My guest on this episode is Craig Fuller. Craig is the founder of FreightWaves, a data and media business focused on freight and supply chains. FreightWaves is a VC backed company with $19 million in revenue with editorial content, a data product, job board, video content, and multiple podcasts. Prior to FreightWaves, Craig had no background in med…

My guest on this episode is Craig Picken, an executive recruiter for C-suite executives in the aviation industry. We discuss key trends in aviation recruiting, top firms' strategies to attract and retain talent, and how small companies can have recruiting advantages over larger competitors. We also touch on the importance of having an external-faci…

My guest for this third episode in our Build Series is Kush Das, CEO of Ennoble Care, to talk about profitable growth. Or as he calls it, sustainable growth; something that goes to the heart of his mission to serve patients with the best possible care alongside a disciplined and motivated team. Kush and I discuss how they measure return on investme…

My guest on this podcast episode is Jim Derry, the CEO of Field Fastener, a $180 million fastener business based in the Midwest with a unique vendor-managed inventory system. We discuss two main topics: culture and maintaining a multi-generational family business. Jim shares insights on creating a measurable, data-driven culture where talented peop…

Episode 246: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Johnny Lieberman (@JohnnyLieberman) and Zack Miller (@ZackMiller). In this episode I am joined by Johnny Lieberman and Zack Miller, co-founders of Worklyn Partners, about their approach to integrating cybersecurity and IT services for middle-market companies. We discuss their multi-acquisition strategy …

Ep.245: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by James Lindstrom (@James-Lindstrom). The episode features Jim Lindstrom, a seasoned CEO with experience in leading companies like IES, Providence Service Corp and Verdian. The discussion covers his experiences with accelerating company growth, executing turnarounds, managing balance sheets, and strategic valu…

Ep.244: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Collin Hathaway (@CollinHathaway). I'm excited to welcome Collin Hathaway back for his third appearance on the podcast. Collin has a wealth of experience in the home services industry and company operations, and today we dive into his recent exit from Flint Group, which he sold to General Atlantic. We get in…

In this second episode of the Build Series, I speak to Rob Southern and James Bergeron about their experiences and strategies for upleveling as CEOs. We discuss their journeys in acquiring and running companies, the importance of executive coaching, and actionable habits and practices that contribute to continuous personal and professional growth. …

Ep.242: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Steve Swinney (@steveswinney). My guest today is Steve Swinney, founder and CEO of Kodiak Building Partners. The company, which started in 2011 with the acquisition of Barton Supply in Denver, has grown to 45+ acquisitions and $3 billion in sales by 2024. We cover Steve’s extensive experience in building pro…

Ep.241: Alex (@Aebrigeman) is joined by Ed Manfre (@emanfre). My guest today is Ed Manfre, a business leader, executive coach, and co-author of Lead Through Anything alongside recent guest Dustin Seale. He has two decades of experience helping CEOs and C-Suite leaders align themselves and their companies for success. He’s served leadership roles at…

Ep.240: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Sarah Rowell (@sarahrowell). This is the first episode in our new series called the Build Series, in partnership with Pacific Lake Partners and Trilogy Search Partners. Over the six Build Series episodes, we will explore how CEOs can accelerate their company’s growth trajectory, as well as their own professi…

This is my second episode hosting Alex De Pfyffer and Ross Porter, founders of Heritage Holding, on the podcast. A lot has happened since their first episode in late 2022. They’ve built 7 platforms through 25 acquisitions and recently raised a committed fund for the next five platforms. They’ve done excellent sourcing, but I also admire their abili…

My guest today is Jeff Homer, who’s pursued one of the most interesting consolidation theses I’ve ever heard, music schools and more recently dance studios through his company, Ensemble Performing Arts. And his pace is incredible, acquiring essentially a school per month for five years, totaling 70 acquisitions and integrations. The number of reps …

My guest today is Justin Watt, co-founder of Switchboard, which helps businesses with automation and AI tools to become more effective and efficient companies. He’s the smartest person I know when it comes to automation, and I’ve been really excited to record this episode with him laying out his philosophy for tools and how to approach streamlining…

I formed Airframe Group to acquire and build a transformative company in aviation services that is loyal to customers, moves fast, and pursues an ambitious vision for the long-term. I have a life-long passion for aviation and want to my next life chapter creating organizations that give the aviation community their absolute best. My ideal partner i…

Episode 235: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Chris Hoffman (Chris-Hoffman). My guest, Chris Hoffmann, is the President and CEO of Hoffmann Brothers, a home services business based in St. Louis. Hoffmann Brothers have scaled from $10 million in 2015 to over $100 million in revenue in 2023. We talk about how that journey happened, their ex…

Ep.234: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Auren Hoffman (@auren). In this episode, I sit down with Auren Hoffman, CEO of SafeGraph and partner at Flex Capital. The conversation centers around Auren’s experiences in running data companies and his insights into the data as a service market. We discuss the slower-than-expected growth in the buyer's mar…

