My deal juices are flowing and it’s exciting and a full circle moment for me, really Went from a few years in the deal making business (investment banking) -> to a decade plus in the analytical business (fundamental HF), ivory tower environment and deep thinking -> back to the deal side, earnest shot at buying a small business last year with both brokered + off market approach, direct response outreach relationship building focused (enjoyed this) -> greenfielding a niche recruiting business using a lot of the learnings from M&A deal sourcing and relationship building, with very deep analytical / domain expertise / system focus I’m back baby. This is essentially human capital deal brokerage, but I’m trying to build something that is much higher touch and intentional than the Wild West of “cold calling based on vibes”, resume shotgunning generalist recruiters, who will face enormous pressure going forward More like exec search for the middle market. Very strategic in GTM and match making. An inch wide and a mile deep. Early days but some small wins and it’s exhilarating

I feel like an investment banking MD right now, dictating a markup into Claude like a mad man for a client pitch tomorrow morning I decided to whip up a strategic market positioning slide last minute, hire compensation football field and all This is all happening while I sit on the couch next to my 5 year old, who is watching "Dancing with the Stars" My Claude analyst doesn't tire, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't complain about being stuck in the office We are on comment turn #143 and the night is only getting started

It seems very, very hard to believe But yes indeed, my fledgling little one-man recruiting LLC has received cold email inbound from some capital advisory firm in the UAE Who knew I would make for a sovereign wealth investment target? Guys, the market for private assets is still red gleaming hot, because now it's not just PE competing with searchers, but apparently overseas institutional capital, too Obviously, I want this to go straight to APA before any diligence

Imagine young Bobby Graham, all sweaty, on top of you Wrestling your face towards Codie Sanchez’s iPhone camera while he chokes the life out of you “ADMIT IT!!!“ he screams, bulging veins on his glistening forehead, his purple BJJ belt fluttering in the wind „Admit that you were wrong and that IT IS POSSIBLE to own a passive boring landscaping business with 70% margins that pays you $5K - $10K /mo on top of your W2!!!”

Got another candidate today with zero LinkedIn presence shocked at my cold calling them HOW DID YOU FIND ME, HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE I LIVE, I NEVER GOT A CALL LIKE THIS Guys and gals, this one was really quite simple I look up the free ZoomInfo org chart because I'm cheap and I don't want to pay for their crap And then I go to US Phonebook and I look up your cell # and home address And then I call you anywhere between 15 and 20 times There's no magic to it

I swear the gym at 4 in the afternoon may as well be a happy hour at a bar Everyone so freaking slow Everybody standing around chit chatting It’s a DISASTER I got a thousand reps to go mothertrucker Get out of my way I swear I’m witnessing the downfall of Rome, of an entire civilization, in slow motion, right in front of me Haven’t you guys heard? The robots are coming for us all, so y’all better hurry up and get more mechanical REAL QUICK

Buddy of mine (trades background) just terminated LOI yesterday on a contractor deal he'd first seen in February 8+ months of work, $10K+ of service provider costs out the window Brutal Deal basically collapsed over net income on reviewed P&L coming in $150K lower than on preliminary financials that broker SDE was based on (allegedly, broker had known but not brought this up to him for a few months) On these small deals, that's a HUGE issue Called him an hour ago. He's taking it well. Landmine avoided. Already at his next broker meeting. I am sure an experience like this washes out 60%+ of first-time searchers. Incredibly frustrating. This guy? He attacks the next deal with a sharpened knife. GOOD.

“Build, Don’t Buy” How Former Acquisition Entrepreneurs Choose the Pain of the Startup Game Over 6X Levered Small Plumbing Cos with 3 Trucks 😂😂😂

Starting from scratch is insanely hard (going through the slog right now) But for a lot of these small SBA deals, it really is a buy vs. build decision You have to be truly “built for build mode” (not just a clever pun) But if you belong to the choice group of people who can execute (kudos to Brandon), your risk adjusted returns on capital may just be way better starting from scratch

