Too often we think there are just one or two roads to being an Entrepreneur. We think of the lemonade stand kid who hits it big, or maybe we think of the “accidental entrepreneurs” like Mark McLain who shared his story on a previous podcast. But not as many know about the idea of a Search Fund, where an entrepreneur enlists investors with the purpose of acquiring a company and dropping in as the new day to day leader. 

There's a whole unique set of circumstances with this approach that we’re going to talk about today. And what makes this episode special is that we look at this idea through the lens of brothers. Nick and Giovanni Gallo have gone about this together through their business, ComplianceLine in Charlotte, North Carolina, and their experience is one we think you’ll be fascinated to hear more about. 

If you’ve never heard of a Search Fund but are interested in learning more, or if you’re already familiar with this approach and eager to hear the ins and outs of how it works, today’s episode is for you.

As always, thanks for listening!

Useful Links:

ComplianceLine

iHeart Radio Interview with Giovanni Gallo

Martech Interview

OnePraetorian

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.

 

William [00:02:48] Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. We are really excited. I'm personally really excited to have Nick and Gio here today. This might be Henry Rusty. Greg is our first brother team on the podcast.

 

Rusty [00:02:59] That's right. We've had.

 

Henry [00:03:00] It is.

 

Rusty [00:03:01] We've had. Husband and wife. Yep. Now first brothers.

 

William [00:03:05] Yeah. I think the first brother team. So while also the best brother the have had we all said we had a husband wife. We also had father and father and son.

 

Henry [00:03:12] That's right. That's right. Yeah. But not mother and daughter.

 

Rusty [00:03:17] So you can claim the best two brothers for now. So it's good.

 

Gio [00:03:20] Yeah. We're gonna hold on to that and brag about it.

 

William [00:03:23] All right. So the best brother team we've ever had on Faith driven entrepreneur. Nick and Gio, really excited to have you guys. So they have run this interesting investment vehicle, which we're gonna get into called a search fund. They are now running a company that they found that they acquired something called entrepreneurship through acquisition. So instead of coming up with an idea, they went and said, we are entrepreneurial. We'd like to run companies and innovate. But we want to start with a company that's already been running for a while that has profits, revenues, already found product market fit. And we think we can take that and grow that in ways that the prior owners were not able to. And so we're gonna learn a little bit about that here in a minute. But first of all, you probably don't go down that path unless you had an entrepreneurial spirit, maybe not from birth, but from some point you had to discern that one, you both had an entrepreneurial spirit. And two, that you wanted to go on this journey together. So just take me into that a little bit.

 

Nick [00:04:13] Well, I think our entrepreneurial journey kind of started when our dad came over from Cuba as a refugee after Castro took over. And like many refugees, we grew up in an entrepreneurial household. So that was just always kind of the way that our parents worked. And, you know, that seed was kind of planted in us at a young age. And we started a little car washing businesses and selling and blow pops on the bus and stuff like that. And we really grew up in a business that our parents started when we landed in Indianapolis. That was a credit card processing business. And, you know, we joke around that our family crest would say, see what you can do to help on the bottom. So we were there on the weekends scrubbing toilets and taking out the trash when we were young guys. And then as we got older, we got to take on more and more responsibility.

 

[00:04:57] And because we were the first people in our family to go to college, our parents were always very open to us coming back and implementing things that we were learning in class. And that was a really exciting thing for us. You know, as young guys, to feel like we were moving the needle on the business, implementing some strategy or some systems or some things like that. And this one summer, we kind of did a little mini consulting gig. That's what it felt like. And that's when we really saw kind of some things change at the business. We saw some bottom line expansion. We saw kind of people's lives improve a little bit. Obviously not just from us, but it was just all of us kind of working on the business as a team. And that's when kind of the dream for us to, you know, to do this together when we grew up was kind of born. So that's where we kind of got our start. And so we just kind of started pursuing that. This is before we knew about private equity and investment banking and all those things.

 

[00:05:47] So we just kind of focused on trying to build a tool box full of tools that we could apply to, you know, an opportunity if we were given the chance to do it.

