The Surprising Acquisitions That Led Iggy Domagalski to the Top!

 Summary

In this conversation, Iggy Domagalski shares his entrepreneurial journey, detailing his experiences in building businesses through acquisitions, navigating financing, and the importance of trust in business relationships. He discusses the dynamics of mentorship, the transition to running a public company, and the significance of company culture and values. Iggy emphasizes the strategic approach to acquisitions and the development of a clear mission and vision statement for future growth.

Takeaways

I started a small little online business at 12.
We did about 10 startups; some made it, some didn't.
We always viewed equity to be kind of the gold piece.
We hoped our customers would trust us to fix problems.
We wanted to be the most trusted supplier in our industry.
I think we have a ton of growth opportunity ahead.
We're actively pursuing acquisitions to grow our business.
We're starting the journey to define our mission and values.
I love M&A and enjoy discussing it with others.
I prefer to lead with trust until proven otherwise.

 Watch the Interview:

Transcript:

Jon Stoddard (00:00.366)
Welcome to the top &A's entrepreneurs. This episode is brought to you by the Deal Flow System. And if you like this content, make sure you subscribe down below. Today, my guest is Iggy Doma Galoski. Iggy has made a number of acquisitions and now runs a company called Wageax, which is listed on the TSX with a market cap of over $450 million. Welcome, Iggy.

Thanks, John. Appreciate you having me on the show. All right. So let's go back. And I would like to do this like you are Luke Skywalker and you get this call to adventure. Where how did you start? You know, I've always loved business. I always was drawn to it. I think about my family, my parents were entrepreneurs. We were we were immigrants to Canada, still live in Canada.

And when you're an immigrant, sometimes all the wonderful job opportunities aren't available to you, so you have to create them yourself. Where would you immigrate from? I was born in Poland. And then we immigrated to Winnipeg, which is where I lived for about 25 years with my folks. My wife's half Polish. Wonderful. So my kids are Polish, Scottish. Nice. Yeah. But yeah, we ended up in Winnipeg.

both my parents were engineers, but the degrees, you know, they don't really transfer over so well. So they began their entrepreneurial journey. So that was just kind of around the dinner table. was business and they owned retail stores. So myself and my sister would often be in those stores. So we kind of got to see it all unfolding. And I guess that's where I got my taste for it and kind of liked it. Actually, when I was 12, I started a small little online business, kind of reselling this.

some software and really what kind of software was it? It was just this freeware that was available to be be resold and I mean back in those days, geez I'm dating myself here, but it was like a bulletin board service where it was all done through dial-up internet and people I have this CD-ROM that had software on it and people could dial in from their computer

Jon Stoddard (02:18.254)
see that they could send me a check for $25, which they would mail to me. And then after I got the check, I would give them access to this. I love those stories, man. I love those stories. I used to go user groups in Silicon Valley a long time ago and they bring boxes of CDs they actually exchanged. Like this was before Bill Gates said, Hey, no, no, no. Every piece of copy is every software is, is worth money. Yeah. So, so I got in before the, before the Bill Gates software thing. So, so was able to make, you know,

I mean, I was a 12 year old kid, I didn't make that much money, but certainly enjoyed doing that. And then just kind of had some entrepreneurial ventures as I grew up at a painting company and a couple other small businesses. And then I went to business school and then I actually ended up going to work for a fairly large corporation, kind of in a rotational program. I got to see all the different elements of the business from, it was an investment fund company.

What kind of company was this? was an investment banking company or? It was like a mutual fund company. I got a chance to work on the trading floor, got a chance to work in sales, in training, in distribution, in corporate planning. So I got a chance to see a lot of it. And I liked all of those aspects. And it was a really fun ride. I had a great mentor over there who ended up leaving that company to start a new company. So I went along with him. We started another financial company.

And then did that for a couple of years. And then same guy said that he wanted to move West, which is where he was from. And he wanted to go buy a bunch of small and medium sized companies and asked if I wanted to come along. I said, sure, but I have no money. But I was willing to put in just a whole pile of sweat equity. And that's kind of how our journey began. he give you, when he said sweat equity, did he give you equity for your efforts? Small person? Yeah.

