James Rose: From Founder to Employee to Agency Acquirer

I launched an online furniture company from zero to 3 million over a 2-year period and now I've got to go for an interview and it was tough. >> Like how did you swallow your pride? Like how did you position yourself as employable? >> It was a pretty brutal time to be honest. I always has this stigma in my mind that sales wasn't really a career that you should follow. >> Hey everyone, welcome back to Under Million Dollar Exits. Today we have James Rose on the show who is the CEO and founder of Inflective Group, a platform and holding company for acquiring marketing and communications companies. James, welcome to the show. >> Hey Jason, great to be on. Thank you. >> So James, I want to start with kind of your first business and the story that kind of really helped shape you into what you do today. Uh it was kind of a classic boom and bust story. Uh tell us a little bit about what that business was doing and kind of how that shaped you ultimately. >> Yeah, absolutely. So um I left university and got a grant um to basically fund a new business. Um and at the time there was a significant foreign investment into Bulgaria. Uh about 20 billion over five a 5year period. And so I went out to Bulgaria and um what was really interesting was about 50% of that investment was going into property related services. So um off plan developments, um land acquisitions, commercial projects. Um, and I bought a small apartment um to kind of get on the property lad over there and realized there was no furniture companies that spoke English. Uh, literally it was impossible to to furnish an apartment and and obviously with hundreds of thousands of units being built, it was an opportunistic time to to get into the market. So um so I launched an online furniture company uh was fortunate to find a local business partner uh to manage um suppliers and and staff which was critical really over there. But um but yeah, it was a classic. You know, we grew really quickly. Um turned on an ad campaign on Google and literally the phone started ringing. Um and um and grew um you know from sort of zero to to 3 million over a 2-year period. Um and just thought everything was easy to be honest. Uh you know, first business uh this is this is all sailing. Um spent six months of the year out in Bulgaria. Um and um we had a really good run of things for about four or five years. um and extended into other areas. So we we started acquiring land. We uh were planning a off plan development uh next to a Gary Player golf course. Um and we had a property brokerage business. And so um we were extremely overexposed to the uh global financial crisis. Um obviously 2008 to 2010 um it was a huge learning curve. So, um, going from a kind of fast start like that, um, never having run a business before to then going into a huge decline very quickly, um, like like literally 80% drop in a year in terms of in terms of sales. Um, we we had to respond to that. Um, and and my response at the time was was to get creative and to continue pushing. You know, I never knew that an economic crisis would last, you know, five years or more. Um, and that credit would would become impossible to to obtain. And so um you know you had all these offplanned properties that people had put deposits into and they were just throwing the keys back. They didn't want to furnish them. They didn't want to you know even finish the uh the purchase. Um and so um we pivoted. We went to Russia um where there was still some demand. Um we went and did an exhibition in Moscow and um through luck really we managed to meet somebody who's quite influential. Uh we set up a a network of sub agents throughout Russia uh and Ukraine. Um and instead of building our own development which we were just launching at the event um uh we had to kind of uh pull back on that. So we took deposits from from from clients for for offplan development. Our funders got pulled uh because obviously there's no development finance. Um we were overextended. We had um you know salaries to pay for. um revenue was dropping and it was a pretty brutal time to be honest um to to to go through that having felt that everything was easy and then running into those roadblocks. Um and so it was probably like two and a half year period of trying to to push against that before I realized that like this just isn't going to work. Like we, you know, the market's finished. It's going to be a long time before it comes back. Um and I'm glad we put things on hold. you know, we didn't have any disasters where we actually got like land repossessed or development collapsed or anything like that, but um I had to come back to the UK. I was getting married at the time and um you know, I had to get a job essentially and I think that was the biggest uh pill to swallow was having like seven or eight years of uh entrepreneurship to think right, I've now got to go for an interview. Um you know, and it was tough, you know, when people look at a CV and all you've done is your own business that actually you're a high risk, you're a flight risk as well. you know, how's this guy going to fit in? Is he really going to be one of what to do? Um, so it was definitely a sobering um part of my career. I had to kind of swallow my pride and and and just knuckle down and uh I was fortunate to join a really high growth digital marketing business and got into sales and um uh and ended up doing doing well there. But um but yeah, it it takes it to >> James, if you don't mind, I I kind of want to talk about that transition because >> I talked to a lot of founders and not all of them become massive successes where they make millions of dollars and they