The Blueprint for Acquiring without PE, with Harjit Singh

[00:00:00] What's some of the most common misperceptions that you find MSPs have when they haven't done this before?

[00:00:06] They don't take the time to build a great relationship with their banker.

[00:00:09] I think they're just happy to have a bank account with a top-tier bank rather than saying,

[00:00:13] which of these bankers is really good for me, for my business?

[00:00:16] I mean, you're a small business. You know, talk to a smaller bank.

[00:00:18] Hey, I'm trying to acquire a business. This is all I need is half a million bucks.

[00:00:22] Would you finance three times EBITDA, two times EBITDA, right?

[00:00:24] Sometimes what I've seen is a couple of deals I have done in the IT services space is the banks are willing to go three, four, five times EBITDA.

[00:00:33] Then what do you do is on a quarterly basis, you get hit.

[00:00:35] You go to the bank and tell them, the CEO or the relationship, hey, thank you.

[00:00:39] This helped a lot. This acquisition worked out great.

[00:00:42] We were 250. Now we are at five. We're tracking to be 600K EBITDA.

[00:00:46] That's what the bank wants to hear.

[00:00:47] Now they're saying, we'll be open to doing another one with you.

[00:00:50] I see that as a common thing, the clients that I'm serving right now.

[00:00:58] In this interview today, I get the pleasure of speaking with Harjeet Singh of Transacta Capital.

[00:01:04] And they have an interesting approach to M&A and they have seen more deals than most others.

[00:01:10] So if you want to understand the M&A landscape as an MSP, don't miss out on our conversation.

[00:01:15] Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Servocity.

[00:01:19] I created Servocity because I was an MSP who lost data and had to face my client.

[00:01:26] I don't want you to ever be in that situation.

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[00:01:53] There's a lot of different ways, and you were saying smaller MSPs can actually do M&A.

[00:01:57] And I think that's super counterintuitive to the average MSP or business owner.

[00:02:04] So what do you mean by that?

[00:02:05] See, so after being to countless M&A conferences around the world, I think the biggest discouraging

[00:02:16] things for entrepreneurs is to say they're a small company for a number of years, right?

[00:02:21] Right.

[00:02:22] So one, they don't explore outside with their bank.

[00:02:28] Like where does their number one roadblock is capital, right?

[00:02:33] You see that being a problem for startups, right?

[00:02:37] Because they have to create a product.

[00:02:39] They have to sell.

[00:02:40] You need customers.

[00:02:41] But a company that has been generating, let's say, the benchmark in this industry,

[00:02:46] where things start is $250K EBITDA business is a decent size MSP in this space.

[00:02:54] Yeah, so let's, for context, I know some people understand maybe good benchmarks,

[00:02:59] but $250K EBITDA, about what revenue range would I be to be around?

[00:03:05] So you're saying seven, so if the EBITDA margin in this industry is between 18% to 23%,

[00:03:11] like the best ones have 23%, but 18% to 20%, right there.

[00:03:16] So you multiply, you're looking at close to $1.2, $1.3 million.

[00:03:20] So that's a pretty typical or average size MSP, not a big MSP.

[00:03:24] Not a big MSP.

[00:03:26] But the thing is, the U.S. government has a lending program called SBA loans, 7A.

[00:03:32] Most of these banks, they offer this.

[00:03:34] People want to bank with the brightest of the Bank of America, the JP Morgan,

[00:03:39] the city banks of the world.

[00:03:40] But how often do you go to the bank, hey, I need a credit line.

[00:03:44] I need, hey, I'm thinking about an idea that I would like to buy a $250K to $300K EBITDA business.

[00:03:52] Give them a profile of this business.

[00:03:54] They have five years historicals.

[00:03:56] This company has been growing.

[00:03:57] It's stable.

[00:03:58] It's a recurring revenue.

[00:03:59] That's what the bank wants to hear.

[00:04:01] So what I recommend that I've been talking to a lot of the founders and I've been serving businesses between $5 to $50 million in revenue,

[00:04:11] especially targeting M&A businesses, is go to the bank.

[00:04:14] Explore.