And then over the years, we were able to buy more and earn more. then through the years, we bought a bunch of other companies. So that started, I guess that started about 16 years ago. And we both moved from Winnipeg out west. I ended up in Vancouver, he ended up in Calgary. So I was running one of our companies out in Vancouver. He was running one in Calgary. The one in Calgary was growing really quickly and

Jon Stoddard (04:41.51)
So I found someone to replace me in Vancouver and ended up moving to Calgary. And then, yeah, then we kind of just got busy with buying other companies. We did a bunch of startups. So we did about 10 startups. Some made it, a small number made it and a lot failed, as is the case with startups. And then we bought over the years about 10 companies. 10 companies.

What's the makeup of those companies? What do they look like? Was it like boring industry, niche, manufacturing or food or what? And the size. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So most of them were in industrial products and kind of the distribution and service space. Yeah. That's when my partner and I came from, Winnipeg, we came from, it was a distribution business. I mean, the product that we manufacture was a mutual fund, but it's the same thing as

you're still selling a product that you made and convincing people that it's a good thing to buy. So we like the distribution business, distribution of the actual product didn't really matter that much to us. We just wanted a good business and a good market that had good products or services. And so there's actually quite a few of those out there that you're able to find. All the businesses that we bought were fairly niche players, selling a...

a fairly technical product and neither my partner nor I were particularly technical in the industrial equipment space. Technical meaning it was, kind of a software related business or? Technical meaning it just that it's complex. You know that there's some engineering and math behind figuring out which exact product you need for your application. And you really got to get that right because often it's going on like a process kind of application. So there might be like,

high pressure gas or something that this thing is controlling. And so you can't really screw that up otherwise things blow up. And so that's kind of what I mean by the technical nature of it. And neither him or I knew anything about that. But we knew that if we were buying these companies that they will be full of really smart people that knew how to do that. And then that it was more our job to work on things like the culture of the company, the brand, finding new growth opportunities in the company and just generally growing it.

Jon Stoddard (06:55.85)
and also acquiring other companies to bolt on so that we could make the, make these bigger. Were these off market deals or on market, you know, listed on a site or something, or do you just approach them directly? It was, it was a little bit of everything. That's a good question, John. You know, we were in some cases, you know, they were listed on a, on a kind of a brokerage listing service. Some of the, you know, as we were getting into it, those were the first ones that we found just because, you know, we weren't really tapped into the industry yet. Right.

But once we got tapped into the industry, most of the ones that we found ended up being word of mouth somehow. And initially most of the ones that we bought were quite small, know, maybe 10 employees or five employees or 15 employees kind of doing 10 million bucks of revenue, kind of those kind of companies. And then over the years we were able to afford a few bigger ones. But- How did you pay for those?

bring your own money, a split of like some equity, split of seller financing, split of some bank financing? That's exactly what it was. Yeah, it was our own money. It was bank financing and it was vendor notes for the most part. We never brought in any kind of external equity. So we never brought in private equity or really other investors. We always viewed equity to be kind of the gold piece that we really didn't want to.

To dilute, we were happy to dilute with the management team. And we were usually aired on the generosity side when doing equity offerings for our management, but we really tried not to bring in external investors if we didn't need to. And we never needed to along the way. the banks, we were doing a pretty good job of running the businesses and

We, mean, I don't understand tech. I, know, like tech type businesses where you can, you know, run a business and continuously lose money. And it doesn't really matter. That, that, is such a foreign concept to me. Like that would keep me up over every night. It really would. And so all the businesses that we always ran were profitable and they were, know, they were, we, you know, we thought about things like cashflow and profitability and what the balance sheet looks like.

Jon Stoddard (09:16.15)
and what will growth projections look like and making sure that we had the right working capital. So those were things that we thought of all the time. And our banking partners saw that and they saw that we had a good business that was growing, that was profitable. So they were pretty comfortable lending us money throughout the years. was actually getting access to bank financing was never really a problem. Even when it was more challenging times, we had...

kind of taught us the importance of having really good banking relationships. Like actually having a good relationship with the actual banker, like that person. did you start that relationship before you needed the money and say, Hey, look, here's what we're going to do. Here's our pitch deck or our investment thesis. When we come across a deal, we'll do it. Or did you wait until you had a deal with an LOI? We waited until we had some type of a deal.

we didn't really think there was too much value in starting a relationship on a hypothetical situation. So we started the relationship when we did have a deal. We were kind of almost military like in our packages that we would present to the bank. And it was really, really thought through and every little piece of information that they could ever want. so that initial ask for money was pretty easy. And when you're buying,

and established business, you know, that's been around for a decade, that's fairly consistent. It's actually a pretty safe investment for a bank. Like that is a way safer bet for a bank than giving you a bunch of money for a startup. To buy an existing business is a, like there is a lot of money out there available for that very easily and very cheap. It's a really easy source of financing. So that's kind of when our relationship started when we had a business to buy.

