Why Acquisition.com Changed Its Deal Strategy — Transcript

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1. 0:00I'm going to say I don't do sell
2. 0:01courses. I don't, no.
3. 0:03>> Okay.
4. 0:03>> I was going to say do what like do
5. 0:04people ever mistake you for like a
6. 0:05self-help guru?
7. 0:07>> 100% yeah. So the whole idea after I
8. 0:09sold Gym Launch was like
9. 0:11I heard this thing was like what if you
10. 0:13what if all your free stuff is better
11. 0:14than everyone else's paid stuff? And so
12. 0:15because I came from the knowledge space,
13. 0:17it's like a lot of my stuff looks that
14. 0:18way. And so but everyone's like he just
15. 0:20wants you to buy his courses. I was like
16. 0:21I don't have one. So but like that's
17. 0:23just the nature of it and it's fine.
18. 0:25Um
19. 0:26yeah, so we
20. 0:27I make content and it's all B2B. So like
21. 0:29we're a hardcore B2B brand.
22. 0:32And so
23. 0:33>> Yeah. And so people So like what we have
24. 0:35is So if you're like how do you fast
25. 0:36forward to like today?
26. 0:38So I'm co-founder of School which is a
27. 0:41software platform for people to start
28. 0:42businesses online communities etc.
29. 0:45And so that company's very big.
30. 0:47Um we have 17 million users and like
31. 0:50it's probably very
32. 0:51>> one's that one's big. So so people
33. 0:53people can start their own version of um
34. 0:56uh
35. 0:57spreading knowledge, right?
36. 0:58>> It's in that's creators anybody
37. 1:01>> You've taken what you've uh
38. 1:03figured out works. You made it work for
39. 1:05you and then you made it so everyone you
40. 1:07democratized what you did and and
41. 1:11everyone can do it.
42. 1:12>> Yeah.
43. 1:12>> By selling what they know.
44. 1:14>> Whatever they know. Yeah, it's cool
45. 1:15though. It's like moms making jars like
46. 1:17here's a group on how we do jars and
47. 1:18pickling stuff and like there's
48. 1:20everything under the sun. Like there's a
49. 1:21school for it.
50. 1:22>> Pickles?
51. 1:22>> I mean there's hundreds of there there's
52. 1:24so many like communities
53. 1:25>> start as cucumbers.
54. 1:26>> Yeah. Everyone starts like does their
55. 1:28own thing. Like there's a crocheting
56. 1:29community that like there's just I mean
57. 1:31it's everything. It's whatever you think
58. 1:32like everyone assumes it's like oh is it
59. 1:33just like you know is it crypto and B2B?
60. 1:35It's like not really. The other half is
61. 1:36just consumers doing like consumer
62. 1:37stuff. Like there's BMX groups. There's
63. 1:39you know there's everything you can
64. 1:40think of.
65. 1:40>> Could I make a school on on Pokémon
66. 1:42cards?
67. 1:42>> Def million percent.
68. 1:44>> Really?
69. 1:44>> There's probably already like 20. Yeah.
70. 1:46That's a super like that would be a
71. 1:48super community friendly
72. 1:49>> You how much was the domain school? Cuz
73. 1:51it's with a K.
74. 1:52>> Yeah, less than acquisition.com and ACQ.
75. 1:54>> How how much was acquisition.com?
76. 1:56>> Uh 400.
77. 1:57>> 400k for acquisition.com?
78. 1:59>> Yeah. And then ACQ was 500.
79. 2:02I don't
80. 2:03Am I allowed to
81. 2:05So, ACQ.com I've been I've been I've
82. 2:07been eyeing for a long time. It had been
83. 2:09owned since 1996 by a Fortune 100
84. 2:11company. I can't say the company cuz
85. 2:13they said I couldn't like say it. But,
86. 2:15I've been trying to get this domain and
87. 2:16I finally got it. So, I was like really
88. 2:18excited.
89. 2:18>> Sick. How? How? Cuz I know sometimes
90. 2:20with domains you you got to get get a
91. 2:21little creative.
92. 2:22>> Yeah. I mean, it was just like
93. 2:24reaching around and getting to somebody
94. 2:26who's in the company and getting a
95. 2:27broker together and then figuring it
96. 2:29out.
97. 2:29>> Whoa.
98. 2:29>> But, they had they had just denied every
99. 2:31other time and then like they just
100. 2:32finally were like, "Yeah, okay, we'll
101. 2:33sell it." And I was like, "Awesome."
102. 2:34>> I think I think what you do is awesome
103. 2:36because yeah, when I first saw you
104. 2:37popping up, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure
105. 2:39if you were another one of the
106. 2:40>> Me neither.
107. 2:41>> multi multi What is it? Multi
108. 2:43>> Multi-level marketing marketing like
109. 2:46>> Yeah.
110. 2:46>> No, we um not that. I mean, I mean, I'll
111. 2:49just I'll I'll be transparent say like
112. 2:50we took out 40-ish million
113. 2:53um in distributions before we sold the
114. 2:54company and then we sold the company for
115. 2:5646. Um and then we started the family
116. 2:58office, which was just going to be the
117. 3:00holdco, acquisition.com. Um I started
118. 3:02making content with the idea of like I
119. 3:04wonder if I can attract businesses so I
120. 3:05can do like minority deals. And that was
121. 3:07kind of the whole thesis in the
122. 3:08beginning was like I'll just do these
123. 3:09kind of, you know, 10 20%ish chunk
124. 3:11chunks of companies.
125. 3:13Um that ended up sucking. And so, I did
126. 3:15like 24 deals in 24 months and then just
127. 3:17like got rid of almost all of them minus
128. 3:19four. And then I was like, "Okay, um
129. 3:21let's not do that." And so, then it was
130. 3:23like, "Okay, we need more meaningful
131. 3:24stakes of fewer far better businesses."
132. 3:26And all of those companies I didn't put
133. 3:28like any brand or anything behind it. I
134. 3:29just like invested in them.
135. 3:31And so, it was like, "Okay, school, this
136. 3:33is a this is a deal that makes a ton of
137. 3:34sense. Let's do this." Um
138. 3:37and then like that's probably more how
139. 3:38we're approaching it now is like because
140. 3:39we're also pretty good at building
141. 3:40business. So, we started our advisory
142. 3:41practice in January of last year in
143. 3:432024.
144. 3:45Um
145. 3:46and that's now a very big business.
146. 3:47>> What do you advise on?
147. 3:49>> It's companies
148. 3:51>> Oh, it's it's open. It's SMBs. So, it's
149. 3:53like 500,000 on the low side to 50
150. 3:56million is kind of like the sweet spot.
151. 3:57So, if you think like you've got like
152. 3:59Gartner or you've got McKinsey, you've
153. 4:00got Deloitte, you've got these kind of
154. 4:01like they serve the I'd say like the top
155. 4:04end of the market and then there's
156. 4:05obviously like the guru the guru world
157. 4:07that's kind of like underneath and we
158. 4:09kind of serve like low mid market. And
159. 4:11so, you know, people fly out here,
160. 4:13they'll meet with our directors that are
161. 4:15like for paid media or for content or
162. 4:17for whatever it is they're doing. So
163. 4:18like maybe you have a $14 million
164. 4:19plumbing business and you're like, all
165. 4:21right, well, how do I scale this thing?
166. 4:22It's like, all right, you need a
167. 4:23director of this and this is how the ad
168. 4:25should look for recruiting the specific
169. 4:27role and you know, your supply
170. 4:29constraint so you need more technicians.
171. 4:30This is how we go recruit these
172. 4:31technicians, that kind of thing.
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