Gia Cilento & Eric Gesinski Reveal the Shocking Truth About No Money Down Deals!

 Summary

In this conversation, Jon Stoddard engages with Gia Salento and Eric Gesinski, two entrepreneurs who partnered to navigate the world of mergers and acquisitions. They discuss their journey of forming a partnership, leveraging each other's strengths, and the importance of mindset in achieving success. The trio also delves into their business framework, educational investments, and the challenges they face in the M&A landscape, emphasizing the significance of collaboration and continuous learning. In this conversation, Jon Stoddard discusses the journey of acquiring a SaaS company, the lessons learned throughout the process, and the importance of ethical deal-making. He emphasizes the significance of understanding the seller's motivations, structuring deals with flexibility, and the ongoing learning experience that comes with testing growth strategies. The conversation also touches on the broader acquisition strategy of building a cohesive ecosystem of businesses.

Takeaways

Partnerships can thrive even without in-person meetings.
Recognizing and leveraging each other's strengths is crucial.
Effective communication fosters a safe environment for ideas.
Mindset plays a pivotal role in achieving business success.
Investing in education can significantly enhance business acumen.
It's essential to focus on what you want to achieve, not what you fear.
Learning from others' successes can provide valuable insights.
Finding the right deals often comes from personal connections.
A strong business framework protects against liabilities.
Navigating challenges requires a commitment to self-improvement. Transitioning to SaaS requires understanding the market and adapting.
Learning from the acquisition process is invaluable.
Majority ownership can be achieved through strategic asset acquisition.
Understanding the seller's motivations can lead to better deals.
Flexibility in deal structure, like earn-outs, is crucial.
Ethical deal-making ensures mutual benefits for all parties involved.
Growth strategies should focus on testing and learning from results.
Building a solar system model for acquisitions can enhance growth.
Acquisitions should be approached with a long-term vision.
Regular check-ins can help track progress and adapt strategies.

 Watch the Interview:

Transcript

Jon Stoddard (00:00.376)
So welcome to the top &A entrepreneurs. I got a couple of guests. They're in the same mastermind that I am. The first guest is Gia Salento and Eric Gesinski. And we're all in the same mastermind, Epic, and they partnered up to buy a company and then work on a number of things. And that's what we're gonna talk about. like, first of all, why did you guys migrate to Tori Cheat?

each other and partner up. mean, what drew you to Gia, what drew you to Eric? Yeah, you know, we got into the mastermind at the second cohort. So it was still kind of a little bit Wild West-ish, I guess. just the epic two? Yeah. okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and I'm, I like talking to new people and I was networking and meeting people and...

Eric reached out or I reached out. don't really remember, but I just remember when we first talked, we got on a Zoom together like much like this. I just felt like, I think both of us felt, you know, a synergy and something. was like, you know what? I don't know what it looks like, but I'd like to work with you on something. And it just kind of went from there. We kept talking. And I mean, that was like in the middle of the lockdown here in Michigan. It was pretty, pretty severe lockdown. I don't know.

where you are, John. We're in Arizona and they say it's a lockdown, but COVID dies on impact in 100 degree heat. so you guys just need to stay away from air conditioning. But yeah, I mean, that's where we started. You know, what was your experience here? Yeah, for the experience there, it was something that it was an early epic and we were both figuring out something new. It was a space that we hadn't explored yet. We will give

credit to Roland for bringing us in and basically changing our mindset on a lot of things. But we both came from a similar background in some ways and very different in others. When we met with each other, we knew that both of us had a long way to go. And we thought this will be a little bit easier if we have somebody else that we can talk to and learn with. So it was a space that we could both help each other progress forward at a faster rate than we would be able to do individually. And that's one of the ways that

Jon Stoddard (02:24.799)
It was very attractive and we thought, let's go ahead and join up forces. think we'll be able to help each other, keep each other accountable and get everything moving at a faster pace. And we would have been able to on our own. So that was a place that it was a great space. And the interesting thing is, we didn't really have any other justification or qualification. We just liked each other and we said, okay, let's give it a shot. Another interesting note that to date.

we still have not actually met in person. I was just gonna ask that. Have you even met face to face yet? No, not yet. We've been all virtual and it's something that has been what coming up a year and a half, I think is the time period. Yeah. Is it Zoom or phone calls or text or all of the above? Everything. way that we could, a short of smoke signals. We've used everything that we, you know.

Well, let me ask you, Eric, how was that like, do you, when you have a partner, do you recognize your deficits and say, Hey, gee, it's got those what I don't have, or, is it just the, one times one is actually 10 versus one plus one or? It's, it's a combination of both. It's a one that I know I have my flaws and faults and spaces that I am not an expert at at all. So that's something that I am.

looking for ways that I can get help. And some of the spaces I know Gia is much better than I am at it. So that's where I will ask her for that type of help. But in other areas, we have some of the same backgrounds. So I know this is something that I might be to do on my own. But if I get Gia's help, it's going to boost it even more forward because I'm sure she'll think of some things that I didn't consider and be able to move it all forward at a much faster rate. Yeah, what's that? What does that help Gia?

he comes to you for? I'm really good at at starting creating relationships. I'm also creative and less technical. He's like, very technical and he loves getting into the nitty gritty stuff. And for me, I'm like, like, let's let's get the vision. Let me look at a big picture. And I use my hands a lot. Is that an thing? It's an Italian thing, you know, what, you know.