can then do whatever they want. Uh some run into challenges like yourself where the business didn't become what they expected it to be and they're faced with that dilemma. Do I try to swing again and you know do another startup and you know be two years of living on ramen kind of thing. um or do I get a job? And for those that may be married and or have kids, the job is often the path that must be chosen. So, I'm kind of curious like you kind of brushed it off a little. Oh, you swallow your pride, but like how did you swallow your pride? Like how did you position yourself as employable? >> Well, firstly, it was through necessity. You know, we we were um I had a huge overdraft, a business overdraft that we now couldn't service very easily. Um you know, we had commitments. Um, so the idea of uh a new business was was just kind of uh felt um it felt like we'd done everything we can in the area that we knew um and the market that we knew. Um and so it was it was literally just looking for any kind of I mean you I think I naturally started quite high. I was applying for jobs that I thought you know I would easily get and obviously got no response whatsoever. It's like you've got no management experience, you've got no whatever. So um I think sales is one of those one of those paths which actually can open up uh success for anybody. You know you can learn it, you can be coached, you can overcome resilience and and um and so I was just fortunate to that they took a chance on me. They were growing really quickly. Um and I think they could see that um I was either going to it was either going to work or it wasn't. And you kind of get a month you only get a month to prove yourself right in sales. So, it's not like you get a very long runway, but um uh but yeah, it was just it was just putting the CV together, trying to make it as uh agnostic as possible and not just like some Bulgarian uh expat who's uh who's trying to pivot his career. Um, >> and so when it came to like the jobs that you you shot for like those like >> Yeah. >> VP director level type jobs of bigger companies, like what were the jobs that got denied? >> Not not quite that high. Um I mean I was looking regionally so where I was based. So I wasn't at the time willing to kind of have a massive commute into London and things which which I did later in my career. So the the circle of of kind of opportunities was within like a 20 mile radius of where I was and it was kind of mid-market uh sorry mid-management level roles initially that I was applying for um in companies that I thought were of a significant size but I was I was kind of still led to smaller businesses. is I didn't apply for any big conglomerates. Like it just I couldn't sue myself going to work at like an Experian or a or a bank. It just that was never going to happen. So it was like who who are these kind ofmemes that actually at the time I still thought I could bring a lot of value to through my experiences. Um but uh but what I found was that they they didn't value any of that experience. They you know they were hiring people that had done seven or eight years in a similar career. Um essentially >> Yeah. So, it's a it's a painful pill to swallow and yeah, you built multi-million dollar business and managed it and probably had tons of people that you were managing and sales contracts, all that kind of stuff and basically start over u you know your ladder uh you know it's pretty humbling experience and I guess what what kind of success did you see because you know it took you you basically did sales and business development for years before kind of now taking a swing uh again at the founder role. >> So, how was that? >> Yes. So in that agency, I I was fortunate to become one of the top uh top tier like sales people in the business. Um generated a lot of revenue for the company personally. Um uh was able to kind of get myself out of the hole that I'd created. Um you know, repay off like the business overdraft, start to get some stability. Uh we had our first child. Um and so I was just super motivated when I once I saw that actually this was a no caps bonus structure and people were earning very high six figure salaries. I was like actually this isn't as bad as I thought it was it was going to be. Um but it was really tough. Like it was, you know, 150 calls on a Monday, sit eight meetings all week, go and try and close a small business on a on a search campaign, you know. Um it was it was tough, but I learned actually a lot of resilience and actually started to learn how to sell. um and overcame my personal resilience with sales cuz I always has this stigma in my mind that sales was like a you know wasn't really a career that you should follow. It's like you're taking money from people. You're kind of like you know it's all these kind of uh psychology etc. But once you realize you're solving problems and um you've got happy customers that uh you're doing a good job for that then started to become uh exciting for me. So, so from there I um I uh did quite well and then wanted to get into an early stage company. Um I wanted to start to get some equity um which was obviously the original play with my own companies was I'd kind of been taught from an early age that you you have to be a shareholder to really make make some money. Um and so uh I joined a fintech business. Um um wasn't able to get equity. uh left after two years and then was fortunate to join an early stage uh video tech business and um we were about five or six people at the time and then we grew over a seven-year period um and I was given the opportunity to move into sales leadership and and expand within that business as the business grew which I think