[00:04:15] If they can't help you after 15, 20 years of your relationship, should you be giving your business to them?

[00:04:22] Because the answer is they should be able to do this for you, right?

[00:04:26] So you want to find the right bank who will help you do this because I do this for client in and out.

[00:04:31] The first two or three acquisitions can be financed with 7A type of loans, right?

[00:04:39] So this is a personal, I think this is an entrepreneur's roadblock that they don't get out of their own way.

[00:04:46] It's very hard to build $250,000 to $500,000 in EBITDA businesses.

[00:04:51] So imagine if these entrepreneurs really think about it and start doing this.

[00:04:56] They have access to capital, right?

[00:04:59] The only thing is they're thinking they want private equity money or they're not ready for private equity money

[00:05:03] or a family office, silent capital type of structure that most people will be willing to lend.

[00:05:13] Second part of this restructuring thing is we'll come to lead gen in the acquisition space in a minute.

[00:05:20] I know that's something that you want to get into, but solving the capital problem,

[00:05:25] this is the best industry to attract capital.

[00:05:28] Why is all of this private equity family office or platform businesses are built?

[00:05:33] Because it's recurring revenue, right?

[00:05:38] There's somebody on the other end is also writing a debt term sheet.

[00:05:42] As well as investing equity into these businesses, right?

[00:05:46] So coming back is the banks are willing to lend.

[00:05:50] If these banks are large banks, go to your community bank or credit unions.

[00:05:53] I've been banking with smaller banks because I know they've been always there for me.

[00:05:58] And it's a relationship business.

[00:06:02] I want to ask you about that because for everybody listening, SBA loan, 7A, maybe you get something different,

[00:06:09] but let's just talk about that for a moment.

[00:06:11] Am I going to have to have a personal guarantee?

[00:06:14] The personal guarantee for SBA loans is always there, right?

[00:06:19] Meaning these are government run businesses.

[00:06:21] I realized when my dad bought a gas station, this was an S7 loan in Colorado.

[00:06:25] We were living in New Jersey.

[00:06:26] This was all via SBA.

[00:06:28] We bought a running gas station, right?

[00:06:30] We put in 20% down, whatever it is.

[00:06:32] But we bought a fresh business, which we had no experience in.

[00:06:36] And my father, he was a New York City cab driver.

[00:06:39] However, him to get a loan when he had no prior experience to buy a business, if that's available,

[00:06:46] these MSPs are recurring revenue.

[00:06:49] They should be able to buy three to four times EBITDA by going to a bank.

[00:06:54] That is one.

[00:06:54] That's solving the capital problem.

[00:06:56] The second is you have peer groups.

[00:06:59] So many people know you over the years.

[00:07:01] So many customers know you.

[00:07:02] If you're looking to grow your business, everybody wants to make an investment.

[00:07:05] If people are risking their time and money investing into these 95% failure of startups in this world, right?

[00:07:13] Look at how much capital goes into trash that is paper money that goes to zero every year.

[00:07:21] All the angel and venture rounds are typically the result in zero.

[00:07:26] Exactly.

[00:07:26] If you build a structure where you're valued, that you start offering whatever you are paying a loan,

[00:07:32] you start telling your peers to invest in you 50K a tranche, 100K, put a deal together, structure a deal, right?

[00:07:40] And you go to your peer group.

[00:07:41] Everybody wants to make money.

[00:07:43] Everybody wants to multiply.

[00:07:45] But you're also giving access to your peer group saying, hey, invest 50K in me.

[00:07:51] Then you go to 5, 10, 15 people.

[00:07:53] You structure a transaction.

[00:07:56] Then you go out and find a target because capital is the number.

[00:08:00] What I feel, speaking to entrepreneurs, they share that capital is the number one problem for them to buy a business.

[00:08:07] Where I'm saying capital is not an issue, right?

[00:08:10] But you need the right thinking in order to execute on a particular strategy.

[00:08:17] Your MSP, you must have fewer people who exit.

[00:08:20] You have most people who are building a 500K million, a $2 million business in somewhat.

[00:08:24] But they know you've been running this.

[00:08:27] You've been successful.

