Think Big, Buy Small

Think Big, Buy Small

Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own startup seem too risky? There's another compelling path open to you: acquiring a small business and running it as CEO. Co-hosted by Harvard Business School Professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, the show is an extension of their courses on small firms, including Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, which has been taken by thousands of MBA students, and their highly-regarded book, HBR Guide To Buying A Small Business, which has sold more than 65,000 copies. In this series, Rick and Royce guide listeners through the different milestones of the journey to acquiring an enduringly profitable small business, sharing insights on how to evaluate prospects, raise capital, and ultimately determine if this path is right for you.

Episodes

Climbing the Revenue Ladder: Understanding Quality in Business Acquisitions

October 13, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, Rick and Royce are joined by A.J. Wasserstein, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, for a deep dive into one of the most critical – and often misunderstood – aspects of buying a small business: revenue quality. Together, they unpack the full spectrum of revenue types, from transactional to contractually recurring, and explore how these distinctions impact everything from growth potential to customer re...
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The Journey From Engineer, To Entrepreneur, To Exit

October 6, 2025 • 58 mins
Rick and Royce sit down with a former student of theirs, Paige Sopcic, an engineer turned entrepreneur, to discuss her inspiring entrepreneurship through acquisition journey. After leaving a promising career at GE and earning her MBA, Paige launched her search in partnership with an accelerator and acquired a specialty canning company called CanSource. In this episode, she shares how she found the business, scaled it rapidly throug...
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An Experienced Lender’s Perspective on Acquisition Financing

September 29, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode, we’re joined by Bruce Marks, a veteran SBA lender with decades of experience and well over 1,000 business acquisition deals under his belt. Bruce draws on his deep expertise in the acquisition lending space to reflect on the role of SBA financing in ETA, how lenders assess deals, the importance of debt service coverage, along with evaluations of risk, and factors that searchers should consider when evaluating SBA a...
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You Don't Need an MBA to Pursue ETA

September 22, 2025 • 46 mins
It's always fascinating to hear the journey of someone who doesn't have a conventional MBA background but still finds their way to ETA, identifies high-quality acquisition opportunities, and then successfully buys and operates a small business. In this episode, we meet Tom Allsworth, who was in the Merchant Marine Academy and the Marines Corps, followed by some work experience at home and abroad, before acquiring Pacific Opportunit...
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A Bird’s Eye View of ETA

September 15, 2025 • 50 mins
Will Smith, Partner at Minds Capital, has been host of the Acquiring Minds podcast for over four years and, during that time, has had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of searchers-turned-entrepreneurs, affording him a true bird’s eye view of the ETA landscape. In this wide-ranging discussion, Will reflects on personal traits that set top-performing searchers apart; company characteristics that can stack the odds of success in...
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The Value of Roll-Ups As Seen Through the Lens of Music Schools

September 8, 2025 • 52 mins
Jeff Homer is the founder of Ensemble Performing Arts, an organization that provides back-of-house support to music schools, allowing teachers to focus on what’s most important to them, excellence in music education. Though there are now over seventy music schools under Ensemble’s umbrella, it all began with Jeff’s acquisition of a single school in Colorado, initially meant as a side hustle that would allow him to both work at his ...
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Where Are They Now? A Conversation with Nick Wheeler 

August 25, 2025 • 24 mins
Last summer when, after a self-funded search, Nick Wheeler was only a few months into his new role as President at Tra-Cal, Rick and Royce had a chance to speak with him about his early experiences at the company’s helm. In that Season One episode, Nick confessed that he was “drinking from the fire hose”, but he also believed that Tra-Cal had been a high-quality acquisition and was optimistically looking ahead to the company’s futu...
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Questions and Answers with Rick and Royce

April 21, 2025 • 53 mins
At the end of each episode, Rick and Royce ask listeners to reach out with any questions they may have related to entrepreneurship through acquisition. In response, we’ve heard from people at all stages of their entrepreneurship through acquisition journeys, along with other stakeholders in search. Now, in the final episode of Season Two, our hosts address many of the queries that were received. This wide-ranging discussion include...
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A Successful Model for Roll-Ups in Automotive and Beyond

April 14, 2025 • 55 mins
A few years ago, Logan Leslie began his search with the goal of rolling up smaller, same-industry enterprises under the umbrella of one company. Fast forward to today and Logan is CEO of Main Street Auto, which is the parent company to over ninety auto repair shops around the country. In this engaging conversation, Logan shares why he believes the auto industry is ideal for roll-ups, along with his strategy for doing so therein; hi...
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The Journey and Impact of a Mission-Driven Searcher