Spent the weekend in McCall, a scenic lake town about 2 hours north of Boise. A family weekend, and a weekend of quiet reflection. Hard to believe that we passed our one-year Idahoversary a couple of weeks ago. Time flies. Moving our family here remains a top 3 life decision (getting married to my wife is #1, and having kids #2, of course... what do you expect me to say). For a long time, we had this very strong, intuitive gut feeling about Idaho, not simply as a place, but as a broader conceptual idea. Call it a vision. A sense of longing for it, or better said, the absence of longing and pure contentment in the moment whenever we spent time and made memories here over the last decade. The idea of packing up and going all in on this place formed gradually over many years, coming on like waves, impossible to suppress, until eventually, we pulled the trigger and went for it, exiting an establishment path that I will always be grateful for, but which wasn't serving us anymore going forward. As you grow older, you realize the most valuable commodity is not money or material things (though a healthy baseline certainly helps, and we are very lucky), but time and epic moments. Memento mori, always. We needed to work backwards from the end vision in mind. We needed to tear out the plumbing. We needed to re-base absolutely everything in our lives on a foundation we were excited about. An epic foundation. We needed to be highly intentional in choosing the right environment to build a life in for the very long term. A place where (and I hate to use a financial term) we could compound for the next, hopefully many decades, not just capital, but relationships, and active pursuits, and everything that was important to our family. In short, we needed to go all in on what we wanted out of life, and to get laser focused on a holistic pursuit of our family vision. No lukewarm, passive existence. No half measures. We wanted epic, as an existential matter. Idaho remained the ultimate goal, always, the top of our priority list. All the details around it, the ultimate shape, a function of a myriad little decisions, was simply secondary structural scaffolding that we would figure out in time. During my acquisition search, I learned early on just how non-negotiable it really was for us to be here. It was truly "Idaho or bust", and I never really cared how ridiculous that seemed to a lot of people. Because if you have a dream, you have to be obsessed with the idea, and be somewhat delusional. In your own head, it will make all the sense in the world. And at the end of your life, that is the only thing that matters. You have a duty to yourself and your family, and you don't have to please anybody else. It's hard to convey in words how epic Idaho is, how during every little roadtrip you look out the window at the golden, sunkissed desert hills and the beauty of it all takes your breath away. How kind the people are. How there is a sense of "enough". Anyone who grew up in the 90s can resonate with the sense of longing for that fleeting feeling of endless possibility on a Friday night, kids biking around the neighborhood without a care in the world, an idea thought lost for a long time. But now found again. Here, by our family. I am not anywhere close to having it all figured out professionally (and I may not get close for a long time, hello first-time entrepreneurship endeavors for an ivory tower intellectual bonehead), but the goalposts of my scoreboard in life have moved drastically over the last few years. I'm coming up on 39 years on this planet next month. If for some reason I were to depart prematurely from this life, and all I ever accomplished was setting a solid home foundation in an epic place for my family, where my kids will have a spectacular upbringing (along with perhaps a philosophical roadmap for life, or at least a list of ideas of what is truly important, which they will ultimately have to figure out for themselves)... I'll be a very happy man.

Disappointing outcome this week Internal talent acquisition team at major, major potential customer who I'd been hounding for 2+ months (probably 20+ emails and calls) finally said: "We good, don't need to work with you right now." This was despite having a warm relationship with internal operational sponsor who wanted to work with me because of strong MEP candidate I had in hand In short, I got gate-checked. Hard. But guess what! 1) I brushed it off quite quickly, on to the next 2) It sometimes is easier to go for the small and mid-sized clients, who are eager to hire from this big account (dozens of high-quality candidates work there that I now don't have to put on my do-not-poach list) 3) This was the first run of many at this account, there will be others Onwards, all valuable experience I now get why enterprise sales is a totally different ballgame

Guy I talked to today was like "How in the world did you find me? I've never ever had a headhunter call me." Doesn't maintain a LinkedIn profile. Doesn't maintain ANY sort of online presence. I said, look dude... My custom AI process tracked down your name and cell phone number on some random environmental fuel tank spillage incident you reported in 2017 And then I traced you all the way up to the present day, including where you live and what you eat for dinner every night "Understood," he said.

Largely agree with this With AI, mechanical execution is being commoditized, so proprietary information and relationships are the new moat But I also think you need to have the right mental models and business understanding LLMs allow you to build a very powerful bazooka But you still need to understand what to aim at… And that requires tons of time and work and experience So smart people + tools on steroids = magic and dangerous combination The tools themselves are not enough on a standalone basis

I'm only a few dozen pages into Roll the Calls But so far, it's fantastic

Tons of mid-career professionals in their 30s right now wondering if they should take the jump into buy or build entrepreneurship w/ young families The question of financial runway comes up A LOT Basically 3 key drivers (personal finance 101): - Housing - Healthcare - Education Housing hardest to solve, but my vote goes towards renting (for now). The monthly cash flow delta vs. owning is near multi decade high. Lock in several years if you can (can always negotiate exit). Healthcare: if you’re healthy (no major preexisting), way more solvable than I assumed using CrowdHealth + DPC (less than $600/mo for our family of 4). Exchange insurance rates are outrageous and in a doom loop / vicious cycle Education: move to a good public school district with an active PTO that does tons of fundraising. They do exist, we live in one now. You can get private education level quality (or near that) A lot of this comes down stashing your pride and not conforming to what society tells you to do. “You need to own your house. You should never send your kids to public school.” Nonsense. Be a value investor with your monthly opex. Have an open mind and go with the economically sensible option. Moving out of a HCOL metro, not wearing golden handcuffs and be chained to an expense treadmill is incredibly mentally freeing and allows you to take larger risks

My wife kicked me out of the house and send me to the gym with the kids I may not hit the weekly limit before 2 PM reset THIS FEELS LIKE A MAJOR DEFEAT GOOD THING I CAN KEEP WORKING ON MY PHONE BETWEEN BENCH PRESS SETS

THERE'S NO WAY A HUMAN ANALYST COULD EVER COME UP WITH THIS FORMULA LIKE, NO WAY ALL HAIL THE ROBOTS