[00:08:28] You're serving.

[00:08:28] It's a B2B business model.

[00:08:30] They will be able to, you know, you got to put that opportunity on the table.

[00:08:33] Other than the bank, other than going to a private equity firm or a family office, you go to your peer group to finance acquisition.

[00:08:40] I think the company's 250K and above should be able to double, triple because this is a recurring business.

[00:08:47] Two, three entrepreneurs coming together and you also are solving the junior management, right?

[00:08:54] Because people who built another 200, 250K EBITDA business, they, you know, with the combination of their skill set, you also can diversify.

[00:09:03] It gives you a lot of option to build a well-run oil machine, you know, industry by industry, geography by geography, and also, you know, enhance your senior management for you to build.

[00:09:20] A great MSP, which, you know, everybody's trying to get to a million dollar EBITDA from what I'm, you know, been in this industry for quite some time now.

[00:09:28] And I think this can be achieved if the entrepreneur really puts their mindset.

[00:09:33] I hope I answered your question.

[00:09:34] I love that.

[00:09:35] I mean, right, when I break that down to the core, 250 EBITDA could be a million, million three business in terms of revenue.

[00:09:42] So that is a, I think by definition about the average MSP, right?

[00:09:45] It's not the biggest.

[00:09:47] And I think when I talk to MSPs, they're sitting there going, we're not big enough to be acquired by these really large ones because we don't fit their metrics.

[00:09:58] Like if they're looking for, you know, a million or two million or five million in EBITDA, we're nowhere near that.

[00:10:05] And so they feel like they're left out.

[00:10:07] But what I love your connecting is they also feel like they lack the capital to go do any M&A on their side.

[00:10:13] So I think you've got some folks that didn't even think they could be acquired and now you're giving them a whole different mindset, which is you can be the acquirer.

[00:10:20] And it sounds like if I take your idea and continue it, if there's a second and a third and a fourth, 250K EBITDA, all of a sudden I've built out probably a management team.

[00:10:33] I built out a million dollar EBITDA business.

[00:10:35] And now we can keep growing or we're really attractive if we want to take that exit because we've reached kind of that critical mass where the more private equity or other mature investors are interested.

[00:10:49] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:50] I think the opportunity to build great businesses, this is the best time to be.

[00:10:55] I mean, the MSP space, I said this last year too, that this decade, especially when the industry size is going to grow from 79 billion to about 120, 130 billion by 2030.

[00:11:12] I think you're going to start seeing these creative solutions.

[00:11:16] Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, all they need is the right mindset to think along this or they need to speak to somebody like us because we want to create great companies.

[00:11:24] We want to make sure that we hold entrepreneurs' hand from their journey when they start till the time they exit.

[00:11:31] It could be five years, it could be seven years.

[00:11:35] And we pride ourselves in building these type of businesses, right?

[00:11:41] And what we are known in the industry is to finding great targets, right?

[00:11:47] Even for small MSPs, you don't need the Goldman Sachs, the JP Morgan, the Morgan Stanley.

[00:11:53] We're building the mini Goldman Sachs.

[00:11:55] Yeah, they won't give you the time of day.

[00:11:57] We were trying to build a mini Goldman Sachs for the MSP industry or IT services as a whole.

[00:12:03] And we have created a name in this industry to find great targets for MSPs.

[00:12:09] Interesting. So we were talking about your approach and it seems a little different than the typical investment banker or M&A firm.

[00:12:19] Yes. So our approach, you have to see a market and you have to serve that market.

[00:12:25] Obviously, over the years, there's so many M&A players in this market and everyone's approach is different, right?

[00:12:32] Some are more transactional, some are more thinking at and looking at each opportunity differently.

[00:12:38] We're totally different. We found our blue spaces is companies, you know, obviously we work for the acquire, right?

[00:12:48] We're on the buy side of things.

[00:12:51] That doesn't sell. We're not on the sell side because some of our clients are there on the IT services space.

[00:12:55] But what we want to do, the biggest problem in life is lead gen or sales.

[00:13:03] And even most difficult problem in this space is finding acquisition targets because you're dealing with personalities.

