it. You know? And I'm open to

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that. But I think my wheelhouse is kind of in that 10 to 50

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range. You know, it's sort of $1,020,000,000 dollar company that we think we can

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triple. And by the way, if you can triple revenues from 10 or 20, you

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know, you manage expenses carefully, and EBITDA might be able to 10

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x, right, or five x on that. And and that's a you know, I like

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that because at at the end of the day, it's all about the exit for

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investors and and for a leader. Right? So, like, Pete, so if you and I

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do that thing in 02/2005. Right? You either buy a platform

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in 02/2025. Right? You either buy that thing that's $10.20, and we

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say, hey. We think we can get this to 50, or we

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buy four things that are 10,000,000 and say, okay. We just

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acquired 40,000,000 in revenues and a little bit of EBITDA, maybe 5,000,000

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in EBITDA. But if we can grow that 40 to 60 or 80,

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even just 60, but but we can synergize expenses on the back

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end and get EBITDA from five to 15, now you've got a

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valuable company. Now we sell that thing for a hundred million dollars. So,

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yeah. So scale scale either needs to come from what what's

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existing now to give you the right resources or or it's gotta be

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you know, or the core product and the core thing needs to have good growth

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potential.

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This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose. Higher Dose

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364
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and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

365
00:22:19,990 --> 00:22:22,970
And, obviously, we're gonna do a lot of work together and and identify

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subcategories. But what where's your passion or, like, where

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where do you kind of intuitively think? Like, hey. There's some opportunities

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in the halo sector that either have great product but don't

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have good, you know, brand awareness or, you know,

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affinity. Or Yeah. Parts of this industry, like, just they

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don't intuitively make sense on how it works, or maybe they think

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they're, you know, maybe they think they're a technology company that but but they're

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basically like a outsourced, like, managed service.

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Yeah. Yeah. Good question. I I don't I don't think of

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it, and I'm not thinking of it that way. And you and I need to

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have a good brainstorming session and talk through this. But, what what

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excites me is trends, like, long term trends in the

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industry that that we know will have big legs in the

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future. Like, I get I'm gonna give you a couple of examples right now. So

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in the fitness world, and and by the way, I'm not limited to the

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fitness world because I think there's a very strong, you know,

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wellness, whatever that is. Right? I mean, wellness is thrown around a lot. But the

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shift from fitness to something much broader and and

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wellness is gigantic, and it's happening in every corner of the industry. So that's

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part of where my focus is. Right? Like, fitness used to be go hard

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or go home, have a 12 pack, look as good as you can,

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etcetera. Now fitness is has moved from cardio to

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strength because we all realize that having good, you know, good strength and

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muscle mass helps us as we get older, and it helps burn calories. It

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shifted from eastern mindset to western mindset.

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Right? Like, holistic eastern mindset things, and I know you're

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big on that, is, you know, the the world now gets that and understands it.

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And it's not just yoga and, you know, sort of mind body things, but there's

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a, you know like, look at look at psychedelics. Right? Look at the

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acceptance and research going into mushrooms and psilocybin and other

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psychedelics. It's it's mind boggling, you know, mind boggling. Like, it's

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like five, ten years ago, that was the biggest taboo. And now the

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researchers from MIT and the government are looking into this stuff. Right? And

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it's pretty amazing. Another trend I really like, Pete, is

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the shift away from alcohol and to

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THC and other things. Right? Mhmm. We don't talk about that in fitness very

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much, but I've got a I've got a theory on this. So just just to

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sort of frame it, the alcohol industry has been in decline for a number of

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years, like, to the point where they're, you know, they're not in trouble. They're giant

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companies. But, you know, when you're running a giant CPG company, minus

406
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5% a year is not a good thing. So lot of lot of strife right

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now in the alcohol industry. So why are people quitting quitting alcohol? So a

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lot of people are quitting alcohol or significantly reducing alcohol intake.

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Why? Here's my theory. My theory is that wear is that the

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fitness industry has driven it. And what I mean by that is

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everyone with a wearable device, Oura Ring, Apple

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Watch, Whoop, all of them, you realize that when you have a few drinks,

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you sleep like shit. Right? You have terrible sleep night sleep. Your sleep score was

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a 62 instead of a 90. Right? And and seeing that over

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and over, I think people have said, I want I I this is not good

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for me. I'm not sleeping well. It's bad for my body. And so

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so jump back to the business world, the nonalcoholic beer industry

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has exploded the last few years. THC beverages

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and anything cannabis related has absolutely freaking exploded.

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I don't know if you read this recently, but there are now more users of

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cannabis in The United States than there are users of alcohol, which is crazy.

422
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Right? Yeah. Pleasant I'm pleasantly surprised by that.