April 7, 2025 • 53 mins
In the last three years, Adriana Garcia Ceja graduated from Harvard Business School, became a mother and, after a funded search, acquired an aging life care management business called ElderTree. Many would-be CEOs set out on their searches primarily wanting to experience the joys of operating a small business, while being more agnostic about what the company does. This was not the case for Adriana, who from the outset wanted to acq...
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Learnings From a Former Searcher, Current Investor, and Industry Wise Man

March 31, 2025 • 45 mins
Kent Weaver was an early participant in the world of search, completing a self-funded search that led to his acquisition of a healthcare company in 2002 and then, four years later, putting on his investor hat to make his first investment in search. Today, he’s one of the most experienced and highly regarded funding partners in the space, having invested in over one hundred searches, both traditional and self-funded. In this wide-ra...
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Acquiring Outdoor Recreation Programs as Co-CEOs and Spouses

March 24, 2025 • 53 mins
Connor McCarthy and Caroline Matthews are not only a married couple and new parents, but they’re also funded searchers turned co-CEOs at Canyonlands Camps. The outdoor recreation industry is little explored in the world of search and their ETA journey is also distinct in that, through the acquisition of summer camps and travel programs, they’ve taken ownership of business-to-consumer businesses, which constitute only a minority of ...
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The Acquisition, Transition, and Operation of a Technology Solutions Company in Texas

March 17, 2025 • 58 mins
William Young became CEO of Aerowave Technologies in January of 2021. While he has no regrets about his pursuit of the ETA path, his journey to the company’s helm was a difficult one. His story is distinct in that he started out in a partnered, brokered search but ended up as a solo searcher, focusing on proprietary outreach in Dallas-Fort Worth and Boston. Once he closed on Aerowave, Will was met with a number of challenges, inclu...
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Insights From a Recurring Investor in Self-Funded Searches

March 10, 2025 • 60 mins
Sam Rosati is a former searcher turned active equity investor in self-funded searches and, given his experiences, an important focus of this conversation is on the evolution of the self-funded market. It used to be the case that self-funded searchers had to create their investor base from scratch, out of pure networking. Now, however, a path is emerging where a searcher can reach out to a recurring investor in self-funded searches,...
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The Purchase, Carve Out, and Transformation of a Remote Software Company

March 3, 2025 • 52 mins
Betsy Harbison, CEO at Softrip, successfully completed a funded search in 2021. Her story, however, is rather unique in that the business she acquired is a remote, vertical software company that was also a carve out, meaning that a crucial part of Betsy’s journey involved the daunting task of untangling Softrip from its parent company. In this episode, she considers the pros and cons of self-funded versus funded search; why she end...
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From W-2 Job, To Startup Life, To Acquisition Entrepreneurship

February 24, 2025 • 48 mins
In May of 2024, after a self-funded search, Brian Seeling became CEO of PGM Service, a Florida-based company that focuses on maintenance, service, and repair of commercial food equipment. His journey to become an acquisition entrepreneur is distinct in that he first worked as a software engineer, was then involved in startup life for a number of years, and only recently embarked on the ETA path. In this episode, Brian reflects on t...
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Practical Takeaways From A Seasoned Lender To Smaller Firms

February 17, 2025 • 56 mins
Not only is Zach Duprey a highly experienced commercial lender to those seeking to acquire a small business but, in helping to create a national market for these loans, he has been instrumental in dramatically changing the landscape of small business lending, revolutionizing the market for search. In this episode, Zach describes the “three legs of the stool” that he and his team consider in evaluating transaction opportunities – th...
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The Acquisition of a Remarkable Recurring Revenue Business

February 10, 2025 • 55 mins
After a brokered search, Jenn Braus became CEO at Systems Design West, a company that provides customized ambulance billing, emergency medical services billing, and accounting services to fire and rescue organizations, and one that Rick and Royce believe is “the perfect recurring revenue business.” In this episode, we learn about the beauty of recurring revenue (and how it differs from repeating revenue), and also about the many ot...
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Finding One's Way To ETA

February 3, 2025 • 55 mins
In May of 2021, after a self-funded search, Nick Vandam became CEO of MCI, a telecommunications infrastructure company based in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this episode, he shares his distinct journey, including his days at West Point; competing in triathlons on the U.S. National Team; deployment in Afghanistan; work experience at a large financial services company and then at a doomed startup; followed by graduate school and employmen...
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Where Are They Now? A Conversation with Geoff Duckworth

January 21, 2025 • 17 mins
Starting in early February, we’ll begin releasing new episodes of Think Big, Buy Small, season two. Rick and Royce are looking forward to sharing some fantastic conversations with you! Ahead of these new releases, however, we've built a bridge, of sorts, between the two seasons by checking in with season one guest, Geoff Duckworth, who was featured in the episode, “The Self-Funded Journey From Searcher To Seller.”  Listeners may re...
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