[00:13:10] You're dealing with egos. You're dealing with companies.

[00:13:13] But if you give an entrepreneur and they have, we have like an 18 point qualifying criteria that if an entrepreneur knows where they want to be in the next 12 months, 24, 36 months of their life,

[00:13:29] and we help them design that plan, and then we help them find targets that has like a 92, 93 percent criteria.

[00:13:38] Nothing is 100 percent, right?

[00:13:40] That matches in an organization they're looking for.

[00:13:44] So where there's 250, 500K EBITDA businesses or larger, we know how to build deal flow, right?

[00:13:53] We know how to find these targets, and we can help build not only a million but a 3 million, 4 million, $5 million EBITDA businesses for these clients each round.

[00:14:05] Look, you need a little bit of creativity around financing.

[00:14:08] You need a little bit of creativity around business strategy.

[00:14:11] So that is where we are bringing in our skill set.

[00:14:15] Look, I've been in this industry for 15 years.

[00:14:18] I started my career on Wall Street, worked for a multi-billion dollar family office before my first startup exited in 2019.

[00:14:25] I became an accidental M&A because a family office in New York reached out to me.

[00:14:31] They were a smaller size.

[00:14:33] They're a subpar at the time.

[00:14:36] They were in the startup space providing tech DevOps to small, small businesses.

[00:14:41] They were happy million dollars in EBITDA.

[00:14:43] But they took equity as part of their revenue.

[00:14:47] And I helped them scale to about 700 companies.

[00:14:49] I have done countless acquisition for them, but small, small acquisition.

[00:14:53] What I figured out then that led to more and more clients that, you know, they were in this range.

[00:15:01] We've done this exercise so many times.

[00:15:08] We know who we want to work with.

[00:15:11] And we know that the entrepreneurs who have built 250K business, they've been stuck here for 10, 15 years.

[00:15:20] And they want to unlock wealth.

[00:15:23] They just need a creativity around their financing and their acquisition strategy.

[00:15:28] They are having a hard time finding deals.

[00:15:31] And that's what we want to be known in this industry for is lead gen for acquisition target.

[00:15:38] Like I call it acquisition identical profile, right?

[00:15:42] So if you create that identity that you're in the industry to buying 250K targets, I don't think anybody has that type of profile within MSP.

[00:15:51] Everybody I hear, they were a million dollars.

[00:15:54] Now that criteria has come down to 800K or they want to acquire platforms that are $3 million and up.

[00:16:00] So I think it's easy to build that type of profile within the MSP channel.

[00:16:06] It's interesting just to hear like most MSPs don't even understand creative and financing, you know, because it's like you got to run the books by the book.

[00:16:17] So like the fact that there are creative financing strategies, it is already a light bulb to some people, right?

[00:16:23] And the other thing is, as you well know, all these others that are doing the acquiring, they might be providing some equity.

[00:16:29] It's kind of like your, I think, father that bought the gas station, right?

[00:16:32] You put 20% down.

[00:16:34] But that's not unusual with private equity.

[00:16:37] Like they're using debt as a lever very often, right?

[00:16:39] And so why wouldn't you use debt as a lever to acquire the right company if it's the right fit?

[00:16:47] Yeah.

[00:16:47] Also, the thing I think these guys forget, they have a recurring revenue.

[00:16:51] If they need money, it's very hard for a 250K EBITDA business to be a 500K EBITDA business.

[00:16:58] If you haven't done it in 15 years, a lot of people said, hey, I was raising kids.

[00:17:02] This became a lifestyle business.

[00:17:03] I'm going to become a 500K EBITDA business.

[00:17:05] Because there's a 99% chance it takes, especially the way the competition is.

[00:17:13] Your only go-to-market strategy, you need to think creativity in terms of why don't I acquire?

[00:17:18] Do you really want to spend another five years building a 500K EBITDA business, right?

[00:17:24] And that's, I think, if we can bring two great minds together.

[00:17:28] That's where it works.

[00:17:29] We are never, so the thing is, we introduce parties.

[00:17:32] We are involved in the first call, the second call.

[00:17:35] A lot of, you know, in the investment banking world, they're involved.