And then, you know, the relationship evolved over the years. We spent a lot of time with them, really kept them up to date on our business when we had big growth opportunities, which we did a few times during a downturn, during the financial crisis, kind of 08, 09, when the world was falling apart, we had an opportunity to almost double our business by taking on a new product line, hiring a bunch of people, like doubling our head count.

Jon Stoddard (11:37.758)
And so we needed to go to the bank and say, I know the world's falling apart here, but this opportunity is here. We've done a good job for, you know, market conditions. Notwithstanding, we think this is the right thing to do, but we need some cash. and yet there was, it was no problem. buy that product or did you, did, did they say, Hey, look, we need to find a home for it. Because I'm just curious how you found that opportunity.

in all the dust that was settling in 2008, 2009. Yeah. So there was a, a distributor, we sold products that other manufacturers made. there was a local competitor distributor who had lost the product line, a really, really wonderful product line. And we have the opportunity to take on that product line. So

So the investment on our end was, you we had to hire a whole bunch of people so that we have the technical skills and the service people and the sales people to be able to actually run that business. And then we had to invest in some inventory to make sure that we actually had the product on the shelf. And then we had to invest in some capital assets so that we had the appropriate testing equipment and all the tools and everything that our team needed to deliver the product and all the related services. So it worked out. was wonderful.

great kind of kickstart for one of our companies and you know, in the middle of a financial crisis, it was pretty cool. it worked out. money in it when everybody else is losing their home. like, yeah, yeah. So it was a, it was a, that was, that was a, that was a fun time. So how did you, how big did you grow the business? I mean, did it double in the size? Or, we, no, we grew quite a bit. when we took it over,

our kind of main one where we kind of amalgamated a few, was doing 8 million in revenue when we bought it in 2006. And then we grew it up to close to 200 million. it was a, yeah, so was- That's a pretty good opportunity that the banks like. Yeah. Yeah. So it was good growth. We kind of did the math and we grew it at about 28 % annual growth rate, like for a dozen years. So it was-

Jon Stoddard (13:53.39)
It was hard to keep it on the rails. That's a fast growth company. You're growing almost 30 % every single year. And not every year is that good. So that means some years were less and some years were even more than that. So some years were 50%. And that was for, you can do that for a short period of time, but we did that for a dozen years. How are you? Were you working around the clock or was it? I would say I was pretty busy, but not around the clock, no.

I mean, we all put in long hours, but I think we were all able to maintain a decent amount of work-life balance, I think. I think I've gotten better at the work-life balance over the years. Certainly there were times when it was more intense, but yeah, I think our kind of really believing in that family and health are your number one priority. That's always been the mantra of our management team.

push that to our people and as much as we can to ourselves as well. The relationship with your mentor, it's kind like the Obi-Wan Kenobi. mean, how do you guys get along? Was he just teaching you everything you knew or was it a 50-50 kind of level playing field? So he was definitely the mentor in the relationship. So he's 20 years older than me.

And had already had a number of really interesting careers before I had even met him. So, yeah, so he's been an incredible mentor to me, still is to this day. And we talk all the time and I bounce ideas off him and get his feedback on things. Where I think we were really good for each other is we balanced each other out. we're like most people, we're two very different people, we're not exactly the same. I would say that he was more the gas pedal.

And, and, and, know, like I would be a little bit more analytical on things. So, I think that combination really helped us out. You know, it, you know, his, his gas pedal, you know, pushed me harder and, and, and my kind of more analytical mind helped, helped him think through ideas a little bit more before we, before we executed on something that might not have been the right decision. So, so I think we were, we were a really good team for a long time, for over 20 years. We worked together.

Jon Stoddard (16:16.648)
And we still do work together, but we have this main company that we were running called Tundra Process Solutions. That's the one that we grew up to about 200 million. And then during the pandemic, we sold it. We sold it to a larger company called Wajax. So Tundra was a private Canadian company and Wajax is a publicly traded company. And so they came along and said, hey, you know what's...

