We look for two components for potential, growth and shape, but growth is always the most important. Shape can come from operational and technology improvements, but the most effective way is from scale. That is why growth is so important and the primary driver of potential. This may mean a business that is in a category that is underdeveloped, or one that has an opportunity to expand into a tangent category, or in some cases scale where it plays today. Ideally, we are looking for businesses that we can envision growing 3-4X over the next 10 years.
Many of the strengths we bring are our operational know how, but today those are best utilized by guiding rather than doing. We have made a choice that we will buy businesses where we will hire and develop leaders within the business to run the day to day operations. To do that most effectively we need to understand the business, customers, associates, needs and opportunities. To gain that understanding we will be hands on to learn and then step back to guide and support.
Today we do not have a set number of businesses in mind, but our thinking is somewhere between 3-5 in the next few years. The biggest factor is not how many, rather what are the “right” businesses for us to acquire. We want to find synergies between the businesses we acquire, but most of all we want to be excited about the business. When we find ourselves walking into a room starting a sentence with “You know what else we could do with company A….” We know we have hit on something.
We are finding that Texas is big and there are a tremendous number of opportunities for us to consider with so many thriving cities. With that said, we are also open to businesses in Georgia, Florida, and other states in the southeast. After living in Atlanta for nine years, we realized that moving back to the south was a priority for both of us and where we ultimately wanted to live.
Grace and luck and love. We have both been blessed with tremendous career journeys that have led us to roles and opportunities that we only dreamt of when we were younger. Our paths have been shaped by mentors and experiences that helped us grow and succeed professionally and financially. Personally, we supported each other in our career journeys, but the travel and sacrifice take a toll and we knew we were missing out on time as a family.
Our goal had always been to retire at the same time, move to a city in the south and start or buy a business for our second act. In 2020 as we reflected on our life during the COVID pandemic we realized that our options were broader than we thought and that we could start buying businesses now. That led us to the decision that we wanted to choose Dallas as our new home to start that life. We feel very fortunate to be able to make a choice and change like this and know that it is truly a gift to be partners in life and business.
There are really two main reasons, interest, and capability. For each of us, we have learned over time what really interests us and that is also where we like to spend time and most often that is more B2B focused. Therefore our interests lead us toward manufacturing, distribution, B2B services, wholesale, and logistics. The second is capability, and for each of us our strengths lie in the systems, operations, strategic and business development areas. So, we never say never, but at this point those businesses aren’t on our radar for acquisitions.