 

Henry [00:05:58] Here at FDE we serve a wide range of different types of business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs, many of whom have similar backgrounds and stories early on like you guys do. Many of them have entrepreneurial stories that were birth, as was the case with your parents, which is awesome. I love that. And I think that that's important for us all to think about is we model that behavior actually for our kids. What that means, since so many entrepreneurs have entrepreneurs whose parents mine weren't. But that was the case with you and so many others. What's really unique, though, about you guys and where your path diverges little bit is in this concept of a search done for many, the idea of a search fund, it's going to be a completely foreign concept and they might not appreciate unique path that exist to get people into a business. Can you explain our listeners what a search fund is and exactly how it works?

 

Gio [00:06:45] Yeah. So for us, it obviously started with our parents and we grew up around this business and we saw that it was really a great thing for not just our family, but the employees that our parents could give. Opportunity to win the customers they serve. And Nick and I had this dream of, well, wouldn't it be great if we could find a business and improve it the way that we've seen our parents improve this business. So we were kind of off on that path to try to figure that out. And we kind of made our way through professional services and banking and private equity and all that stuff until we found this thing that ended up being in a lot of ways exactly what we had been looking for. So what a search fund is. It's a special kind of fund or acquisition vehicle that's focused around some investors back in entrepreneur or a team of two entrepreneurs like us. And they say here's some money to cover, some expenses spend. The standard is up to two years looking for a good business. And then once we find that, we show that to the investors and they say, OK, that's a good business, we'll invest in it. Those investors put the additional capital into the business. And really the big thing you hear is all of that is focused around us transitioning into one business and fully dedicating our lives and our workweek and all of that into growing a single business. So it's kind of this mix of it kind of looks like a private equity fund on the front end. And then, you know, we as the principals become operators and start to grow this business. And for us, it was this really nice mix of the entrepreneurship that we had been a part of, of the transformation that you can drive and the growth that you're looking for and things like that. But, you know, we're kind of starting with a little bit of momentum by coming into a business that's been operating for a while. And there are a bunch of things around that that we like that we can get into. But, you know, that's the structure where you get funded upfront. Find a business, kind of confirm it with the investors. They're your investor committee. And then, you know, we kind of line down the fund operations and we've been operators now for three years and complaints compliance.

 

Henry [00:08:33] So I think of the name fund. Right. And so you're raising a fund. You're effectively you're selling units in yourself. So you're going out to these investors and saying, my brother and I are going to buy a business. We want you to help us to find it, which means that we need to we need to fund our expenses while we do it. But we want you to invest in us. So effectively, instead of making investment in a company, although I might give you some broad parameters of what that company might look like. I want you to believe that my brother and I are the guys to run a business, and that's probably where you get some of your heritage and how you grew up in the business. What was it like when you were you were raising money, though, as you talked about the type of business that you guys wanted to buy? What kind of parameters did you offer with that?

 

Nick [00:09:20] Yeah, that's a great question. So the search fund's been established for a while and these investors have kind of honed the list of criteria. And I'm sure I'll forget a couple of them. But what they're really looking for is a low risk platform for people that they think can execute to go in and to grow. So what's a profitable undermanaged business? That's maybe the first one. The second one is a recurring revenue business. So, you know, you can kind of divide all businesses into project based or recurring revenue based. Recurring revenue would be the guy who mows the lawn. The project base would be the guy who gives you a new roof every, you know, 20 or 30 years or whatever that is. So a recurring revenue business just inherently is more stable, something that has also a low customer concentration. So, you know, it's like what are all the things that are risky in a business? You know, let's not do any of those things. So usually it's a service business. It's a low asset base. There's not a lot of fixed assets involved and something that's kind of people driven. And then obviously, that should all then be housed in an industry that has some nice tailwinds in it or has some nice sort of secular trends that you can sort of jump in and help scale and get those benefits.

 

Gio [00:10:29] Yeah. And we can talk more about those, you know, those specific requirements or, you know, those obviously flex based on who's investing and things like that. But part of the concept is when we're coming into a business, you know, we'd like to think of it as we're doing a heart transplant and a brain transplant at the same time by doing this transition from the old owner team. And we really need, you know, a healthy patient to be able to do that type of transformation on. So this is not a turnaround. This is not a startup that's, you know, still trying to find its market. This is not something that's, you know, really dependent on a single contract and stuff like that. So, you know, everyone kind of works around those criteria in different ways. But because of this transition that's happening with bringing some new entrepreneurs into a business, transitioning usually from the founder founder who's built it from scratch, you try to, you know, set some criteria around, you know, some guardrails around some of those risks that that might, you know, kind of let keep you from going off the road in the first couple years.