Jon Stoddard (04:53.559)
Don't make me sit on my hands. I won't be able to tell you anything. But yeah, I mean, and I think we hand off pretty decently to each other. And we've worked with each other long enough to know, you know, when we're in a meeting, we both know where to jump in. We don't often jump on top of each other anywhere. We kind of did at the beginning, we did, you know, working that kind of situation out. And now we know how to...

play off of each other and work with each other when we're talking to a prospective partner or prospective acquisition owner. And then we'll also text back and forth to like, hey, why don't we lead it this way? So we were always communicating. Our communication skills, I think, are both really good. Yeah. Have you got to the point where you can say, or Gia, that's

kind of a dumb idea and not the other person say, you know, not to be offended by that. I mean, in a way, in a sensitive way, let's say, yeah, let's probably not go that way. Yes. yeah. We do that all the time. I have a big idea machine. know, you have to kind of, Eric is like, all right, come on, come on back to earth here. Let's do one thing at a time. Yeah.

I think between this type of communication, we have reached the point where we know each other well enough. There is a sense of safety and being able to communicate those types of things where we think, okay, maybe that won't be good. And usually if we go that space, it'll have a reasoning behind it and say, I think it might not be the best idea because this and this and this and So it's not just knocking it down, it's rationalizing and making sure that there's an understanding on why we think this would be a great idea or why we think this is a horrible idea. And I think we both.

respect each of our approaches and our knowledge on all of these spaces so that it works well. Yeah, I noticed how that magnetism happens in groups like this because, you know, you know, started working with patch on something and, and it, I never said, Hey, I want to work with patch. just that it seemed like if I want to meet my hero or go to my hero, I like, I'm afraid of my hero. just

Jon Stoddard (07:14.741)
you're magnetized towards this money. We're like, well, that seems smooth, you know, and I'll just keep talking to him and it just happens naturally. Yeah. Yeah. It's a space that we've met other people and there are some people that you connect with and some people you definitely do not. But I think the more people that you can meet, the more people you start interacting with in the same space that you're trying to both move in the same direction with, it can sometimes lead to great relationships, business-wise.

Yeah, so how long did it take you guys to work together? I mean, start talking to each other and goes, hey, you know what, we should work together and do a deal. We formed our company in August of 2020. So we were in the, what was it, April? yeah. maybe met and started talking in May. So whatever number that is, May, June, July. It didn't take too long. Three, four months we decided, yeah, we started the company and.

So what did you decide on? Say, hey, we should go for this, our strengths, and these are the company acquisitions we should make. Like, how did that outlining go? And like, no, I don't want to do that. Or I don't want to do oil and gas. It was something? I'm sure you're going to say what I was There are some things we don't want to get into categorically, we knew it at the beginning, you know, like growing or firearms or.

pornography and things like that. We're both on the same page. Yeah. Go ahead Eric. Yeah, we were sharing at the beginning what both of us wanted to move forward with. And so there was a bit of that of describing the things that we didn't want to get into. But a big part of it was talking about what our ultimate goals were. And really at the time it was being able to get good at mergers and acquisitions, to be able to use the knowledge that we had acquired.

And to start practicing it and moving forward with that so that we'd have some way to expand on what we had learned and really use it in a functional manner. So all of that was something that we both wanted to move forwards with. And we thought, this is the same thing that we're trying to do. Both of us are ready to commit to it. We are in a place where we want to do as much as we can to take that step forward. And that's why it went to a company that we said, let's start a company. Let's go ahead and commit completely to this and make it move.

Jon Stoddard (09:37.101)
And that's how everything got started at that point. You're in Canada though, right? I'm not in Canada. I'm Canadian. will say. okay. I'm actually out of Oklahoma. you're out of Oklahoma. Okay. Hey, that's cool. so starting a company was an incorporation company or LLC. We've got a mix of, at the very beginning, it was something that, we were debating on which way to go.

It ended up being a actual corporation. And we decided that's the way to go because we're using it more as a holding firm so that we can have all of the entities from everything that we learned from Roland to have all of the, and some LLCs underneath it so that the structure is all protected and to make sure that there are ways that we can add on different companies without them risking each other. Exposed to losses or troubles liability. Exactly. Yeah.

Did you guys have any trouble in Maine and the company? mean, I love your website, GrowScaleExit. We got lucky. We were thinking about something like this. And when we looked up the domain, it was available. my God. It's great. We grabbed it. Yeah. Yeah. And other things too. So is that the goal to acquire, grow it, scale it, and then exit at what? Like two, three, three to five years or what?