No COVID's a weird time, but maybe it's something good can come of a weird time. And, and we came to a deal, kind of an agreement on the deal and the terms pretty quick. Took about six months to do the due diligence. And then in January of 2021, we kind of inked the whole deal and it was done. and then at that time, my mentor, his name is Mike, he, he retired out of the business. So he was, he was out of Tundra and that was his last kind of ride.

Yeah, that was, well, no, as it turns out, that was his last ride with Tundra. he was, he wanted to, it was his largest holding and you he wanted to go do some philanthropic things. And so he, so he, he exit out of that one, but he has a, he has five or six other businesses too that he still actively runs. And I'm a small part of some of those. So we still work together, just, just not on a full time basis. So we, so we definitely still spend time together.

And yeah, and then the previous CEO of WageX was retiring and he asked if I wanted to put my name in the hat to be considered for the role. And I said, sure. And went through that whole long process, which is a, you know, that.

the process of how a board chooses a new CEO for a publicly traded company. board and everything. Yeah. And then your older vote, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you can fill up a whole podcast just talking about that process, which is a very interesting process in itself. And it takes a really long time. Were you waiting by the phone all the time? Like, do I really want this, you know, have to go through all this to get this? Yeah, it was, it it took, I don't know, like really seven or so months for the whole process to play itself through.

Jon Stoddard (18:22.478)
It was a really good process. I wanted to go through it because they hired a firm to kind of do the evaluation of all the candidates, internal and external. And it's basically the most deep 360 review that you've ever had on yourself. And they promised that regardless of the result of what happened with the search, that they would present all of their findings back to me. Well, I'm kind of a sucker for professional and personal development. So.

you know, this is, it wasn't cheap to do it. And so I thought, well, if I get this really wonderful review of myself and it helps me identify some blind spots that I have, that's worth it alone for me. the blind spots that, that surprised you that somebody else can see that, you know, it's just a blind spot. Yeah. You know, one of the ones that was a little bit surprising, but now that, you know, when somebody tells you something and

It's a surprise at first, but then when you really think about it, it's obvious. I had an aha moment with that. And for me, that aha moment is that, you know, I'm like off the scales, I lead with trust. I'm not the person that says, you know, you have to earn my trust. And that's finally when I'll trust you. I'll you implicitly until you give me reason to distrust you.

Yeah, exactly. So I start with trust until you prove me wrong. so for me, that means ultimately I probably give people more chances than others would. Was that a negative such that if you hired somebody, you took too long to fire them? Is that what they were trying to get at or a product line that didn't work and you kept trying it or what?

I think that can be one of the negatives of being too trusting. But I think the counterbalance that they kind of brought up is you start things quicker. If you intuitively trust the group that you're working with, you're more likely to advance an opportunity as opposed to say, you know what, I'm not too sure. Let's really build all the trust first before we do anything here.

Jon Stoddard (20:40.748)
And then sometimes it just kind of dies on the vine. So it's the whole process of like, dude, don't put a lot of money in the products anymore. Just minimum viable product. Just to make sure you don't get in front of your skis. Yeah. And, I mean, it's, it's just everyone's preference. just prefer to, to trust. I prefer to believe in the good in people. I know there's bad people out there and I know there's good people that do bad things. but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I prefer to lead with trust until proven otherwise. And then, you know, I found that throughout my life, that really hasn't burned me. Like there's been a couple of small cases where I've been burned by that. But the amount of benefit that I think I've gotten out of it versus the small amount of being burned is for me has been very much worth it. that's not a, so somebody said that's a blind spot. You took it internally.

but it's not something you wanted to put a guard rail up because it's you've never wrecked the car on it. Yeah. I think, I think for me, was just really thinking about it and knowing about it. And now when I go into a situation, you know, I consciously think about it. think, okay, I'm, going into this situation with full trust. and, and, and I think just acknowledging that it's there helps you get a better leader. Do you think you can not that you're

trying to train yourself to distrust people, but you grow to read people better. If I look at Warren Buffett, how the guy can take a look at some financials over weekend and make an offer because he trusts the people by the financials. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, it's just how I prefer to roll. And yeah, I don't anticipate myself changing that, but being aware of it is a good thing. Yeah.

So back to this company that you grew to 200, how many acquisitions did you do for that? It was kind of like a spoken wheel or did you just make one that just kind of took off because of you already had the channels for it? Yeah, we did within that one. I want to say it was four or five, but most of the growth was actually organic. So they were kind of like small tuck-ins.