 

Nick [00:11:26] Yeah, we're trying to find a train on the tracks, not a car on the road.

 

Henry [00:11:29] Got it. Okay. Okay, that's helpful. So walk us through that train on the tracks that you guys found with complaints line.

 

Nick [00:11:36] Yeah. So Complaints Line is an outsourced compliance business. We seek to be a true extension of our clients compliance teams. And so the business has a couple of product lines that have a few extensions. But at a high level, we operate a 24/7 whistleblower help line to take fraud, waste, abuse and.

 

[00:11:54] Text calls for clients, and we also have a specialized background check business specialized in health care and their software components on each side that we interface with our clients through.

 

[00:12:08] So a call will come in because, you know, maybe a doctor is drunk before a surgery. A nurse sees them. They're going to report it. And then we can sort of escalate that to the people who can do something about it immediately. And then on the other side of the house with the background checks. It's an ongoing check. Our clients engage with us to make sure that they have no bad apples in their basket, particularly around Medicare and Medicaid sanctions.

 

Rusty [00:12:29] So on the people side, what made that attractive, man? What was the mindset of the entrepreneur? What was the mindset of the team that would say, hey, guys, come on and help us, because it's unique what you're doing. I mean, you don't see much of this really with entrepreneurs you see in private equity, but it's not private equity. Like you said, you're not trying to fix something as much as you are trying to help grow something.

 

Gio [00:12:51] Yeah. It's a great question, and, you know, I think a lot of the dynamics that attracted us to it are things that the original founders had done for the first 20 years that they ran it. So we started become interested in compliance and looking in this industry because we see that this industry is really going from what used to be just kind of risk management into really driving excellence around, taking care of people, compliance, driving culture and really making an impact and not just kind of keeping people from being abused and harassed, but really building a healthy culture. And we saw a lot of the ways that the founders had run this business before, really positioning this company to do that well. So, you know, they had built long term relationships with their clients. They had taken good care of their people, you know, paid people well.

 

[00:13:33] And really, they were solving around or focused on really making sure that we helped our clients do the important work that they're doing. These are complaints professionals in H.R. practitioners. And some of the things that, you know, this company did that really attracted us to it is just the way that, you know, the the investment in people and kind of making sure that we retain good employees and gave them training and gave them a platform to grow their careers so that they could focus on serving the clients.

 

[00:14:01] And their needs was strong in this company. The way that we really have a client first attitude, not kind of a profit, first attitude of finding ways that we might need to, you know, kind of invest in the relationship upfront or, you know, be flexible in adapting our service or, you know, the benefits that we provide to the needs of a specific team and what they do. And ultimately, you know, I'm so glad you asked it, because all of the technical things that we talk about, of the processes that we put in place or the investments we make in technology and all of that stuff, it really matters to the extent that it makes one's life better.

 

[00:14:33] And that really started with the founders. They had come from a kind of compliance officer and compliance consultant background.

 

[00:14:40] They knew that these things that were engaged in around reporting issues, having, you know, a safe third party that you're not going to be retaliated against and being able to make sure that the bad apples are not in the basket. They understood how that impacted an organization kind of on the front lines, you know, to the extent that the compliance team is challenged to do it without them or, you know, just kind of people are suffering when this stuff isn't done right. They really focused on delivering a good service that leveraged technology for kind of the repeat activities and that human element, you know, that caring, intelligent person who can make the right decisions as we're handing something off to our clients, just that people first impact focused mentality was started by the prior owners. And it was a big reason or at least part of the equation as we met them. And these owners were kind of looking to transition into retirement. And, you know, this was kind of what we were looking for. You know, when we spend our time looking for a company, they cared about their people.