That's a great question. That's something that for everything that we're doing, our priority is to grow and scale companies. The exit is something that is, it's a profitable exit is the way that Jia describes it. and that's something that the exit can be any number of things. It can be us exiting and keeping everything leaving what we have given the company. they have it and can run forward with it. can be the owner exiting to a higher level where they're no longer operating, but they're managing, they're above the business.

and we help them with that. Or it can be a full exit where everybody, all of us are partial owners and we own the entire entity ourself and we pull out completely so that the full exit is something that everybody gets a big return on. There's any combination of that. We didn't have any direct outline on a specific way that everybody should have fixed it, but it's something that we are aiming towards. And I will say that one of the things that we've gone forward and this might take us to another

Jon Stoddard (12:00.205)
topic, but we've been doing a lot of education beyond Epic. So that's places that we've put a good chunk of money and time to make sure that we can fulfill all of the growing scaling and exiting. And so for the growing scaling, everything we started with Roland and then we got into Jay Abraham and we've been spending a good chunk of money and time with him. He's not, he's not on the cheap side at any point of contact.

He's not the best. I mean, that's he's up there. You know, I think it's just flowing out of his ears. I mean, like he can make $40,000 just like saying three things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's pretty spectacular. Pretty brilliant. So it's we were in a we started out in a kind of a mentorship program with him more than a year ago now. So and we went through that program and then we just are continuing on. We meet every.

We see him and get to ask him questions once a month. And then we work with his team every week. And it's another fire hose, like all the time. So when he does something, when he has a you know, a program like yesterday or the day before, what was it? It was four hours. You know, sometimes it's hours or two. I mean, it's like, it's intense and he's on you.

He's like, if you make a commitment, you need to stick to it. And if you don't stick to it, you're off my list. Really, it is a waste of somebody's time if you're off. That's why when you pay for something, it has to sting because you pay. Even learning, he models. It's just the way he is in watching him work, hearing him, listening to him is an education aside from what he's presenting.

Yeah, I bought his courses a long time ago, the compendium stuff, long time ago. And I had no way to contact him for, you know, 20 years, but going through Roland's Epic course, like, okay. He shows up on a coach and call me if you have anything. And I had a deal. So I got to talk to him. like, That's great. It's something that Jay is one of the top, I guess, experts, mentors, however you want to label them.

Jon Stoddard (14:17.107)
And we are happy to be using his information for everything that we're doing because we're building our system based a lot on what he has done for his life, his career. And then beyond that, we also went into the Harbor Club. We jumped in on that. Harbor Club. Jeremy Harbor. And it's a different approach than Roland takes, but there's a bit more that he talks about with the exit. And so that's something that's helped us quite a bit for our model.

And the financial engineering too. I interviewed his partner, Kailin Lang. Yeah, I saw that you did an interview with him. I think that Alan... Well, let me take this as this first course that somehow you jumped into with Roland was great, but it opened up a whole new world of so many other ways to do it that not saying that Roland course is bad, but if you really want to get at it, you should have optionality.

Yeah, breadth. know, that Roland goes deep in one area, several areas. Jeremy goes deep in other areas. I sorry. And I was just always gonna say if anything, would say Roland's course was too good. And it's because it was such an overflow of information. And it is a mind shift. It's something that everything that we considered on how business can be done completely changed. And that's what motivated us to partner up and start a business, a company.

And it's what motivated us to go and find more information in that space. It started us down the pathway. And I would give Roland full credit for that because he was the one that gave us all of the insights that we needed to be able to know there's this much more that can be done and we can do it. So it's something that it's an excellent starting point. And I just say that anybody that goes that way, if they're really serious about it, don't stop there. There's more that can be done.

I'll tell you that kind of my experience, as you know, I do a lot of work, prospecting work or deal source of work on Sales Navigator. And when you look at find somebody that's interested, they got a $3 million software business. And I say, hey, look, we could do this, this and this, you know, it could increase your top line 50 % or a hundred percent. It breaks their mind. Yeah. Because they just spent seven years and, you know, 70 hours a week getting to 3 million. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (16:41.741)
Yes, and in a lot of cases, it's a hurdle because they don't believe it. Some will not believe it because I've already done all this work and I only made it this far. There's no way you could do that. And you have to find out how you can cross those borders, but you really can. And it's a matter of figuring out how you can get that through to a believable point where they will trust that it can be done. And that's something that we have, honestly, we've struggled that a little bit ourselves on how it

So what do you mean you struggled? know, and I'll tell you this because what I've learned from interviewing 46 different people with over 700 acquisitions and $50 billion in value, the people that have done it more, it's all about mindset. The people that have only one or two deals, it's strategy and tactics. And when you're up here, it's mindset. To me, it's always mindset. I mean, that's...

That's something I've worked on myself for years and I've coached a lot of people on mindset and it's just, that's all there is really. If you don't have that right, you're gonna struggle. I mean, you might make it, you might make it to a million, but most people don't. What is it like 10 %? Numbers are small. They're small numbers. Let alone for 10 million, you know, we're breaking through the 10 million. So.

To me, everything is, it's all about mindset and you have to just, you've got to believe in yourself. You have to have confidence. You have to know where you lack and where you need to bring in brilliance. And where you, where you may be spinning your wheels or wasting your time doing something, some $10 an hour work or whatever, you know what I'm saying? So.

But getting your head in the right place of where am I going? Not where do I not want to go? Where am I going? Where do I want to go? Who do I need to bring in with me to make sure I get there? that's, you know, there are other factors for mindset. You know, you've got to get over the stress and all those other things that might be pulling on your family. How do you, you know, there's no real such thing as balance, but.