Jon Stoddard (23:00.938)
bolted into the company, a new small division here, or we needed a better capability and kind of like value added service. So we bought a small company to do that. But most of the growth actually was fully organic. And so our philosophy was really how do we bring on more wonderful products? Like how do we sign manufacturers who make really, really great things and sell their product for them in our territory?

And then how do we make sure that we have the best possible people who can, you know, the best possible salespeople and the best possible service people who can, who can just make it a success in our territory. So, so that's really where the growth came from in our businesses. do you, interview somebody that you're going to bring on to think sales or whatever position it is where they're in the right culture based upon what you learned from your mentor and what you bring to the table? Like they're a good fit for.

the personality? mean, what are you looking for? You know, that's a good question. I think back to, you know, how we were doing it, you 15 years ago, and it was pretty ad hoc, right? Like we made up some interview questions and we do our best. And ultimately it was, okay, do we like this person? Do they seem like they would fit in around here? And for salespeople, it was, are they hungry? Like, do they really want to go out there and get it? And, you know, most of our salespeople were on a

a lot of their comp was variable. so, know, like, are they, you know, are they excited about, you know, landing big deals and being rewarded for that? As we went on, one of the most important things that we did was really clearly articulate what our, you know, our big purpose was, you know, kind of going through like the whole mission vision process of the company. We did that. And then

we really articulated clearly how we thought we would win and how we went to market. And then we very clearly articulated our core values. And then we started to craft interview questions around those. And that made things easier because we talked about those a lot. We had those up on the wall in every boardroom and in all the hallways. And it was something...

Jon Stoddard (25:20.568)
that probably to the annoyance of our team, I always talked about. So every week, you know, I would take three people out for morning coffee. I, and it was all, it was all on one page. I'm just a fanatic for simplicity. so we had our, you know, our, our kind of our mission and vision and our values and how we win and our, and our one in five year strategy all on one page, easy to understand. And, and so I would bring that and we would just talk about it for an hour and I would describe how, you know, how we arrived there.

why we're doing these things, how we're growing, what our values were. And we would just always talk about it. so- Are you explaining it to them or are you trying to weed out people to say, you on the boat or not on the boat? The purpose of these coffees, the kind of the once a week, we would just go up to Starbucks and have a coffee. It was explaining. Yeah.

But what I found too is if people didn't really believe in it, ultimately they would just self-select out. if a senior leader in your company comes over and says, hey, this is what we're building and this is what we're doing for the next five years. And you look at that piece of paper and you say, I don't think I want to do that. Like you'll start looking for another job on your own. But I thought that we had a pretty compelling plan on this paper.

And I think most people agreed with that. And we didn't have any big attrition from doing that. think if anything, it excited people. It really focused our company. I would say there was a period of time where we were a bunch of dogs chasing shiny bumpers, right? Like anything that was shiny, like, what's that? woo, woo. And then go start chasing it. because it was a good opportunity, there's money to be made, it's exciting, it's in a new market, or even in a new country. We pursued some work in the Middle East.

We were doing things quite a bit outside of what we knew and what we were good at because we didn't have a good set of goalposts of what we actually wanted to do, what we believed we were really great at, where we could add value, where we acknowledge all of those things. And when we refocus the company and have that clear purpose, mission and vision and values and how we win, man, it made all those decisions so easy.

Jon Stoddard (27:43.646)
So whenever, should we do this thing in Mexico? Like, no. So what is your mission vision where it disqualified those opportunities? What is that? So our big goal was to be the most trusted supplier of industrial process equipment in Western Canada. was it. So this is interesting because you say the most trusted supplier and your big characteristic or behavior is like, I'm trusting. Yeah.

Yeah. It all came together. But it was, but you know, that's what we want. That's what we want it to be. Want it to be the most trusted. And it was around industrial process equipment and it was Western Canada. And, and, know, it's just, that's a short number of words, but it's, it was very powerful and very focusing. when, when opportunities would come up, some, any would happen almost on a weekly basis. Hey, we got, we got an inquiry from a customer in Venezuela.

as an example, which happened by Venezuela, Mexico, Africa, Europe, right? Like these things. well, it says Western Canada right there. And then that would actually end the conversation, right? Like we wouldn't have to take an hour or two to go through a presentation and these people wouldn't have to spend days putting together all the information and the research. The answer was no before it even started because we just knew where we wanted to play. Say no instead of chasing rabbits.