 

[00:15:36] They cared about their customers. They didn't want them to be kind of swallowed into this behemoth and become a line item that, you know, oh, this is a synergy when it's really, you know, a person who is not going to have a job anymore. They want to make sure that their people were taken care of. And the standards that they had put in place in the business continue to be part of the culture of the company. And that was always something that was front center for us. So really, that heart of the founders that had made the business great. They wanted that to stay. And, you know, we obviously wanted those things that made them successful to continue. And, you know, we want to be able to be good, you know, good take caretakers of this company and the client relationships. And it's worked out well so far.

 

Rusty [00:16:15] Yeah, that's cool. So from the other side, if I'm an entrepreneur and I've been at it for a while or maybe haven't been at it for a while, but I'm there. What what should I be thinking about? I mean when when am I ready to talk to a search fund?

 

Nick [00:16:32] So that's a great question. I would say, you know, whether it's before you start talking or after you start talking very quickly, you need to like figure out what you want. And what I mean by that is there's this is a multi shaped thing. You know, it's not just the money that you get on the way out, but it's maybe you care about legacy. Maybe you care about the people that are involved. Maybe you care about the client relationships and the reputation that you've built and all those other things. You know, people fall on different parts of that spectrum depending on what their priorities are. So, look, people have, you know, garbage businesses can sell it. But I mean, if you have a good business, there's going to be buyers for it.

 

[00:17:07] And so, you know, the fact that there is sort of a disproportionate I mean, there's a lot of buyers and then there's just you you're one business. You kind of get the opportunity to find somebody who I think looks at the world the same way you do. So, look, if you're just care about the bottom line, then you find a guy who's just going to pay the biggest price. And, you know, you leave your team in the rear view and you, you know, drive off into the sunset. If you care about other things, then, you know, you need to find a buyer who cares about those same things. If you care about your people and you don't want to have a bunch of heads rolling, once the new guys come in, then you know, you're going to sacrifice something. It's like buying a house, right? You need like, you know, what are the three trade offs like, you know, location price and, you know, the house itself or something. So you've got to kind of balance what those things are. And the sooner you can get, you know, if you're a seller or you're an entrepreneur or thinking of transitioning out, you have to really kind of you know, what I try to talk to folks about is when you're an entrepreneur, you're always putting yourself last. Right. You're trying to solve a problem for a client or trying to solve a problem for an employee. And you just kind of get into this habit of making things work. And usually when you make something work, you're putting yourself kind of at the back of the stack. Well, this is kind of an opportunity to sort of step out of that bubble and kind of really not think about anybody else for a moment and just think like, well, what do you really want? What do you want in terms of the story of your life and what your next steps are and so forth. And then I think once you can list out those criteria, they're gonna be a mix of sort of hard and soft. It's gonna be a mix of, you know, dollars and sort of intangibles. Then you can start to better way out. The potential buyers, you know, against that that list of sort of unique criteria.

 

Gio [00:18:38] Yeah. Did you maybe just add another angle to that? I think if you're an entrepreneur and you've been run your business and, you know, you've had some some form of success and, you know, it's been going well, but you're you know, let's say you're a year or two away from wanting to transition into something else. And that might be retirement or that might be. You know, I'm a startup guy and this company is kind of gotten to this stage and I want to go start something else. I think if you if you're starting to think about that next move, there are a few different options. You can, you know, just kind of sell and walk away. You can try to kind of, you know, run it part time and then go do something else. The search fun kind of fits in maybe somewhere in between that where, you know, you there's gonna be a transition period. So you're going to you know, we we talk about passing the baton and, you know, we're gonna be we're gonna be running with both our hands on that baton for a period. And then we're gonna transition out where, you know, in our case, Nick and I were kind of the new captains of the ship. But if you have some time for that transition and you really want to to make sure that you launch, you know, this next phase of the company in a way that works well for you, then I think that's a great time to start talking to a searcher. You know, if you're trying to leave next month, then, you know, you're you're probably not going to be a fit for this model because that's not the type of hand-off that we do. But, you know, if you have some runway and, you know, I think a big thing that Nick hit on, like you care about what happens to the company after you're gone and you know, you want to be part of making sure that that goes smoothly than this, you know, I mean, we've seen this happen dozens or probably know that it's happened hundreds of times of just having a really good transition and making sure that the team that you handed off to that, you know, you're entrusting, you know, a lot of people that your business is your baby. Right. And you're kind of entrusting your baby to someone who, you know, is going to do a good job with it.