Ep. 232: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Sara Heston (@sara-heston). My guest today is Sara Heston. We discuss the latest findings from the 2024 Stanford Search Fund Study, which reviews trends from the past two years. Key topics include rapid growth in the Search Fund industry, changing searcher backgrounds such as 24% of searchers not having an …

Ep.231: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Rick Ruback and Royce Yudkoff. My guests today are Rick Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, both Harvard professors for entrepreneurship through acquisition and co-authors of the most popular and well-known piece of content in search, the HBR book How to Buy a Small Business which I would consider the bible of the sea…

Ep.230: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Anand Sanwal (@anandsanwal). My guest today is Anand Sanwal, founder and former CEO of CB Insights, which provides data and intelligence on private markets, companies, and investors. Anand recently hired a new CEO for CB Insights and stepped into a chairman role. Anand ran the company for 14 years and develo…

Ep.228: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Brett Kelly (@BrettKPG). My guest on this episode is Brett Kelly, founder and CEO of Kelly Partners, a publicly traded accounting, tax, and advisory firm with global ambitions and a roughly $350m market cap. Since 2006 they have done 80 acquisitions and developed a strong playbook for building best-in-class …

Ep.227: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Dustin Seal (@dustinseale). My guest today is Dustin Seale, co-author of Lead Through Anything alongside Ed Manfre and managing partner at executive search and leadership firm, Heidrick & Struggles. Dustin has spent his career working with high-performing CEOs from over 70 countries to help transform teams a…

Ep.226: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by A.J. Wasserstein. My guest on this episode is A.J. Wasserstein. Early in his career, A.J. founded Archives One, a physical records management business he operated as CEO for 17 years before selling to Iron Mountain. He then acquired One Source Water, which was eventually sold to Water Logic in 2016. He then …

Ep.225: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Anthony Bramante (@AnthonyBramante). My guest today is Anthony Bramante who leads In Control, an automation control systems integrator primarily serving water and wastewater facilities at small and medium-sized towns across the Northern Midwest. Control systems aren’t exactly top of mind for me every day, bu…

Ep. 224: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Godard Abel (@GodardAbel). My guest is Godard Abel, founder and CEO of G2, an enterprise software marketplace that helps software buyers find the right software for their companies and key problems. G2 is the third company he has led as CEO, the first two being BigMachines, founded in 2000, and SteelBrick, …

Ep. 223: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Rick Torres (@rick-torres). My guest on this episode is Rick Torres, CEO and co-founder of Applikate Technologies, a digital pathology hardware and software business with a device that can examine tissue many multiples faster than traditional physical slide processes can today. I find this company fascinati…

Ep. 222: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Dan Cremons (@DanCremons). My guest today is Dan Cremons, author of Winning Moves, 105 Proven Ways to Create Value in Private Equity-Backed Companies, and founder of Accelera Partners where he focuses on helping private equity groups unlock people-powered value creation. Dan started at Alpine Investors for …

Ep.221: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Moises Eilemberg (@Meilemberg). My guest is Moises Eilemberg, CEO of XiltriX, a 24-7 life science asset monitoring business that started 5 years ago with 36 employees today and growing swiftly. Moises is unique in that this is his second time as a CEO, his first being back in 2006 when he acquired a healthca…

My guest today is Tom Klein, former Morningside Co-CEO alongside recent podcast guest Roland Lessard. This episode with Tom acts as a part two pairing with our February episode with Roland where we talked about M&A value creation after close. Tom and I today discuss M&A value creation largely pre-close of add-ons, talking through industry selection…

The intersection of media and data has been the top idea on my mind for quite some time now. And my guest today, Craig Fuller, runs one of the best modern examples of this concept in action. FreightWaves, founded in 2016, is a media and data company focused on trucking, freight, supply chains, and all things logistics. To date, they have raised $91…

Ep. 218: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Henry Schuck (@HenryLSchuck). My guest today is Henry Schuck, founder and CEO at ZoomInfo, one of the most successful data businesses in recent times with a market cap today around $12B. I’ve been looking forward to this podcast for a long time because Henry has proven to be an effective founder, acquirer, …

Ep.217: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mike Stone (@michael-stone). My guest today is Mike Stone, CEO of CertaPro Painters, the largest painting company in North America structured as a franchise with 370 owners across 500 territories and over $700m in revenue. Their goal is to become a $1B company shortly and a $2.5B revenue company by 2032. The…

Ep.215: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ayman Al-Abdullah (@aymanalabdul). My guest today is Ayman Al-Abdullah, former CEO of Appsumo and now executive coach to other ambitious CEOs looking to scale 7 and 8-figure businesses past $100m, Ayman’s specialty. I love learning from CEOs who’ve made that journey and can share key lessons and takeaways, a…