Yeah, exactly. So we stopped chasing those shiny bumpers and started to focus and our people really liked that too. They just, you know, they knew where they were going. They knew what they were doing and it made everyone's life a little bit easier and it made us more successful too. So it worked out pretty good. Can you give me an example of like, you say trust it, I understand like when you say, okay, this is the price of the product and that's the price you'll get. It's not what somebody else, this is it.

Let's say delivery time, we're going to get this product to you. But if know something happens where, you know, semi goes off the road and you can't get it to the product. I mean, what do you do when you say I got to come? I want to live within that most trusted supplier. Yeah, that's a that's a good question. And, you know, we're one of the one of the sayings that we had is, you who

Jon Stoddard (30:04.778)
who would you rather be in trouble with? And when you're dealing with industrial process equipment, just things go wrong, right? Like things get installed incorrectly in the field and they break. There's a lot of components that go into these things and especially these days supply chains are busted and sometimes things are late or they're wrong or they're broken and it happens. And that doesn't, that wasn't just our company, that's every company that deals in this kind of equipment. Things just go wrong. And...

And we always hoped that our customers would, know, kind of internally say, okay, well, if we're going to get into trouble with anybody, we hoped that it would be Tundra because we know that they'll go to the ends of the earth to fix the problem. that, we really, we gave our people the freedom to do that. So we have something called make it right where people can, you know, spend up to a certain amount of money without asking anybody. They just, they just have the authority to do that on the spot to fix a problem.

they could spend more, they just have to kind of ask somebody. And we did that in a big way. sometimes we spent millions of dollars to make a problem right. And every time we did that, we found that that customer over the coming years just would turn it to be our best customer in our following Promoter scores off the roof, huh? yeah, yeah. And translating into like 10X in business because of what we did. Just because they knew that when things went wrong,

we have their back and you know that, you even with a friend, you know, if you know that you get in trouble, if they have your back, they kind of by definition become your most trusted friend right then. So that's really what we tried to build. And I think it worked pretty good. It still is working really good. Tundra remains a, know, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wejax operates on its own, has its own CEO and it's doing better than ever. it's.

I gotta tell you about that. Who do you want to be in trouble with? It sounds like you're almost talking about the, you know, tenants of working with the Navy SEALs is because who do you want to be like the guy with the ego or who do you want to be in trouble with? It's the guy that goes to the end of the earth to, you know, save you, take you out, whatever. Yeah. So we, you know, there, there, there are numerous examples of where we, where we did that for our customers. And, and, you know, I would also say that I thought we did that for our people too.

Jon Stoddard (32:31.886)
people go through things, right? Sometimes good, sometimes bad. And we always kind of thought that, you know, a company, you know, and then the leadership in a company can make the biggest impact on an individual, you know, in their times of greatest happiness and greatest sorrow. And so whenever there was, really happy things like babies and weddings, you know, we would always be there to do something special. And when there was, you know, really sad things like death or illness,

You know, we would always be there to do something. How did you do that when you grew to 200 million? You know, it's easy to do when there's 10 people or 50 people in the office. But when then now you got a thousand people. I haven't quite figured it out. So I'm way jacked with 3000 people and I'm, I'm trying to figure out how to do that. I've, I've been in this role of running wayjacks, just for eight months. So we're, we're really trying to, you know,

figure out how we can continue to do more for our people, especially in those moments. But you know, with 150, 200 person company, it was quite manageable. I mean, I still knew pretty much everyone that worked in that company. And they have managers too, we knew everything about them. So it wasn't too difficult. So WageX is almost over 100 years old, the company.

We're 165 years old, which actually makes us nine years older than Canada. And the culture of yours, you you had a fast growth over 12 years. Did your cultures mix or was there any part that didn't mix? Well, the companies are still quite separate. So Tundra runs on its own. And a few people from Tundra have kind of made their way over to Wejax, including myself.