Jon Stoddard (18:58.837)
Yeah, I think it's partly subtraction too. mean, I mean, I had this conversation with this guy that was in

he's a transfer agent for a large company and the SEC jumped on him because the two founders were bad. And every time I talk to him, it's like that is like the first 20 minutes of the conversation. And I go, man, look, you've got to cut that off and move on to the next base, the next deal. And I give him the example of Larry King. He killed a guy. I mean, then he...

and wound up the top of his field in boxing, King Productions and all that stuff. He had to let that go. Usually if I just wallow in my pity and my sorrow and what I've done wrong, I'll never go anywhere. I'm just going to tell a little story. I failed at business before and it took a while. The last recession blew me out after my first acquisition, which I didn't have all of the tools.

to do it right. And I wallowed in that for a while. That was one of the reasons I wrote about it in my book. it was just, I had a couple of friends who kicked me in the butt. Like, can't stay there. You have to come out of that. Yeah. How do you get out of that? One tool that

Somebody just popped into my head was like, you know what, if you need to bitch, set a limit. Give yourself 60 seconds or 90 seconds and just get it all out. And then you've got to turn your head and your focus to where you want to go. And sometimes it's all you can do to just shift your focus. You just, but you have to do it. You have to shift your focus. And if you keep slipping out, you've got to keep bringing yourself back.

Jon Stoddard (21:02.835)
And that's the commitment you have to make to yourself to do that, to keep bringing yourself back to where you want to go and not get stuck in that hamster wheel of where you went wrong. Yeah, worry, self doubt. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of it. think I agree with one of the points that was made earlier is just being able to believe that it can happen. And one of the comments I've got a little while back that has stuck with me

was about the things that you think about are what becomes your reality. And so if you are thinking about everything moving forward with the struggles that you're going to hit with all the issues you're going to run into with the potential failures you're going to have, and that's what you focus on, it's going to make it come a lot more closely. going to manifest. Right. It will. And it's because it's what you're focusing on. It's the things that you are subconsciously directing everything towards. If you can do that with the things that you want to accomplish,

that you're going to achieve, then it's going to make that a lot easier than otherwise. So I think that's a key point. That's the mind shift. That's the way that you have to change everything to be able to achieve what these before potentially unachievable goals were, they can be done. If I mean, it's very sappy and believe in it it can happen type of a thing, but there is a reality, there's a science behind it that the subconscious does.

adjust your actions every day. And if you do not point yourself in the right direction, if you do not think about the things that you want to accomplish, and you think about the things that you don't want to have happen, it will affect which direction you go. I really believe that. Yeah. What do you guys tell yourself when you see somebody else doing it faster or more? And do you see, I know we're humans.

We say, my God, I got a little envy on that, but I can't focus on that. Yeah. I got one word. Yeah. What's that? My one word is how. I want see what they did. are you doing? Yeah. Well, you know, that brings to mind, I'm going to, there was that one, I don't remember his name, but there was one guy and when we were doing the mentorship with Jay and he's still part of Jay's group, but he acquired like six or eight.

Jon Stoddard (23:25.057)
businesses in a really short period of time and it was like, wow, what is he doing? And, you know, I, I admit I was doing a bit of, you know, why aren't you going faster? You know, along the way, you know, over another couple of months, it came out, you know, we're having cashflow issues and we have to, you know, because I don't think he took the time to assimilate.

and have a proper system to bring those businesses online in a way that could keep was sustainable. not that I hope that came out sounding right. It was really inspirational to watch them do that, but it was also like sobering to see, okay, that's why we're taking the time to put our businesses at one skill and that's acquiring businesses, but that's not the whole game. Right, it's after.

It's like, you know, what you can ask for the first date, what do do then? You know, you go on the first date and then, you know, so it's kind of, do you remember that guy? No, I know exactly who you're talking about. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but yeah, he was somebody that's actually operating in Asia. And so there were a lot of businesses that he had acquired, but it was that it wasn't perfect. And to your point, John, it was something that a lot of us, when we hear a story like that,

we're hearing the highlights of their entire story. We don't get to see behind the scenes often. And in a lot of cases, the behind the scenes is not that pretty. So it's one that's even though it might sound amazing, there are a lot of cases where I know they're still hitting their own bumps. They've got their struggles. They're still learning. And it's the same for us. We are on the process and figuring things out ourselves. Yeah, that guy probably should partner or partner with somebody that's good at operations and delivery.

Yeah, I mean, because he's a superstar at acquisitions. need a superstar at operations, superstar at delivery. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, that's that takes us to, we've been seeing this reference multiple times, but it's Dan Sullivan. It's his book, Who Not How, where he talks about exactly who you need to find that does things better than you can. Don't waste your time on the things that you're not good at. He didn't even write that book. Remember that in the back of it. You go like, that's right. You're right.

Jon Stoddard (25:44.627)
yeah, yeah, that's right. how to do it. you got all the credit, but I think the other guy got most of paid like at least 50%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let me talk about the, so you guys were in Epic two, how long did it take and how much deal sourcing and how many deals did you go through before you found this first deal?

For us, Epic 2, we did talk to a lot of different people. It was one that we went through some of the ways that Roland recommended. And that was reach out, connect to the people that you're already connected with to a point we used LinkedIn and just some of that outreach. And there were people there, but the funny thing is the one that was the most attractive to us was somebody that was a lot closer to us because they were also in Epic.