 

Rusty [00:20:23] And I've got one last question. William, I know he wants stock as well, but what's more attractive? Is it more attractive that someone comes to you or that you find them?

 

Gio [00:20:33] I think it's a good question. I don't think that there's a rule around it. I think that, you know, there's gonna be enough evaluation that it's going to be based on, you know, the business and the leader and the culture of the business in the market and things like that. I think, however it happens, searchers would love if people were just calling them up and saying, hey, I love what you're doing, can you come in and do it here?

 

[00:20:50] But, you know, ultimately we're solving around the business and that has the thumbprint of the owner on it. And, you know, then it's kind of matched up against the market. But, you know, by and large, the search fund model has a lot of, you know, what people call proprietary searching, where searchers are calling up business owners and trying to meet them through their network or conferences. So they're out searching and looking. And obviously probably an entrepreneur finding a searcher is usually going to happen through like a broker or a banker just because that's kind of how the market works right now. So however it happens, if there's, you know, an entrepreneur who runs a business and he's done well and has a heart to really care about it. You know, wherever we meet, it's going to work or it's not going to work based on the merits of the business. And, you know. Part of the owner.

 

William [00:21:33] That totally makes sense and out of transition to taking over the business, right. We talk a lot on this show about culture, right? Entrepreneurial journeys are all about people, companies building all about people. You guys have a really unique lens that you inherited, a culture. So what did God teach you as you thought about taking over a culture, as you thought about moving into that new world? How did you guys think they're loving people while serving people well in an environment where so much already existed and was in place?

 

Nick [00:22:02] Yeah, that's a great question. I think, you know, when we came into the business, as you can imagine, there was a lot of fear in place. There's a lot of fear in place around people getting fired and us coming in and taking benefits and doing that typical private equity playbook. So I think our approach of kind of trying to come in and be servant leaders, our approach from day one around us, trying to preserve the legacy. And, you know, we made a lot of promises on the front end. And, you know, trust is just built over time. Trust is built through a bunch of interactions. And I think as folks got to know us and got to know our heart and know that, you know, we really did care about them and we really did care about preserving the legacy of the honorable owners that are still part of our group. And these guys, you know, they built a great business and, you know, we adopted these people as our own. And I think just over time of us kind of trying to be servants, I mean, the first thing we did that as a symbol was to kind of flip the org chart upside down. And that, you know, me NGO are the root of the company. And our job is to push nutrients up to the trees and the branches so that a lot of verbs can come into the branches, the birds of the plants, obviously. Right. But you know, we didn't come here and we started saying this from day one. We came to compliance land to take a bunch of people up the mountain. We did not come here to get carried up the mountain. We didn't come here to be, you know, worshiped as the leader. We came here to roll our sleeves up and work and to serve people and to create opportunities for folks and to kind of pay some of the things forward that had been paid to us and turned to the opportunities that we've been presented with. And I think that sort of genuine servant mentality that we have has allowed us to affect the culture in a positive way. And also, you know, build that trust that is really the foundation for any culture. Joe and I talk a lot about your culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage there is. But it takes a lot of work. And to build a genuine sort of self-reinforcing culture where it's not just one champion from the top or in our case, the bottom screaming at everyone, hey, this is how we do it. But it really transforms into everyone feels more safe and everybody feels more aligned. And everybody, you know, everyone is a servant. Well, that's a lot easier if we're serving everybody. And I think that sort of servant leader model as a foundation piece allowed us to, you know, build the culture that we have now.

 

Henry [00:24:13] But I think that's a great illustration. I love the fact that you guys are reversing in the trunk and that the employees are the branches. And then you said, obviously, our customers are the birds. And I didn't get what you're saying there for three or four. But then, of course, yes, it is obvious. I love that kind of healthier ecosystem mentality. Question I got for you guys as you've been doing this for a while is I'd love for you share maybe a mistake or two that you made along the way.

 

Nick [00:24:37] Oddly, we got zero. So no mistakes. I'm just kidding.

 

Henry [00:24:45] Well, I don't know if you're a kidding it or not. I didn't know. I didn't know. But I'm glad to hear that you are kidding. What are some of the things that you've learned and maybe it's in the search fun process or maybe it's in the entrepreneurial process that you think might be a good warning or an encouragement for guys that are found in your footsteps?