I would say that I'm probably used to a faster pace of growth, but we're also growing on a bigger number, right? Like it's, if you're growing on a hundred million dollar number, it's easier to put up higher percentages than if you're growing on an almost $2 billion number. So we're, I'm accelerating the acquisition program at WageHacks. You know, I've got a passion for, we're doing acquisitions and buying companies and- What kind of size companies are you through now that

Jon Stoddard (34:52.322)
you know, just move the needle. It's like, well, we can't do that one below, you know, $10 million, but we can do this $100 million one. Yeah. And that's actually kind of the numbers, know, that are, we'll do 10 million and slightly under in revenue as, as add-ons, but they have to be, you know, like a strategic bolt on that really fits, you know, and gives us an extra capability or, know, it's in a,

So across Canada, we have 117 branches, but we're in almost every community. But you know, if it gives us an extra community that we want it to be in, that would make sense. We're an extra capability that would make sense. So we'll do that. But really, we're looking for the larger ones. Tundra was that kind of an acquisition. And so I'd like to do more of those. They just come along less often. The market that we operate in is highly fragmented. There is a there's a there's a lot of companies out there that are kind of that 10 million revenue mark.

And we're happy to do three or four of those a year. But as the bigger ones come along, we certainly want to do those because those are the ones that really move. Yeah. Do you have an investment bank working for you now to find those deals or did they flow up from your sources or all the above? Yeah, we have numerous investment banks and brokers that we work with. We have an individual in our companies, vice president of corporate development. 100 % of his job is finding and buying companies.

So he's got all the relationships with the people that also have the relationships. the deal flow is actually pretty good. We get a lot of opportunity coming our way, especially over the last couple of years. We have been buying a decent amount of companies. We bought three in the last year. So- Three in the last year since you've started as CEO, eight months? Yeah. Yeah. Two since I started and then one right before that. So we're-

So we're actively doing it. And when we do it, press release it and we try to make a little bit of a splash about it. so that just kind of gets around industry. It's not that huge of an industry. So people know that we are actively doing it. I think there's a real kind of a chance of deal closure risk or whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of people that sniff around and ultimately don't buy.

Jon Stoddard (37:12.844)
I don't think we fall into that category. think we fall into the category that when we're interested in something, we make an offer, it's a real offer and there's a very high chance that we're going to close it unless something really weird comes up. I think that, you know, is a lot of it's reputation that gets around. And I think that's our reputation that if we're, if we're going to do something, we're going to do it. not just kicking tires. Yeah. And it's a, it's a fair offer, competitive offer, or it's a higher offer. What is there a kind of a.

a style that you like to come in on offer? We definitely don't overpay. I think we pay fair. When I think about what a seller wants, obviously money is important and they need to feel that they're getting a fair price. But more often than not, even more important to that to the sellers is what's happening to my baby. I've been running this company for 20 years. I started it.

what's the fate of this company and what's the fate of all the people that work here. And- Well, I think you trump that with, well, we're a 160 year old company. mean, we're going to take care of you. Yeah. that's, so that's part of the, that's part of the, you know, the conversation saying, you know, we've been around a long time. We buy companies, we don't really sell them. We hold onto them. So it's a nice permanent home for all of your employees, which was,

you know, a really attractive thing for us when we were selling Tundra. It was a good permanent home for our employees. And there was a lot of promises made to me by the previous CEO. And they sounded something like this. They said, you know, we're going to leave the brand alone, at least for a period of time, you know, so you can still operate as Tundra. We're not going to mess with your systems. You do have to take on our safety program because it's a little bit better. And over time, you got to take on our computer system, but how you sell and all that, we're not going to change any of that.

And we plan on laying off zero people. The reason we're buying this company is for the people and we want to keep everybody. So those were the promises that were made. And every one of those promises was kept in space. And when there were surprises, there was positive surprises, like extra bonuses for our people, right? Like, there was, there was only, there was good surprises that happened along the way. You really managed expectations about, I saw, it seems like the culture really was a good mesh.

Jon Stoddard (39:29.438)
It was and it is. And so I think going into some of these conversations with the owners of these businesses when I'm chatting with them, I can say it is a good permanent home. And I was exactly in your shoes two years ago and a bunch of promises were made to me. And this is how it all rolled out and played out. And I can point to all of our acquisitions that we've done and they've all pretty much played out like that.