So that's how we ended up connecting with a prospect that way. And we made our connection with that. If you had more to add to that, Gia, I think there's a little more to the story. You know, I mean, well, there's always more to the story. It's just, no, I think you covered it. I mean, she was, you know, in our Epic two with us or Epic one, I think. No, she was in two. I think she was in two, yeah. And she came in specifically to sell her business.

Which was, she can't, went to an and a course seller business. Yeah. She's a smart lady. So I, I don't know if that's the right direction. So he was like, if I were trying to get the highest bidder, I want to go to an auction where there's a bunch of buyers that go crazy. Don't go to an and a course where I'm trying to get the best and lowest deal out. But you will find a lot of people that are eager to acquire businesses. So she'll have plenty of options.

All right. She herself had a lot of people that she was talking to and a variety of mix of them. And it ended up being us just because of personality. She liked the two of us enough that she wanted to move forward because she trusted us to be able to take that step. what kind of business was it? What was it? It's a SaaS. A SaaS business. Yes. Yeah. And so it's one that the software itself is a little bit older. Normally it's something that I know Patch would

Jon Stoddard (28:03.245)
crucify us for talking to any business that was that old. But no, no, how old? Yeah. 20, 20. I'm cool with that. Because they have a great niche that they you can't be there. You can't get rid of. Yeah, that's right. Some really, really stable clients. It's an old boring market. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

But they go SaaS, mean, maybe usually 10 years ago, they'd sell a software package and make their money all in one year or whatever it was. Now it's SaaS. They're all like that. Yes, yes, they're a lot like that. In this case, the market is one that is based on software. So it's been around since basically this particular SaaS has been around since the beginning. And so it's one that just needed a little bit of tweaking here and there. And we saw it as an opportunity and we said, let's give it a try. It was our first.

but it's one that has taught us a lot. We've learned so much from the whole process and from what the experience has been. how big was the business and what the SteelStack looked like? What skills, was it Roland skills, was it J. Bram skills, was it Jeremy Harmer style? Well, this was before we even got in with Harbor.

Or We closed on this the month that we started Jay's mentorship. Although it's not that we didn't know anything about Jay or his processes beforehand. I just got a copy again of... I'm still on Roland's mailing list for Epic.

Yeah, the channel, he sent out a gift to everyone on the mailing list of the deal book that they made. And our deal was in that book. Yeah. Yeah. So we used No Money Down, owner financed, we use their software. We use a lot of Roland's techniques and systems. So there was

Jon Stoddard (30:10.911)
a lot that we considered and we went through the different approaches because we were fresh off of Epic. Yeah. So all of the different pieces that Roland gives, we were looking at and reviewing and saying, okay, what can we use? What's a good fit? All of that. yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off there. no, that's okay. I mean, we were both there. So, yeah. So you got it. It was seller financing. Yeah. Is that a hundred percent? A hundred percent. Yeah.

earn in approach. Yeah. So what did that look like? We did an asset buy too. So it was an asset. I'm just reading it. How did you guys purchase with a software company? That's the IP. It's an IP. It's really what you're buying. Right. You're buying the code and then the IP, like trademarks and things like that. that loan or she funded that?

No, it's something that there was no loan in this particular case. We went up and set up a separate entity and then did a transfer of all the assets into the new entity based off of what the arrangement was. So there was still partial ownership on her side, but we actually, in this case, we got majority ownership. So it's one that we have the majority ownership in the new entity and all the assets were moved to that entity. So the old one is for all purposes retired, but the new one is how we operated. that's all.

where the operations are moving on the new entity. And it's something that's, it's considered pure asset acquisition. So that's something that we hadn't, mean, it was a new concept completely that I didn't realize you could do that to buy a business before rolling. So I'll give you a credit again. you, you get this. Let me go back to the seller. Obviously was it he or she?

And she's been in the business for 21 years. She was always the owner of it. Yeah. She developed it. She's a developer. And why did she, obviously she wanted to sell. She joined a course, &A course. she wanted a desire to sell. But what was the reason, what she wanted to just retire and go off? She's got a reason. Yeah. I mean, we went into that deeply because,

Jon Stoddard (32:35.051)
because we were trained to and because I find it interesting to find out what people are about and what they want. And she wanted to go into sustainability. But homesteading in a suburban area as opposed to going totally off grid in the woods, you know, someplace where, you know, you have to trek hundreds of miles to get to your next neighbor.

She wants to do it in a suburban setting so she can be comfortable and still be sustainable and have a small footprint. And so she's becoming a master gardener. And I think she kind of lost interest in the company a while ago anyway, because she had gone off into other things and gotten really involved with digital marketer. And she has some really strong marketing chops anyway. But she's looking to...

It eventually rolled back and as a side note, working with us for the last year on reconfiguring and building and testing the business has reinvigorated her love of it. why she doesn't have to be responsible for it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she's got, she could do the fun parts and still focus on, you know, the gardening course that she's taking now and figuring out.