 

Gio [00:25:00] Yeah, I think it's kind of tied to something William brought up about, you know, what God has taught us about our people and how we can serve them well. Nick and I really came into this because we've seen in our lives and our family and beyond the power of business to really transform people's lives and give them opportunity and help them put their God given talents to work. And we really like this forum as a place for us to serve a bunch of people. We all spend most of our waking hours at work, or at least more than any kind of other segment of our life. And Nick, and I think that if we can build a good business, create a good place to work and help people advance the community and the family and the other things that they serve through building their career. We just feel like that's kind of our calling. And as we got into the business, I think we came with that idea. But, you know, we had that plan and then we kind of got punched in the face, as they say. So, you know, what that was around was Nick and I kind of felt like coming into this business, we just needed to kind of give people an opportunity to grow. And we were really excited about saying, hey, here's how you can grow. Here's how you can make more money or take on more opportunity or, you know, kind of whatever the payoff is for growth in a job. And we realized that we really needed to serve people kind of individually or, you know, maybe more broadly as we build our business, we need to make sure that this is a place where different types of people can grow. Nick and I are very driven and we're entrepreneurial and we've always just wanted a shot to kind of go at it and make something happen. There are a lot of people on our team who maybe don't have that confidence or no one ever believed in them or they just don't think they can do it.

 

[00:26:30] Or maybe they just want a stable job because. You know, they're not trying to kind of get promoted four times in five years. They just want to make sure that they have something stable. And part of what we learned is that if we're really trying to serve these people, we got to kind of serve up what they need. And we've learned and, you know, we continue to learn how we can have tracks and structure and individualized coaching and all of those things to make sure that this is a place where a bunch of different people can shine and find a home and grow in the way that they need to. And I think we came in at first kind of hoping that or thinking that, you know, just kind of talking about a certain payoff that was attractive to us as entrepreneurs and kind of the type of family culture that we came from. That, like I said, we always wanted to shots. We're like, hey, guys, you all got a shot. Not everybody was ready for that. And people are in, you know, different situations and different stages in their growth. And I think we've really learned how serving our employee base is not kind of a base of one swath of people. There are a bunch of individuals and they're all kind of going on their own path and have their own challenges. And as we can as leaders and, you know, more institutionally and culturally as a company, make a place for those people to grow. We've seen things work a lot better. And, you know, that's fine if people are on different paths and different growth curves and different places.

 

Henry [00:27:41] Nick, for people who listen to show and send cash, I love this idea. I go ahead and raise money. I go out and buy a company. What are two or three things you'd give them as counsel? Now that you have the ability to look back on your experience and have done it?

 

Nick [00:27:53] Yeah, that's a great question. I would say you've got to pick an angle. You need an angle and you need to be a differentiated voice in the den of, you know, X, Y, Z, capital and Acme Capital and stream broke capital and all these other guys that are out there looking like a typical private equity fund.

 

[00:28:10] I think it's a marketing game at some level. And, you know, you buy things because they're novel and you can sort of rationalize it logically, right. You buy with your heart in your head. And so I think establishing a clear angle that's a differentiator is a big one. I think just getting out there and doing it and just running after it, you know, not keeping your foot on first base, trying to run a second base, but kind of jumping in with both feet is is really important. And I think just keeping your eyes on the prize and trying to recognize that this is a long game and, you know, the downside is not really that far down. I mean, again, that's easy to say because we think I've landed in a company and, you know, things have been going OK. But I think the more fear that's involved with the process, the less successful it becomes. If there's desperation when you're talking to an owner. He might not know what it is or she might not know what it is, but they can just smell something a little fishy. And then you're not going to get the actual opportunity to have that authentic conversation and even open up the possibility for, you know, a real connection to explore whether the key fits in the lock, so to speak. So I think as hard as it is to not feel like you're walking a razor wire and man, if this doesn't work, what am I going to do? And this is a big social failure because all my family and friends and my in-laws thought I was nuts to raise this fund. And is this even a job, all those kind of like social things. If you leave the door cracked too much, you leave the window cracked too much. That sort of negative win is going to blow through the house and it could end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think that kind of remaining positive and just realizing that, like I said, if it doesn't work out, there's a great story there regardless. You know, it's an interesting novel story. If you go and find another job that you've done it and you've been out there and you've been looking at hundreds of companies and, you know, regardless of what happens, I'm just saying that, you know, sometimes guys don't want to take the leap because they're scared of, you know, their wings not working. And I'm just saying that if the wings don't work, you still land on your feet and it'll be a positive experience regardless.

