Rand Larsen

Algorithm updates, Rand update, time for a reintroduction! Howdy, I’m Rand Larsen CEO and owner of @joinscalepath, a peer community of business owners. We’re sitting at ~100 members, ~70% of our community are successful acquisition entrepreneurs, we organize owners into peer groups of owners who share similar revenue sizes, business models, and personalities (Ambitious, wholesome, helpful, smart, and fun). We have peer groups in plumbing/HVAC, B2B local services, home services, holdco owners, manufacturing, and professional services. A quick timeline: 2019: started a business making documentaries about seniors to preserve life stories and legacy for future generations of people’s families. My grandparents all passed away when I was very young and I thought “how amazing would it be if I had a professional documentary made just for them I could watch and learn about who they were.” I made a documentary for both of my parents and then started making them for others. 2020: Covid crushed that business. So I got a landscaping job while I figured out what I was going to do next. 2021: I started learning about “the Silver Tsunami” and explored buying a business as a means to build wealth. Shortly afterwards I met and started working with @wilsoncompanies as an Entrepreneur in Residence, helped him acquire/operate businesses for ~1.5 years in a plumbing/HVAC trades rollup. 2022: I meet a business owner going through massive distress after buying a $20M HVAC business. He had no else to talk to about the challenges of business ownership (can’t talk to employees, W2 friends just don’t “get it”, etc.). So I started building peer groups to solve the loneliness problem so many business owners experience. Did this for free for over a year. Also started a ghostwriting agency, got it to $100,000+ in annual revenue. 2023: I start monetizing the peer groups and building more of them, working on it part time while the agency was my full time job. In October that switched and I went full time building more peer groups and started winding down the agency. 2024: Went on my first “SMB Road Show” or “Rand Run” for those of you who remember. I visited ~15 major cities in the Northeast and Midwest, hosted SMB/ETA meetups in each city, I met hundreds of people doing this and it all happened in ~5 weeks traveling full time. Twice I hosted 3 events in a single week. Tuesday in Detroit, Wednesday in Chicago, Thursday in Grand Rapids. In July I bought a campervan so I could travel more and experience van life. In total I’ve hosted nearly 50 events with >1,000 people attending across the country and met some amazing people and friends. 2025: Acquired Scalepath from @girdley and rebranded the business around their branding. In our community primarily made up of holdco owners and successful ETAers, I finally did my first acquisition! Also fun this year, we started making entrepreneur trading cards. These are fun gifts meant to celebrate entrepreneurs the same way we do sports stars. People love these things! Also, I was featured in the New York Times, which made my parents super proud of me. 2026: We’re still only halfway through, but I’m having a ton of fun, we’re making more entrepreneur trading cards, planning more events, building more peer groups, working with amazing people. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows but there’s certainly a lot of it. Follow me here for: - Anonymized stories of what business owners actually go through - Tactics and strategies I hear about that are genuinely great but never talked about publicly - Patterns I notice across hundreds of peer group conversations

"Always be closing" might be the shittiest advice for anyone selling in a long, relationship-driven sales cycle. Whole philosophy seems outdated.

By the way, if you’re a business owner in NYC or Dallas we’re hosting a couple events in both cities very soon! DM me for info

Mark shows up with the sauce every conversation we have, in his group or just catching up If you want to go fast, go alone If you want to go far, go together

“Have your AI talk to my AI” is going to be an increasingly common phrase in the coming years Needs a better word than “AI” though Agent? Bot? Need something easier to say

Never ever ever take on MCAs Ever

I’ve heard 3 people tell me that Grok @bot is integrating deeply in their business and personal lives and that it’s absolutely amazing. If anyone’s using it, I’d be curious to hear what it’s doing for you that’s better/different that other LLMs

Hey @markedlercpa why didnt you tell me you were doing YouTube now? Breaking my heart ❤️‍🩹

Seen and met with a lot of people Michael works with, can confirm this is a pretty amazing role, gives the right person a ton of exposure into entrepreneurship and business

Had a super weird, crazy win this morning. I was added to one of our member’s “In Case of Emergency” documents. Like (god forbid) if he dies or is in a coma. It reads: [Redacted Name] has known Rand about four years. He runs [Redacted Name’s] small business owner peer group and the larger Scalepath peer group organization, and knows nearly everyone in the small business acquisition world. [Redacted Name] highly recommends reaching out to him, he can find the right person to help with almost any topic or problem that comes up.” 4 years ago I was not this person, just a guy getting business owners together. Today and especially this last year, I’m able to be personally helpful to a large group of people. Sorry if this sounds like bragging, this is just a really cool sign of personal achievement and “doing good things” over a long period of time without a clear payoff and through periods of doubt. Which btw, is what most business owners go through. BRB, I’m going to frame this quote and put it on a wall.

Business owners who have sold your data to these AI lab brokers: I would love to heave a conversation with you I want to get a bunch of anecdotal stories, ask a bunch of questions, and understand how the process works from first hand accounts of owners. Know which brokers pay the most, etc. I’m not sure exactly where this will go, but anytime I’ve gotten a bunch of owners to share information like this, especially early in a hype cycle, it’s usually been highly valued in an unexpected way.

Has anyone ever cold emailed a prospect and offered to pay them $100 for 30 minutes of their time? I am so, so tempted to try this

When you walk into an acquisition, it’s SIGNIFICANTLY helpful if you already understand the business/industry to a degree. You can totally go out and buy something you have no experience in, many acquirers have done it successfully. But your learning curve is cut down considerably when you walk in with underlying knowledge of how to improve the business or notice when something is wrong.

I know everyone hates project based businesses but you can absolutely make a lot of money owning them.