In The Trenches Steve Divitkos

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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Constellation Software is one of the world's most widely followed and admired software companies, having acquired upwards of 500 lower-middle-market software companies since its founding in 1995. Our guest today, Mike Dufton, is the CEO of the Volaris group, one of the six major operating units within Constellation, that itself owns upwards of 200 portfolio companies.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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After many years of using company stock options as attraction, retention, and incentive alignment tools, I’ve come to appreciate their merits, risks, and possible alternatives. I intend to share these lessons with you today. More specifically though, I will argue that while options do have their time and place, there are often much simpler and less expensive alternatives that arguably have a greater impact on attraction, retention, and incentive alignment.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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Today I'm joined by entrepreneur, CEO, and best-selling author, Rob Dube. In 1991, Rob co-founded imageOne,
a managed print services business based in Oak Park, Michigan, that has won countless awards across countless publications for it’s growth, culture, and employee engagement, among many other accolades.

 

Today we discuss Rob's newest book, Shine: How Looking Inward Is the Key to Unlocking True Entrepreneurial Freedom. This book is all about how CEOs can manage their inner worlds, which stands in stark contrast to most business books, that focus almost exclusively on how CEOs can manage their outer-worlds. Rob co-authored the book alongside Gino Wickman, who is the author of the widely-read Traction, the book that introduced the world to the Entrepreneurial Operating System ("EOS").

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠





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Many searchers understandably tend to have very similar questions and areas of uncertainty. Indeed, in most instances, I had these very same questions and areas of uncertainty myself prior to raising my own search fund in 2012. As a result of the frequency with which I'm asked these questions, I've presented each of them in today's episode, and have also included my opinion on what the answers may be. Some of the questions include:


Constructing a cap table
Differences between the Canadian and US search ecosystems
Is the search fund market too crowded/saturated
The trade-off between price and business quality
What the best searchers do in their first 3-6 months
Proprietary vs. brokered deal flow generation
When to visit a prospective seller
Success rates of industry agnostic searches
Having an industry & geographic focus
Homogeneity among search investors re: industry preferences
How to spend your first week as a new CEO
Should I create a 100-day plan?
How to communicate the ownership change to customers

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠




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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠




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Today I'm joined by Entrepreneur, Investor, and Author Mike Michalowicz. In addition to being the author of 9 books, Mike is himself a serial entrepreneur, having founded, operated, and successfully exited several companies across his multi-decade career. He now spends much of his professional time writing, speaking, and coaching CEOs and entrepreneurs on the various systems that helped make him successful, including (and especially) his "Profit First" system, a highly tactical guide to organizing your entire company around achieving endurable profitability.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠




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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠




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Today I am thrilled to be joined by two guests that, without the risk of hyperbole, have changed my life in more ways than I can count. Royce Yudkoff & Rick Ruback are both professors at the Harvard business school, and co-teach two wildly popular courses called “The Financial Management of Smaller Firms” and “Entrepreneurship through Acquisition”, both of which focus on how to acquire, finance and operate your own smaller firm. They also co-published the widely read book, The HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press, which acts as the definitive source of wisdom and guidance for a countless number of acquisition entrepreneurs