Ep.214: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Dennis Dresser (@DennisDresser). My guest today is Dennis Dresser. Dennis was a sales leader at IBM and Oracle and became CRO at Anaplan and Dialpad before taking on an advisory role with companies looking to develop best-in-class sales organizations. Throughout his career, he’s developed a playbook for crea…

Ep.213: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Armon Petrossian (@ArmonPetrossian). My guest today is Armon Petrossian, co-founder and CEO of data transformation company Coalesce, built on Snowflake’s ecosystem. Armon and I kick off talking about his time in China and learning Mandarin in undergrad, and move through topics like building within Snowflake’…

Ep.212: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Sieva Kozinsky (@sievakozinsky). My guest on this episode is Sieva Kozinsky, co-founder of Enduring Ventures, a holding company founded in 2019 with 17 acquisitions to date. Sieva and I met at a dinner following the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, his first time attending the meeting. A theme …

Ep.211: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Eric Jorgenson (@EricJorgenson). My guest on this episode is Eric Jorgenson. Eric became a close friend while my wife and I lived in Omaha. I love the energy and enthusiasm he brings to whatever he’s doing, whether it’s investing in tech startups, writing books like The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and The Ant…

This week, we are running the episode I did with Chris Powers on the Fort podcast where I was a guest on that show, and in this episode, we talked all about my background, my interest in data, the podcast, and all kinds of other things that kinds of weird theories I have about restaurants too near the end! This is a good episode showcasing not only…

My guest on this episode is Roland Lessard, former Co-CEO of Morningside with his partner Tom Klein, a language translation services business that served over 4,000 clients in 55 countries. A core piece of their thesis revolved around M&A, and Tom and Roland through that experience acquired deep domain expertise in creating value through a methodol…

My guest on this episode is Richard Reese. Richard took over as CEO of Iron Mountain, a physical records management business, in 1981. He ran the business as CEO through going public in 1996 before retiring from the role in 2013. Revenue over that period grew from around $3 million in 1981 to $3 billion in 2013. Our discussion focuses on incentiviz…

Ep.207: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Savneet Singh (@SavneetS). My guest today is Savneet Signh, CEO of PAR Technology, a billion-dollar market cap publicly traded point of sale software business serving the restaurant industry. I’ve been following Savneet’s career since college when he went on Invest Like the Best talking about acquiring softw…

Ep.206: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Tim Strickland (@Tim-Strickland). My guest today is Tim Strickland, former Chief Revenue Officer of ZoomInfo and now an advisory partner at Summit Partners. Tim led during a massive growth period for ZoomInfo and had to learn how to rapidly scale sales teams both within ZoomInfo and incorporate go-to-market …

Ep.205: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mike Wyman (@michael-k-wyman). My guest today, Mike Wyman, brings over 30 years of experience in various CFO roles to this episode where we dive into the CFO role, especially in newly acquired businesses with limited financial infrastructure. Today Mike advises CEOs throughout the search fund ecosystem on ma…

Ep.204: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Mike Zani (@MikeZani). My guest today is Mike Zani, CEO of The Predictive Index, a talent optimization platform built around their nearly 70-year-old behavioral assessment tool. Today they help companies optimize their teams by identifying the key strengths of employees and hiring prospects to get the fit ri…

Ep.203: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by David Dodson (@Dave-Dodson). Today’s episode is a re-run of my conversation with David Dodson, an investor, professor, former CEO, and author of one of my new favorite management books, The Manager’s Handbook. We talk about the strategies and tactics he’s learned over many years of studying high-performing C…

Ep.202: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Scott Barstow (@ScottBarstow). My guest today is Scott Barstow. Scott has founded and led tech companies and teams throughout his career. He now supports the Pacific Lake portfolio as an operating partner focused on building great software product and engineering orgs. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to kno…

Ep.201: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Gary Walter Jr. (@GaryWalter). My guest on this episode is Gary Walter, Jr, who took over running Infutor, a consumer identity data business, as CEO after his father passed. Infutor took on investment from Norwest Venture Partners and experienced rapid growth before selling to Verisk for $250m in 2022. Today…

This is my 200th episode of Think Like an Owner, and for this special episode I’ve invited my good friend Justin Mazeka Vogt on for the honors. Justin and his business partner Ed Redden were among the very first to reach out to me when I first started the podcast 5 years ago. We’ve discussed this episode’s topics extensively, from thinking bigger t…

Ep.199: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Ann Rhoades (@Ann_Rhoades). I’m thrilled to share my episode today with Ann Rhoades on building values-driven cultures that drive outperformance. Ann was the VP of People at Southwest Airlines with founder Herb Kelleher and was a founding executive as VP of People, and eventually a board member of JetBlue Ai…

Ep. 198: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Joel Peterson (@JoelPetersonGSB). My guest today is Joel Peterson. Joel is the founder and chairman of Peterson Partners, a private equity, venture, and search investment firm, and the former CEO of Trammell Crow. He is also the former Chairman of JetBlue AIrways and is currently in his 31st year teaching a…