 

William [00:30:01] OK. That's interesting. You guys spent what if I may, right? Twelve 18 month search for a company and then you bought the company. What's kind of one thing that comes to mind as you've been at this for four or five years? It could be during searches, the whole process. Right. It's the whole entrepreneurial journey you've been on during the season. What's one thing the gods taught you? That's just kind of maybe you didn't know before you went down this road that God really used this experience to sharpen in you and to take it to another level in your in your hearts and in your lives.

 

Gio [00:30:29] Yeah, I love that you ask that, because there are a bunch of things. And, you know, to a certain extent, any searcher you talk to, whether they're a Christian or not, they'll talk about that search as kind of a crucible because it tries, you know, you've kind of bet everything on this, like Nick would say, and you're kind of you've got to jump in and try to make it happen. You know, I think two things that stand out to me are, you know, one, realizing kind of how much of my identity and my hope was tied to like my professional performance. You know, Nick and I have both been always driven. And we kind of came from this family that, you know, our parents gave a lot. You know, throughout the time we were growing up to set us up and encourage us and raise us well and stuff like that. So, you know, we always felt like we should make something of that. But, you know, I've realized when you for example, you're nine months or 18 months into your search and a deal dies. I start realizing how much of my hope and how when you see how kind of viscerally concerning that is to yourself, you know, you start to realize, like, you know, how much I have vested in this.

 

[00:31:25] And, you know, I think God helped me through that time to kind of walk through like, OK, my hope is not in this. My hope is in the Lord and. You know, he's going to provide no matter. Kind of like Nick said, like whether this whole thing works out or not, whether that deal or this whole search thing or, you know, we're not at the finish line yet. We're still running this company. He's going to provide for that. And my hope needs to be in that. And, you know, there's just another part of it of just understanding once I kind of release. Obviously, I'm still working on it, but release that kind of clutching of my professional performance for kind of the quality of my life or the value that I have an m kind of realizing how to walk with God through those questionable times when, you know, like I said during the search deal dies or while we're operating and something goes wrong at the office or there's a client issue or whatever.

 

[00:32:10] Being able to walk through those trying times and seeing God take us through it and also seeing that he is faithful and he is merciful and he is loving and, you know, just being able to. People say kind of hold this with open hands or hold it more loosely. You know, we're still driven and trying to make this happen, but just trying not to have my identity threatened every time something goes wrong. I think it might not go right. You know, I'm definitely not there yet, but just kind of realize that is more of a personal and visceral concept.

 

Nick [00:32:36] Yeah. And I would just add to that. I think something that I've learned is that my sphere of influence or my perceived sphere of influence and my sphere of control are vastly different things. Right. And there's really just not much that we can control. So much of it is serendipity and timing and all these other things. All you can really control is your own attitude and you can just do the best you can to put the bad on whatever pitches coming across the plate. So kind of Trujillo's point of letting go of some of that or just recognizing that there's really so little that you can control. All we can do as owners and operators of this business is to create an environment that people can succeed in, try to build a culture that is going to like reinforce the values that we think are important and the rest is going to be up to God and up to the people in our company and so forth. But just kind of letting go of that and understanding that I can't control whether a deal dies or not and I can't control whether this client leaves or not. I mean, if there's something outside of our control and saying you just have to be able to roll with those punches a little bit more, and it's actually kind of freeing to realize that.

 

Rusty [00:33:39] And my last question is, how much of your faith do you share as you go in and you talk to these companies?

 

Nick [00:33:48] I think it comes up if it comes up, you know, and right like, you know, we don't have the fish on the business cards or anything like that. I think it comes up implicitly. And I think if guys can read between the lines, a conversation comes up, and if not, then it doesn't. But either way, we just want to kind of put it out there and be, you know, be living it out or at least be trying to.