is what I wanted you know in a tradition in the sales role I was in originally the opportunities um uh actually the people earn the most money with the with individual contributors and I felt a little bit capped by that. I wanted to kind of develop my career and be exposed to more than just sales. Um, you know, how can you actually really scale a company? Um, yeah. So, um, so that was um, yeah, as you say, like over 10 15 years of my career in those uh, you know, sales and sales leadership roles, which um, uh, which was which was which was good. Um but um uh but yeah, where we are now, obviously I've I've I've kind of pivoted to to um to M&A and trying to um build value in different ways, but it was it was an enjoyable part of my career. >> So yeah, let's kind of transition to to that narrative. Like how I guess why, you know, did you kind of say like, okay, I've had enough of the corporate journey. I got the bug to go back and do something on my own. And then why rollups? >> Yeah. So there's a couple of steps for me. One, um the uh the equity play within the startup didn't materialize. So um I could see that actually this was you know I'd been there seven years. This was when I left I thought there's going to be another 5 years before any kind of capital event just the path that business was on. Um so that was a bit of a wakeup call that um you know you can dedicate your time and effort to a company um and not not get a payoff at the end of it. um should we say which which meant I had to revisit my plans that if I wanted to um to do bigger things that I had to find a new model um I also could see um this this this dichotomy between kind of bootstrap businesses and wellunded businesses so when I left that uh video tech business I did some fractional work was my first step was like how do I just get exposure to more businesses so I was doing two days a week fractional I was being put into high growth companies that um had some aggressive targets to meet. Usually they had some go to market problems that I'd come in and solve. And I was just exposed to a whole diverse range of businesses. Some had raised, some who hadn't. And I thought, geez, this is still a really long path. You know, most of these companies are three years in. They're probably got another seven or eight or maybe more before the founders are going to have some sort of exit event. How do we kind of uh shorten that time frame? And that led me to looking at the M&A market. And um particularly in the agency space, I could see a lot of change happening. You know, the big groups, the big holding groups that had been acquiring uh revenue uh for decades um were under pressure. Um there was talent leaving those holding groups um and and going to independence. Shareholder value was dropping. Um yet there was thousands of agencies that were really well-run, profitable businesses um that have been trading for 20 years. Um, and so, um, when I looked at at that landscape, I thought, well, how can we how can we roll up, uh, independent agencies, but make it a really good outcome for the founders. So, how do we derisk some of the pitfalls of um, the execution risk that comes with rising big amounts of capital? Because I'd seen that that has its risks, whether it be the technology, whether it be the people, you know, it's never it's never a dead. Um um and so um the model that we we landed on was you know how do we take uh you know take a minority position so we don't have to deploy lots of capital we don't have to come in and run these businesses um but through a holding group structure we can actually uh increase shareholder value much quicker so um you know our model is to be like the final two to three years for the founder where they've already done the hard work they've proved resilience they've proved market cycles they're cash flowing but they're still unfortunately valued as an independent subscale business. And so by us achieving scale um we then we then attract capital um that will take our group to the next stage. Um um and that's what private equity are looking for. You know that that kind of 50 50 million plus enterprise value. There's a lot of capital waiting to be deployed because it's less risky than than coming into an early stage uh early stage venture. from my personal uh obviously experiences. So um so it was it was a it was multiple steps to that realization and then it took a long time to to uh took about 12 months of deals falling over before we actually got into our first agency and um uh which was February last year. Um uh but it's a journey like with with with any founders journey, you know, you learn along the way. you don't have it figured out from day one and um we've had to make a lot of changes to the vision to the terms um and kind of keep adapting. >> Let's talk about this market. You know, a lot of people are thinking, you know, technology companies and that's where everything's at and there's been a pretty sharp shift towards real business, we'll call it, you know, cash flow, revenue, profit. mainly because in my opinion the the venture market grossly overfunded a lot of businesses and you know I think one of your businesses in the past the you know Wooi I think it was called uh raised 10 million but it was effectively a service company. It's like what was a service company a managed service company doing raising venture capital or you know private equity at that that level. Um and a lot of these companies got grossly overfunded and you know I I respect the angle that you're taking with your uh you know kind of new roll up and you know platform company of you know buying real businesses because that's been a general theme that's coming up more