She lives in California near Silicon Valley. She actually grew up in that environment. She has an amazing backstory as one of the first developers of anything for the internet and one of the first developers of an online magazine for, I don't know if we're allowed to say that, but she's a real pioneer.

in the whole, she came, then this system was built the same year that MailChimp was built and they were neck and neck for 10 years, 20, know, quite a long time. it's a similar thing. I didn't even know what it did. So it's an email system, right? We expanded the product line. Sorry. Yeah. And it's an email system for what niche? So it's not specific to a niche. I mean, it is like Gio was talking about. It was similar to

Jon Stoddard (34:51.937)
the MailChimp model so that it really was for anybody who theoretically wanted to have any sort of auto response. Small business owner. So the distinction was that she built a system that could support large volume. And so that's where there's a difference that a lot of the small businesses don't have a large list. And so it's a space where anybody that has a gigantic list, she was able to support and be able to do a lot with that. So that's.

kind of the space where it was in. But yeah, she's the entrepreneur that she is. She's always looking to do something more with her abilities, her talents, and the space that she's very interested in going in is into that survivability. The basically growing of the produce and she's got a lot going on in her backyard right now. How did your offer or deal stack help her do that with the earn out?

One that when we went in, she saw that as an opportunity where there was a set amount of time that we were going to come in to take over the business completely. There would be a progress so that she was still helping us to get everything operating. And as it's progressing, she's stepping away bit by bit. And by the end of it, she'll be completely out. She'll still be making whatever the agreement is that ends up being for her revenue and for any sort of return that she gets from that deal.

but she'll have the freedom to do what she wants with her business that she's going into now. So. Yeah. I want to make a note that the CEO of HubSpot, the founder of HubSpot, he's not on the org chart at all. He's a billionaire. He just kind of floats all over the company. Yeah. That's good place to But you know, nobody wants to be on, well, maybe I was going to say nobody wants to be on the org chart, but you know, it's not our, it's not our goal to be on the org chart.

We're looking, we really liked Roland's model of being above the business. just building those adding in and acquiring and growing. that's the fun part. Did you have to hire a CEO or somebody? We will be. So you've got to actively search for a CEO. Yes.

Jon Stoddard (37:10.229)
we will be looking for basically any sort of C levels that are needed for the business, not just this one, but anyone that we work with, it will be at that sort of operation. again, pulling from Roland, it could be somebody that's already in the business, the existing owner or CEO as it is, may want to retire, may want to go off and do something else, but there may be someone else inside of that business that would be eager to take the role. And so there could be an exchange that is organized where they could buy in and they could get that.

existing at that level of equity for a price. And it helps with the purchase so that that's something that can go into the whole deal stack. Yeah. I'm back to the deal stack. So she went through the course. He's obviously familiar with Roland's 119 ways to do it. Did she design what she wanted out or did you guys offer it? I mean, was it a kind of like, she's very familiar with Role. Well, he didn't actually come up with all of those until much later, like course eight or nine. He had,

I think I thought he had like 200. yes, like 200 ways to. But yeah, I mean, he had all of those in hand and I think he added to them a little bit after our course. And I know they worked on streamlining the course over time from when we It's changed some. Yeah. Changed some. We got the full fire hose version of it because it was all of the information just all at once being thrown at us. And so I think it's been refined to this point where

people can come in and choose how much of the fire hose they want to get. And it's more scheduled. But at that time it still was, I want to say it was close to the 200 mark on the different types of deals that can be arranged. And so we had a lot to choose from. She was aware of it, but it didn't mean that she wanted one specifically. just, anything that we came at her with that we were throwing the different suggestions as we were coming up with the offer.

Steve was familiar with it. We didn't have to explain it to the same level we would to somebody new that had never heard of an RNN or an RNL. Yeah, yeah. And that's a different school, right? got elementary school, middle school, high school, then like, she's probably college. Yeah, the vocabulary and the language, having a common language set. And we've talked to several people that we're working on partnerships with and deals with right now too, where the common language just makes such a difference.

Jon Stoddard (39:35.807)
It makes a huge difference. So it helped us in this instance too. Did she have a set, hey, I want my earn out to look like this. want like, I don't know what it was specifically say I want 50,000 a month or something like that. That's what I need to work on my sustainability push. She didn't have a strong, strong one in place, but she had a basic structure of where she wanted it to be.

And so it was one that we started at that point and then there was negotiations on where we ended up landing. But it wasn't something that she came in blind. She definitely had a direction that she wanted to go and where to take it. So it was, there was flexibility and that's what we were able to work with so that she had the awareness, like I was saying, of all the different deal stack options. But there was enough flexibility that we were able to modify it to make it fit for where we wanted to take it and still fit with what she was happy closing the deal on.

So it worked for most sides pretty nicely. one of the things that we were all, Eric and I had talked about this when we were forming our business, you know, we have some common values that are important to us. And that was, think, probably what attracted us to Epic in the beginning to start with, because we wanted something that was ethical, fair. we're both really focused on making sure that everyone gets taken care of, you know, not to our own.

detriment, but you know, so that everything works out well for everybody, everybody gets what they want. And that's, it's still very important to us. And that was, that was how we approached the deal. So we wanted to make sure that she was well taken care of, that we were well taken care of, and that it was mutually beneficial. Fair, fast and friendly to founders. Yeah. That's good way to say it. I love that. I heard that somewhere and I'm You guys can use it too. Thank you. thank you.