 

Rusty [00:34:08] And then on the flip side, you're looking at values and principles.

 

Gio [00:34:12] Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely looking to get involved in a business where, you know, we're not going to be tempted or need to compromise our morals and our values in order to keep the business running the way that it is. And so there's that kind of layer of we need to be involved with a high integrity entrepreneur or owner because that owners fingerprints are on the business and the size that we're looking at. Generally, you know, less than five million dollars need to die or something like that. Those owners, their fingerprints are all over the business and their heart is the heart of the business. So we need to be engaging with someone who has a high level of integrity and we're not going to have to completely transform the values of the business. There is definitely that piece of it. And we don't necessarily have to talk about Christ in order to like have that discussion about what is right. And so no matter who we engage with, we're always looking for those things. And like Nick said, there were a lot of times where we were having a conversation with an owner. We went out for a visit and we end up talking about their faith. And, you know, it happened with the company complaints line that we ended up buying. But, you know, for us, for various reasons, we weren't really leading with that. Like Nick said, kind of putting the fish on the business card or anything. But, you know, I think that we're definitely not trying to hide it. And, you know, we're trying to live our professional life the best way we can't on it, Lord.

 

Rusty [00:35:24] That's great. Very cool. Which you guys are doing.

 

William [00:35:27] Amen. Amen. So, yeah, as we come to a close, what I'd really love to pick your brain a little more time is let our listeners in to where God has. You may maybe in a scripture, you know, during the season can be something you learned this morning. God works in miraculous ways, could be a passage or a verse that you've been meditating on during the season of life, even if you wouldn't mind just taking our listeners into your life a little bit and the journey that God's got you on that there is living word.

 

Nick [00:35:53] Yeah, I like first John 5:14. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he here with us. And you know, I've just been reflecting on the fact that you have not cause you asked not and there's probably a lot more that I could be, you know, asking for and relying on. And there's probably a lot more sort of stress that I'm taking on that I don't need to take on or again, that differential between what I can control and what I can't. To the extent that I'm living outside of that bubble, that just creates a lot of stress, negativity and all those kinds of things.

 

Gio [00:36:25] Yeah. And I think for me, you know, something I've been working through a breakthrough recently is it's part of my personality. It's part of how I'd run my life. And God bless me, threw in a lot of ways, but, you know, I'm very achievement oriented. I'm very task oriented and very goal oriented. You know, there's a temptation to kind of put a lot of my stock and my hope in those things. And, you know, I've been praying through how God can help me stop. You know, I think I've colored a lot of those things that I want to achieve, these things to honor God. And I want to do well in this job and be a good steward of these, because that's you know, that's what I've been entrusted with. So it's not necessarily impure, but, you know, maybe have a tendency to focus a lot on those in my kind of heart goes to those achievements or the outstanding task list and that kind of stuff. And I've been praying through how God can help me kind of see my relationship with him more clearly and more upfront than those things that I see as serving him. You know, like a 6 8 would be a verse kind of tied to that where I'm trying to figure out, you know, how should I make this decision? Should I hire this person? Should we invest in this thing or whatever? I get very wrapped up in that task and I get 6 8 says, what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. And that's what he requires of us. And I want to kind of be more upfront focused on walking with him and less kind of focused on trying to muscle listening to the ground.

 

Nick [00:37:39] I mean, that's it. That's all that's required. So everything else is on the periphery and optionality and all that other stuff. So, again, it's just kind of freeing to understand like, well, what's really important. And then all these other things kind of don't matter. Yeah.

 

Gio [00:37:49] And God's going to provide for those things that are outside of my control or even that I mess up. I mean, there are a lot of heroes in scripture who mess things up. Did it make the right call? But God is faithful and he's just and he's merciful. And, you know, all of those things are gonna happen, you know, through his sovereign will, even if I, you know, make the wrong call on partnering with a vendor or whatever it might be.

 

William [00:38:11] Amen.

 

Rusty [00:38:11] It's a blessing because now we know where you're really searching for.

 

Nick [00:38:16] Nailed it.

 

Rusty [00:38:17] And that's the right thing.

 

Henry [00:38:19] Good being with you all. Thank you for your time. Grateful for you.

 

Nick [00:38:22] Thanks for having us. This is great.