and more. We're actually working with a couple tech companies to go buy real, you know, kind of buy real companies because, >> you know, they have tech that these customers won't buy because it effectively depletes their, you know, it eliminates their job. >> So, you know, um just some insight for our audience on on kind of deals that we're structuring now and and kind of curious to get your thoughts on it. We have tech companies that are in market that try to sell like a per seat basis off software for a couple hundred bucks a month kind of thing and they struggle to sell it. And when we did a deep dive on it, we identified that they had a product that effectively eliminates the buyer. So the buyer buys it and then their job is reduced to about 10% of its original workload. Um because the software does 90% of the work and obviously writing on the wall like I buy the software then what good am I, you know? >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, you better be the first one to use it the best. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, and what we identified was like, well, acquiring C, you know, the venture capital market was not interested in their business anymore for a variety of reasons. That's what we identified is like they have a they have a hurdle they have to hit. They want to get to about a $50 million plus valuation and they're nowhere near that right now in terms of real life comps. Um and so what we identified is like if they go out and buy 5 $10 million revenue agencies that are doing maybe 15% IBIDA 10% IBIDA they could eliminate a lot of the overhead with their software consolidate have efficiencies and get closer to like a 30 to 50% Ibida effectively with that revenue after like a year of transition and and those are the types of companies that were going out and buying on their behalf. So they're tech becoming a tech enabled service provider. So their multiples won't be you know 20 30x revenue or anything stupid like that but >> they could get 10x Ibida in in these situations. So I'm curious to kind of hear your thoughts as you're in market >> and you know looking to buy companies. Um how do you guys evaluate you know is it do you guys have tech and is that a piece of it or is it you're just kind of coming in and the blocking and tackling and consolidating you know service businesses? How do you think about it? >> Real quick, if you're a founder doing over 5 million in revenue and want to know what the best $100 million plus founders are doing to fuel their growth, then make sure to subscribe to our $100 million exits newsletter. Get the playbooks that are proven on how to fund, grow, and sell your business. I'll even give you a curated list of investors that want to invest in your business. It's totally free. All you have to do is click that link down below, subscribe, do it now. I promise it's worth it. You won't regret it. you got nothing to lose. Go ahead, subscribe now. Back at the show. >> Really good interesting topic. So, originally um our vision was to have a tech enabled platform. Um still to do the minority, not not the full acquisitions that you just described. Uh but to have some kind of tech enabled layer around the group. Right now, that is still to be decided if I'm honest. Um you know, um there is pros and cons to both. You know, we've looked at partnerships in the tech space. We've looked at um AI development like how can we in instill agents at a group level that drive efficiencies and if I'm honest with you where where we are right now is we feel that we want to leave some value on the table and and and coming back to that kind of execution risk like we've not done this before you know we we this is our first group we're building um we've got fairly modest expectations of of size and and shape and so we feel quite happy to let the acquirer do some of that tech enablement uh as the next stage rather than us as us take ownership of that. Um but um there is 100% a huge opportunity there um and across so many markets because as you say they've got the tech um already they already own that they've got you know they've funded it however they have so they've got the platform I think what's different for us is we don't have the platform so it's like where they have to acquire it partner with or or bring that in in some other way and that just um is a slightly different time frame and different level of capital than we're than we're looking at right now. So um and it's amazing. I've spoke to I've spoke to a number of founders actually that have had a similar um realization on the funding side. So like tech for example a tech social agency um I spoke to recently who who have struggled to raise to continue on the tech path but are now developing a managed service um not only because the funding you know they're sort of subscale and still early stage but also on the um on the brand side. So we're seeing that brands now are kind of coming a full 360 and saying well it's great that you've got some tech but what we want the people servicing us we want that full wraparound uh managed service and I think that's where some some models have um gone a bit too tech enabled and missed the people part um potentially >> I want to keep talking about this because this is more and more what I'm seeing like even ourselves at Thunder we consider ourselves a tech enabled investment bank at the end of the day you know everyone wants a transaction and get a deal done. But the only thing that gets a deal done is people. You have all the tech kind of in the background streamlining, making things more efficient, you know, faster models, models that produce uh or financial models that produce