So did the earn out change the cashflow any to where did it hurt it or did you guys take over and grow real fast and it would just, you know, didn't make any change. For as far as it affected her, it really didn't affect her much at all. because mean on the business. Like did it affect the business? Or was she already getting her pay? Hey, you know what? You're making 200,000 a year. Just go home. You're going to make 200,000.

Jon Stoddard (42:00.151)
but you are only, not responsible for anything. It was a structure where she was still like, I was describing before the operations she was helping us with. So it's a transitionary sort of process. And so at the beginning, she still was doing a lot of the work and we've been slowly taking it over, but it was one that, yeah, she had compensation for it. And it was enough where there wasn't really, she wasn't seeing a major difference in it. The only change that's happening for her is as the business grows, she starts seeing more return to her.

because of the deal structure. So it worked out pretty well for her and that sort of arrangement. If you guys have grown it, what have you done to it? We've been working with it. We've made some pivots with it to shift where it was originally at. Because in reality, it was a business built by a programmer. So a lot of changes have had to have been made. And we've tested a few things here and there. And it's been a learning process. So we have grown it some, but.

there are some places that we still are very eager to move forward. We have some specific plants in place that are, we always have plants in place for this, but we have a couple that we're excited about that are in the process of going forward with it. We want to start the year with two, we feel will be a bit more of a big jump than we've seen previously, because in the past it's been more of a gradual, let's test some of this here, here, here, here and see what happens. And we haven't had any of the big.

two X, three X results yet to be upfront, but it is something that we've seen results enough that we've learned what needs to happen, what needs to go in place here. And to us, this whole process from the beginning has been one of the most educational experiences that we could have asked for. So in a way we paid for it, but it's something that I think it's gonna pay off in the long run, not just here, but for any acquisition we have going forward. When you say pay off or.

Gee, are you saying, are you guys taking a salary or dividends or a profit on top or? We're putting everything back in. Yeah. We're putting everything back in because we want to, I mean, we want it to succeed. We want it to grow. And, and we're okay with that right now. We're okay with putting everything back in, you know, advertising, marketing, putting, and we've, we've also applied a lot of what we've learned with, from Jay and,

Jon Stoddard (44:19.713)
testing and we've done some deep dives into the history and what use cases there have been. So we've been able to create a couple of new product lines that, new products to make it a more robust. It's not just email marketing, it's online forms, it's database, it's landing. So it's a nice suite and we'll be adding more, we have more in line to launch over the next year, but. Or acquire.

And acquire, yeah. I mean, we have a list of acquisitions we want to make and different tools we want to tuck in. So, you know, it's not something...

Like Eric said, where we saw exponential growth right away, but we've been positioning and testing and creating new aspects to make sure that as we launch these next things over the next few months and the rest of the year, we will be seeing exponential growth. And that's going to make a huge difference. It will. The reality is... Sometimes it's frustrating and hair pulling, but it's like, okay.

Cause if you know, one of my things is everything is a test. Even our first acquisition, even everything is a test. And it one of my mentors has always said that I think it's, anyway, it doesn't matter for him, but. Yeah, Russell Bronson used to say that he goes like, you know, used to think I am like, God, I knew it'd work or my head I knew it'd work, but I was wrong so many times. I said, well, let's test it. Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah, he's another one. That's something that I am completely online in line with that just because for me, it's one that I, if anything, I get frustrated with people who think they know the answer because whatever your opinion is, you don't decide the market decides. And so it's something that you have to put it in front of them and let them decide for you. That's the test. You figure all of that out. But on the point you were talking about, as far as

Jon Stoddard (46:23.795)
us getting like the revenue that we would see any big revenue coming from this. We have a direction that we want to take it. And we've already started exploring and finding operators, other people that we can work with that will be able to take the place of the existing owner effectively. And then they can take that C level position. Once we have somebody that's in place to operate it, that point, I think we'll be happy at taking anything on top and keeping it until then, everything is going back into the business. want to keep it growing to a level where we can get to that point.

And maybe it's not the perfect way to do it, but as Gio is saying, everything is a test. We're learning through the whole process. We're seeing what works. And I expect the next acquisition that we do from the first one to the next and the next view will all be a little bit different from a step-by-step from the one before. Because we're learning every step of this way. It's now part of our lives. It's what we do. And so we're aiming at the end of it all to be experts in this industry on a high level.

to be able to have anyone that comes to us get come out better than they started. Yeah. Go back to the wheelhouse, know, that Roland designs and that. Yeah. Is your first acquisition one of the spokes or was it the hub? Because you could say like there's two ways to look at that, right? I couldn't get that, I couldn't get the hub because there was nothing available or too high a price or whatever it was.

So I get a spoke and then I work around that. And then are you trying to take this spoke and create a house around that? Or are you still trying to go for getting the core product? You know, it can be part of our, we're creating systems so that when we make an acquisition, we know exactly what to do. And we have the kind of like patch, the infrastructure and the ecosystem to.

build up that business right away. So with our SaaS, could be either the hub or the spoke. It can be the hub of its own, where we tuck in other businesses around it. And it can also be the spoke of the greater growth scale exit company entity of being part of the ecosystem that builds everything as we acquire. Yeah. Gotcha.