I think it's hard for other buyers to come in and give that kind of a track record. Like if you're private equity company, the model is usually pretty simple, right? Like you put a bunch of debt on the balance sheet, often you cut a bunch of heads and you just- Redegotiate the terms and price maybe through that 90, 120 days. Yeah. And then you squeeze a business for all the cash that it has for the next five years and then you flip it, right? And so, I mean, that's not the worst fate in the world, but it's-

I don't think it's nearly as good as the future that would be in. Do you still get involved with the conversations with the sellers or kind of like Mark Leonard or Cisco where it dropped down to the business unit GMs? It depends on the size, know, if it's a and on the relationships. If one of our people already has a tight relationship with the seller, which is sometimes the case, then I let them run with it. If it's a little bit bigger or.

a new one to us, then I'll for sure get involved. And I'll get involved more, the larger the deal is and the more that they need me. mean, some sellers, it's a pretty unemotional transaction. It's like, you just give me a fair price? Tell me my people are going to be good. And I don't need to talk to the CEO. And I'm out. And then for other sellers, they want to look me in the eye and they want to shake my hand and they want to know what I'm telling them.

at least they want to hear it from me. They want to make their own evaluation if it's true. And if they trust me that what I'm telling them is true. And I'm more than happy to do that because it's super important. Do you like running a public company with all the swings of what the street wants, doesn't want or... You know, I really, really do. I wasn't sure if I would. I had never run a public company before. So it was...

Jon Stoddard (41:56.96)
It was new to me. And I mean, what I found is we just have an incredible team. They know what they're doing. We've been around 165 years and we've been public for a long time. So it's not like I have to go in and reinvent anything, right? Like there is a- There's no new story to tell here. And there's a machine that works, you know, every quarter when the results come out, all these things happen and everyone knows what they're supposed to do. And I know it's just my job to get on the analyst call and answer the analyst questions.

which I'm usually prepared for by our team. So I've really been enjoying it. I like talking to investors, either existing or potential investors. I love telling her story. I think it's a really exciting story to tell. I think we have just a ton of growth opportunity. And I really like dealing with our board. We have a really, really wonderful board who are ultra supportive of me and management, and they kind of leave us alone to do our own thing.

that whole thing where the board's supposed to have their nose in, their fingers out. That's the phrase that boards use. They live that. They allow us to set the strategy and then they just kind of approve the annual budgets and approve all the things that a board's supposed to approve. And they're really, really, really, really smart. Is there anybody, ancestors from founders still on the board some way back? No, no, no, no, no. It's a fully independent board.

And they're all just wonderful. mean, just the experience and knowledge that some of these folks have is quite incredible. I feel pretty lucky that we have them. So I bounce a lot of ideas off them and talk to them offline between board meetings to get advice. So I've really been enjoying it. It's only been a short time. Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon period, but if it keeps going like this, I think I'm in for a pretty fun and enjoyable ride. Yeah. What's the goal?

Does the board want you to continue a specific growth per year and just keep doing the same thing and employing great people, being the most trusted? Did they incorporate your mission as the values or do they already have a mission value statement almost similar? Interestingly, the company has been around for 165 years. We don't have a mission and value statement. We don't have a mission and vision statement. We don't have an accepted

Jon Stoddard (44:21.964)
written down set of core values. And so that's one of the first things that I'm working on here. So we've kind of launched that journey that we're going on for the next year to really articulate that. And I think that will make our lives much easier. Again, as it was at my previous company, once we got that in place, my job becomes easier. It becomes a lot more repetitive because that's all I ever talk about is just going around and talking about what our mission and vision and values are and how we win and how we go to market.

But we're just in the process of starting that journey. So that's kind of the next big thing, getting all of that on a piece of paper and then really disseminating it through all of our leaders and to the front lines. And yeah, as I go around to our branches and talk to our people, that's what I'll be talking about once it's done. But it'll probably take us a year to really get it done well. I see where that vision mission statement can create trust because you also create independence because,

Should I take this deal in Latin America or Saudi Arabia? Yes or no, right? Before no, but now such your big company. Yeah, we could do it. Yeah. And ultimately that will be our, know, as we decide, you know, if our final place where we land on is we're Canadian only company and that's how we're staying for the next decade, then again, that'll make it really easy when opportunities come in that aren't Canadian, no thanks. And we'll move on. But yeah, but that'll be a really fun journey of how we, of what we land on.

and that will really set the tone for what the next decade will look like. Yeah. Iggy, thank you so much for being on the show. That was very, very interesting. I appreciate it. You are my first guest that's running a public company. awesome. Well, I was thrilled to be on the show. Thanks for having me here, John. I love &A and I love talking about it. And I think that entrepreneurship and buying businesses is such a...

just a wonderful way for people to build skills and build a great life. any kind of piece that I can do to help get people excited about that always makes me quite excited. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks, John. All right. Take care.