faster, you know, like competitive research kind of like everything's getting faster and more efficient. But that's just like table stakes. >> That's like the bare minimum, >> you know, that's required. And if you don't have that, your profit margins will be less and people, you know, will will overtake you. And so I think it's a an absolute must for businesses to evolve into being more tech enabled. But the other day it's like you can't I see AI companies popping up left and right where like the AI M&A a banker and like yeah >> all it really is doing is just cold emailing a bunch of you know people. It's like all right it's just it's a numbers game. It's like not really cuz like when you want to at least in my world like if you want to do a transaction like people just need to justify the time invested to get behind the idea of an acquisition and they really only trust that if they conceptualized the idea themselves and went hunting for it or the person they trust brought them the idea >> and so it's so much still comes down to relationships. Another example is um tech company here in the UK um like sales enablement million sales enable en enablement tools out there and they chose a different route rather than raising tens of millions of dollars there's a little bit of money get some tech off the ground but then they do the managed service so they have like a managed service that's like 15 grand up front plus you know some you know kind of maintenance um and then they have a SAS fee which is like you know 50 bucks a seat and so like the SAS is there >> but they're cash flowing and not going to have to go out and raise money and kind of compete with these other the Gongs and Hosbot, you know, these mega companies out there that have raised, you know, tens of millions or hundreds of millions and they're just going to have a great business, you know, and there's edge there. Like people need help like, you know, for setting these things up like to expect your office manager to, you know, set up your sales, you know, enablement, it's not really going to have it. So there's exactly >> definitely a need for these managed services um in the space and it's just it's a slightly different business model than what we've seen before that should hypothetically be higher margin lower headcount. Um so one thing I want to kind of talk about is what you're seeing in terms of pricing these agencies. Everyone always wants to know what am I worth? What's my valuation? >> Yep. And you know for insights on the pe you know people here it's like some of the major conglomerates as you were alluding to it's like let's just put some out there like WPP and S4 uh you know capital you know in their heyday you know 15 billion and 8 billion retrospect you know respectively in terms of valuation but now are you know 80% of that sorry 20% of that or even 10% of that value um and they completely fallen off a cliff in terms of market you know comps and publicly traded comps. So I'm curious from your perspective like um what are you seeing in terms of the valuation of these types of companies now given that the market multiples have fallen off a cliff. It's fascinating. I was actually looking at this um uh a few months ago when I saw um WPP share price because as you say these have these have taken a real beating over the past few years. Um and if you take an average of the public holding companies, they're trading at around eight times ZBIT DAR roughly on average. Uh publicist has done uh done well. Uh mainly because I think the market views their tech enablement as a success. Um but you compare that to private markets. You know, it's not unusual for a private agency um that is a service-based business doing maybe a million and a half of EBIT to get a 10x, you know, as a as a tactical acquisition for for for for a group. Like that happens quite regularly. So, you're seeing like higher multiples in private markets for the public markets. And that's fascinating for for me because, you know, that's that's all every other market you look at is the opposite. You know, you've got the liquidity in the private markets, so you pay a premium for it. you've got the trust, you've got the you've got the governance, but I think that's an early signal that um that uh private equity and big funding is looking at the independent agency space and they're seeing that it's bottoming out and and I think they're looking at at value right now and coming into the market this year and next year um and um and looking to to consolidate themselves and take these take these independents forward. Um I don't know the inner workings of of any of the groups to be honest, but like uh anecdotally like the number of layoffs that are forecast this year are in the tens of thousands. Um which is which is really sad for you know a lot of very uh talented people that have been in these businesses for for a number of years. Um but that's just the way the market is right now. Do do you think that has anything to do with just like kind of the like even anthropic CEO kind of had a manifesto that went out yesterday or the day before of you know like watch out white collar jobs you know in terms of like there's going to be mass layoffs which is like marketing companies and one of the first applications of AI agents is you know >> y marketing >> it's it's undeniable risk um I'd say um we look at salary load We look at um cash flow. Um and some agencies are bloated, right? There's no denying it. We walk away from some opportunities where the founders propped up the agency with director's loans uh just to not let people go. >> Like it's it happens all the time. uh but we have to be a little bit more uh commercial about