Jon Stoddard (48:49.377)
Yeah, that's something that for its own, looking at it from itself, it is its own hub. There will be spokes added to it. That is part of it for sure. And when we came into it, that's what our perspective was. But the long-term goal is that our main entity at the beginning, at the center of everything is it's the solar system model where everything's around the sun. And so we have that. This acquisition is just one of the pieces that will add to it. We're going to be using the resources that are built within it.

for assisting any of the other acquisitions that we have. And it will be a benefit to other businesses that we work with. We are aiming to do the same with any of the acquisitions that we have on some level. There may be some exceptions where it doesn't fit into that big wheel, but in a lot of cases, we are specifically looking for the ones that will fit there. Yeah, I had a great conversation with Trish over at Tenmark Capital.

You know, they've only made actually seven acquisitions or platform companies, but 30 total. And the other 23 were, you know, taking the platform, one of the platform companies and buying around this, you know, the solar system around them. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It's, it's, mean, it's the way to do it, you know? Yeah. How many offers, do you guys have offers out there for companies right now? I mean,

love to get the next deal at the same terms this one came in, but now you've got a lot more leverage to just go to a bank and say, or an investor and say, hey, I got a cash flow on company raising money for the next one. But at the same time, we are still keeping with, let's say both Jeremy and Roland, where we don't wanna just go ahead and use that to say, okay, we've got plenty of cash to dump into any investment we have.

I still am a big fan of the no money out of pocket approach just because there is a skill in being able to do that. And so a lot of what we've been doing is trying to find what are the ways we can do those types of acquisitions. So right now we have a lot of, our current deals are, taking one at a time. have a stack that we're going through right now that we have connections to, and we know that they are viable, but it's a matter of.

Jon Stoddard (51:08.811)
just taking one at a time and seeing what works with them. So that's one that we're excited about moving forward with. I think the goal is by the end of the year, we want to be at the level where we're doing at least one acquisition a month. One acquisition. How many have you made now? Up to this point, we've got the one solid that's gone all the way through. Aside from that, it's been asset acquisitions. It's not been a full company. Like what kind of asset acquisition? And some that have fallen through.

Yeah, we did go into a couple that didn't, they weren't happy endings, that type of thing. But no, aside from that, it's been just connecting with the different people who have the different resources that we've been interested in. It's the type of thing where you, have a good list and we're just doing small things like that. We're going and finding out how can we connect with these people? Yeah, I know. I can tell you the story of didn't work out. I helped a guy acquire a $7 million company and he gave me $500,000

and shares or 500,000 shares of his company, of OTC company was worth $1 at the time. It was a restricted stock. Now it's worth two cents. yeah, it did not work out. not get OTC stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's a learning experience. I am sure. Yeah. Just don't do I should have just, finder's fee.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys do any of those? mean, people are people coming to you and doing consulting for equity. I'll charge you $20,000 for four hours of work or something. We like the CFE model. Actually, we're working with someone else in the in the community to put together using the CFE model, but to put together a deal flow system. So I don't mind the the

consulting for equity model, as long as it makes sense. We've looked at, because Jay is very, very big on joint ventures and partnerships and he's a CFP guy. I he does. Just come in and I'll take equity or cashflow. For profit sharing. JV. There are problems with that sometimes. And we've tried different.

Jon Stoddard (53:32.501)
we've looked into, guess, and researched different aspects and what might work best for us. And we both like the CFE model the best. We tier things if somebody isn't into that, we can do profit sharing or we can do straight fee, but it's not really, I mean, we really like the acquisition idea. or holding kind of like Adam's model and a lot of people just let's have a nice.

amount of equity in a nice expansive ecosystem of companies that bring in, you know. Yeah, you do five of those a year. I mean, that's pretty, yeah. Hey guys, it's 1128. We've been on the Zoom call for an hour right now. And I really, Greg, appreciate that. I have one ask, like, let's do this in one year to see where you're at. That'd be great. I think that'd be fun. Yeah.

I thought of that idea and I said, well, let's check back in, you know, and I started with Patch, I started with Marty and I said, let's check back in in a year and see how everybody's doing, what's changed, what they learned. That's a great idea. Yeah, I know this year I am anticipating a lot of changes happening for us. So it should be very interesting to see what the difference is in the conversation that we have in a year. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm on board with that and I'm sure we'll see you around, you know, we'll see you in Patch's call and.

I'm going to jump on more calls with you anyway that you have on LinkedIn. It's doubled the last time the event. Nice. 213 people reserved last time, 420 have reserved now. That's great.

Like when you said earlier, the market decides what they want, you know? You gotta have hungry, starving students. You can't just throw stuff out there that you think they want. That's right. Yeah, but if you get in a response and they're saying, yeah, give me more, then you've got something that you can move and keep on going with. Yeah. Well, good guys. I want to appreciate the time you spent with me today. Gia, thank you so much. Eric, thank you so much. Top &A entrepreneurs. Thank you. Let us know if you need any help from us. All right. We'll talk soon. See you soon.

Jon Stoddard (55:46.701)
Okay. Bye. Cheers.