423
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Nice. I love it. Yep. I know I know you're already I know you've been

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there for a long time. So those are the you know, I love trends like

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that. Also, women's wellness. Right? Women were

426
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overlooked for such a long time, and and

427
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physiological needs are different. And menopause and what you know, hormonal

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things, like, all that stuff. I'm not an expert in it, but I have three

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daughters and a mom and a sister and loads of female friends. And that

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is an area that is receiving so much attention now. Some of

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it is is health and physical and wellness and mind body, and some of it

432
00:26:25,085 --> 00:26:28,845
is moving toward the sexual side. And it's all you know? So those

433
00:26:28,845 --> 00:26:32,669
those are the kind of trends that interest me. You know? It's it's, you know,

434
00:26:32,669 --> 00:26:36,429
not another gym and another way to lift and things like that even

435
00:26:36,429 --> 00:26:40,030
though I I still love that stuff. But moving toward wellness, moving toward

436
00:26:40,030 --> 00:26:43,809
holistic, moving toward, you know, away from alcohol, things like that.

437
00:26:44,054 --> 00:26:47,414
Yeah. I'm I'm shocked that people drink nonalcoholic beer.

438
00:26:47,414 --> 00:26:50,934
Like, you know, if I could have, like, a, you know, some kind

439
00:26:50,934 --> 00:26:54,695
of low calorie, you know, energy drink over I'll

440
00:26:54,695 --> 00:26:58,054
take that over a a nonalcoholic beer, you know, a hundred out of a hundred

441
00:26:58,054 --> 00:27:01,559
times. So that old totals back in the day. I was like, what's that about?

442
00:27:01,700 --> 00:27:05,220
Anyway But but but that's a lot a lot of these CHC beverages, man, are,

443
00:27:05,220 --> 00:27:08,900
like, really tasty. They're like a high noon with no alcohol, but they've got

444
00:27:08,900 --> 00:27:12,525
40 calories or 50 calories, and you get a nice little happy buzz from it.

445
00:27:12,845 --> 00:27:16,145
Yeah. You know, look, I mean, a lot of private equity funds traditionally,

446
00:27:17,165 --> 00:27:20,945
have had prohibitions on investing in those types of

447
00:27:21,725 --> 00:27:25,085
markets or products. It's kinda interesting when you see, like,

448
00:27:25,485 --> 00:27:28,590
I was looking at a newspaper. I was I think it was somewhere in,

449
00:27:29,549 --> 00:27:32,990
I think it was in LA, and I saw, like, an ad for, like, 20%

450
00:27:32,990 --> 00:27:36,830
off, like, ketamine. You know? I'm like, ketamine. That's like special care. That's why my

451
00:27:36,830 --> 00:27:40,555
kids take it, like, at at, like, rave parties. And now it's in

452
00:27:40,555 --> 00:27:44,395
there as, like, a PTSD, you know Totally. You know, anti

453
00:27:44,395 --> 00:27:48,155
depression, you know, treatment. So I'm with you. Well,

454
00:27:48,155 --> 00:27:51,295
look. This is the kind of recap I wanted to do, give a little people

455
00:27:51,355 --> 00:27:54,175
an insight into how you how you think about opportunities,

456
00:27:55,649 --> 00:27:59,169
and and some of the past, you know, success stories. So,

457
00:27:59,730 --> 00:28:03,250
you'll look forward to getting this podcast out. And if there are private equity funds

458
00:28:03,250 --> 00:28:07,009
that are, looking for a top executive to back, we're gonna go

459
00:28:07,009 --> 00:28:10,635
and try and find a deal or deals, on

460
00:28:10,635 --> 00:28:14,475
paper and then and then bring them to get funded and not participate in auction

461
00:28:14,475 --> 00:28:18,315
processes, you know, and overpay. We wanna go in there with a thesis, and we

462
00:28:18,315 --> 00:28:21,535
wanna go in there and say, hey. This is what we think we could do,

463
00:28:21,595 --> 00:28:25,190
you know, with this company where it is today versus what it should look

464
00:28:25,190 --> 00:28:28,550
like, you know, in three to five years. So I I love that, Peter.

465
00:28:28,550 --> 00:28:31,910
And and we know the investment world loves that. Right? Because if you sit in

466
00:28:31,910 --> 00:28:35,190
a desk at a private equity group and your staff is looking at a hundred

467
00:28:35,190 --> 00:28:39,035
books coming through every month and you're just bidding against, you know so

468
00:28:39,035 --> 00:28:42,875
people like you and I know the industry. We know people. We have friendships of

469
00:28:42,875 --> 00:28:46,495
people who found these companies and own them. So being able to bring proprietary

470
00:28:46,555 --> 00:28:48,955
deals to the table, I think, has a lot of value. I look forward to

471
00:28:48,955 --> 00:28:52,790
doing it with you, buddy. Awesome. Alright, man. Have a good holiday, and, congrats on

472
00:28:52,790 --> 00:28:56,630
what you built on the, family side and the fractional side. And now

473
00:28:56,630 --> 00:28:59,690
we'll, we'll we'll get one to call the the yes. This is Anderson.

474
00:29:00,230 --> 00:29:02,835
Fully big deal. Sounds good, buddy. Awesome.