these decisions and and there is certain metrics that um yeah so there's downward pressure on on on headcount but we we haven't seen any like we've got four agencies now we haven't seen any redundancies or layoffs and actually we're hiring across most of them so we're finding ways for for those employees to be more productive um and we're staying true to the fact that brands want that personal relationship and and skill. Um but um but yeah, it's it's it's changing all the time and and it's very hard to forecast what this next two years will look like. Um I think there's definitely a 5year risk in this market where um the state of the independent agency world could be very very different. But right now we're we're sort of on the cusp of it and we're trying to manage it uh fiscally with you know with some governance. I find it interesting to kind of see how agencies kind of navigate these headwinds especially because I think you know when we were talking offline in terms of your target well actually for the audience's uh purpose like who do you want to buy like who's on your you know kind of like what would you say are the attributes of the companies that you're looking to acquire? >> Yeah. So there's some um hard rules. So in terms of um revenue and profit, so ideally a minimum of half a million of EBIT um uh is is a kind of baseline. Um 10 years of trading history or more. Uh the longer the better. Um we're looking at UK, US, and Middle East. Um and looking to diversify revenue across those markets. So right now we've only got one agency that has an office in the US. Um so we're actively looking for more agencies in the US so that when we exit as a group we've got that geographic uh diversity. Um um so there's there's kind of finance and tenure. We look at founder agencies that um have started to make some paths with uh management team and succession. Um a lot of the agencies we speak to have already spoken to a number of different acquirers in the past. So they they're quite uh up to speed with valuations and and and uh and what they would be expecting in the open market. Um but um beyond that they have to be servicing global brands. Um they have to be um uh kind of you know cash flow positive and and and put some discipline in in those areas. Um and then we talk about the top 1% and and it's hard to quantify but for me it's actually the people in these businesses. I I'll know very quickly when I speak to a founder whether I'm aligned with them or whether they're, you know, and and as we just described, these are people based businesses and relationships are really important. Um, you know, we're building this as a minority. So, it's not like we're coming in to to change the rules overnight. We're coming in to be alarmed with those founders over a bigger exit in the future. So, um, there's some soft things behind that in terms of like how they're managing the team, just understanding their journey, like what they've been through, why they built the business, what their expectations are, and that just comes out of conversation. Um, uh, so it's it's yeah, it's it's hard to um to have firm lines, but there's certain things that, you know, uh, make sense for us in terms of the direction we're heading. And when you think about founders that might be interested, you know, to you or to anyone else, uh, that are, you know, running these service businesses and there, you know, there's two types in my opinion. There are the ones that have adopted technology and are rapidly scaling and have like real sales, you know, funnels. And then there's others that had a real business and they're not they are now kind of resting on their laurels and they haven't really invested into the latest and greatest technology and they're now kind of in this either on decline and and or have declined or they're kind of flatlining and not sure what to do. So for those those in the latter position that are maybe kind of like what do we do? Yeah. Like >> what's what's your advice to those those founders that haven't really taken the action yet? Yeah, I think I think first of all, take an internal review and and survey your customers and your people because um if you're an established service-based business, what I've seen is that there's a very high chance that you are still targeting verticals and customer bases that were 5 years old now. You know, you you not looked at any new markets, you've not reviewed your ICP, you've not developed a real commercial engine. And um that gets you to a certain level. But the when you know but times are changing you know um and uh you know whether you bring in a fractional uh person or a consultant like you need to start really looking at the data um and I think I think founders um uh avoid that sometimes you know they they they can get quite complacent. Um you know that it's hard to look at your business say well actually we need to we need to to pivot. Um but go to market um and building the commercial end is a common problem we see. They're just still targeting industries that they shouldn't be. Um I would say get a CFO. A lot of agencies um you know sub 5 million. I'm shocked how many don't have any CFO whatsoever whether that be fractional or or or other. You know they have an accounting firm that's looking in the rearview mirror. Um and that's a problem. you know, you you you have to have proper forward-looking guidance of of where the business is going because any acquirer is going to be looking at that and if if they want to get to a certain level of EBIT to achieve a certain multiple, it's impossible just looking historically. Um and um and so so the CFO side of things is is a common gap. Um and look at look at acquisitions. you know, if if you've got a solid business and you don't want to build a bigger sales team, you don't want to develop technology, look at some some some M&A activity, maybe there's a competitor of yours that would be happy to merge with you and um you could you could kind of do a paper share transfer and and double overnight. Um I think um M&A is is one of those topics where you can go very deep with it and you can pay a lot of money to consultants, but the best thing to do is just get out and speak to people, you know. Um don't get don't get stuck in the um education mode. Go and have conversations with similar founders and say hey you know what's your plans where you looking to get to the next two years? Could we could we do something together? Um I think that's a massive opportunity for founders whether it's um joining a group or just or just doing it themselves really. >> No I I would agree. I think um too many people kind of get lost in their world of their own little silo and don't really have conversations and then they're kind of misguided or very unaligned expectations of reality. You I can't tell you how many times companies think they're worth way more than they actually think they are and haven't really done a deep dive audit on themselves and or had someone else come in and audit them from a valuation perspective. That puts a lot of these founders in check. And that's something we do often with a lot of companies is just kind of like show them like hey I know you think or thought you were worth X but based on current comps and you know your you know your revenue has still growing but not as fast or you know whatever these you know variables that come into play they just see like oh my competitor raised $100 million so I must be worth no you know two different things apples and oranges in a lot of cases. So I find it wise to kind of give them those educa uh that level of education. Um James, what would be the you know kind of best steps for someone that is building a service business, managed service business, agency, whatever, you know, whatever sector um to start this process of an exit and and start lining up those those pieces. So firstly getting personal clarity. Um, so they're founderled businesses. There's usually only a couple of people on the cap table, maybe some EMI options, but being really clear on what the number is. Um, forget the benchmarks, forget the big raises, like what is a number that's going to be meaningful to you and then subtract all the sweat and uh, tears you put into it because the market's not going to value that. So, so getting really clear because you know it may only be a couple of million um you know which is a lot of money but it's it's it's a lot more achievable than someone's looking for a 50 million or whatever the number is. Um so I think um get really clear on on on the number. Um speak to uh speak to the market and understand what multiples you are worth today and just accept the fact that that's it. you know, have some conversations with acquirers, um, you know, and understand the reality because if you don't address that, you can't then plan ahead of how you're going to fill the gap, right? And and and the gaps needs to be filled one way or another. Is it scaling independently? Is it joining a group? Um, and honestly, that process can take some founders a few years, you know, because they're running the business. It's always like, oh, I've got a fiveyear plan. We're going to sell in five years. And that's really a time frame they put out there because it's far enough in the future to feel close, but it's not close enough to uh to drive any action. So, um I would have that reality check. Um and then my personal recommendation would would be to look at M&A. Um either M&A or um or having a conversation with people like yourselves who can give them a a real honest set of options around the fundraising. Um, and if they do fund raise, make sure that they get the right people to execute um, and and derisk it. You know, a lot of times I've seen I've seen businesses do the raise and then underpay people, get sub suble management in and then they spend two, three years and they say, "Oh, well, we we didn't hit our targets." Well, you probably should have got better people in in the first place who've, you know, who could execute. So, >> yeah. >> Saying my cousin Jimmy's not good enough. No. Um, no, I I totally agree. I think that's very valuable. And and James, for those that, you know, are inspired by your story and or want to connect with you, what would be the best way for them to to learn more about you and connect with you? >> So, yeah, just James Rose inflective groupoup on LinkedIn or inflectivegroup.com. Happy to connect and um and uh yeah, starting to post a bit more on there. So, um that probably the best place. And uh for those listening, if anyone wants an introduction to to James, just uh ping me directly or leave a comment in the comments down below and I'll be help happy to help facilitate that that introduction for you. Um James, I really appreciate you coming on here sharing your story of kind of founder to operator back to founder and buying, you know, companies and the 7day journey that you're on. You look forward to following your journey and thanks for coming on the show. >> Thank you. Pleasure. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. If you were inspired by today's episode, then go ahead, watch this next episode. Promise it's worth it. And if you really enjoyed this last episode and you want to connect with the guest I had on today, make sure to leave a comment down below telling me why you would like an intro to this guest and I'll make it