[00:17:39] They want to be involved in every single meal, every single transaction, every single conversation.

[00:17:44] After first meeting, I let the buyer and the seller speak directly.

[00:17:48] Because if it's not meeting of the minds, the numbers will never meet.

[00:17:52] If the buyer cannot tell the seller or the acquirer, hey, this is what I need.

[00:17:57] This is what I'm trying to create.

[00:17:59] And I need your help, right?

[00:18:02] Rather than speaking from an egoistic stage of an entrepreneur, you speak from a calm mindset.

[00:18:10] And really share your vision of acquiring a business and why that business makes sense.

[00:18:17] And the value that the two can create.

[00:18:20] Then I think there's a chance this entrepreneur that they're trying to acquire is going to open up more doors.

[00:18:26] Like, you could have him potter beat your team or he can leave after X number of years working in this, in your company.

[00:18:35] But the goal is, you want to build a great management.

[00:18:39] If you think this person will make a lot of sense, why not?

[00:18:42] And that's something when one plus one doesn't become 11, there's no point of doing an M&A transaction if you don't see it.

[00:18:50] Rather than, it's just not just enhancing the EBITDA, but also you're trying to bring in a great skill set to an organization rather than hiring a headhunter or trying to find out who might be a good fit.

[00:19:01] Here, somebody in front of you built a business.

[00:19:03] You figure out what are their weaknesses, their challenges.

[00:19:06] They're voicing this in front of you.

[00:19:08] This leads to how both of you can grow in this new role.

[00:19:13] I love that.

[00:19:15] What's some of the most common misperceptions that you find MSPs have when they haven't done this before?

[00:19:22] So they have not done this before?

[00:19:24] I think they're their biggest enemies because so many times in the same peer group, in the same information, education, you do this year in, year out.

[00:19:37] They're not open to new ideas.

[00:19:39] They want to use new products.

[00:19:41] You probably see they're tied up with the same vendors even after mistakes, after mistakes, after mistakes.

[00:19:46] The thing is they're not trying to innovate.

[00:19:48] And I think innovation, I think, is coming to the MSP industry a lot, right?

[00:19:51] You see a lot of great products.

[00:19:53] But I think regarding finance and creative, they're still tied to their wealth manager or their accountant who works out in a basement somewhere, right?

[00:20:01] They're not willing to use.

[00:20:03] They don't take the time to build a great relationship with their banker.

[00:20:07] I don't think they're using the playback to their strength.

[00:20:13] I think they're just happy to have a bank account with a top-tier bank rather than saying, which of these banks is really good for me, for my business?

[00:20:22] Right?

[00:20:22] I mean, you're a small business.

[00:20:24] You know, talk to a smaller bank.

[00:20:25] Hey, I'm trying to acquire a business.

[00:20:26] This is all I need is half a million bucks.

[00:20:29] Would you finance three times EBITDA, two times EBITDA, right?

[00:20:32] Sometimes what I've seen is a couple of deals I have done in the IT services space, I think recently, is the banks are willing to go three, four, five times EBITDA.

[00:20:45] They're like, all right, that's all you need.

[00:20:46] And you have target.

[00:20:49] Then what do you do is on a quarterly basis, you go to the bank and tell them, the CEO or the relationship, hey, thank you.

[00:20:56] This helped a lot.

[00:20:57] This acquisition worked out great.

[00:20:59] We were 250.

[00:21:00] Now we are at five.

[00:21:01] We're tracking to be 600K EBITDA.

[00:21:03] That's what the bank wants to hear.

[00:21:05] Now they're saying, we'll be open to doing another one with you.

[00:21:08] I've seen that as a common theme with the clients that I'm serving right now, right?

[00:21:13] So you have to keep the bank updated.

[00:21:15] You have the records.

[00:21:16] Look at our revenue.

[00:21:17] Look at our EBITDA, right?

[00:21:19] You have to share that information with the bank.

[00:21:21] You continue.

[00:21:22] You keep that relationship fresh every quarter.

[00:21:25] You take them out for lunch, dinner, breakfast, whatever you like, or a drink.

[00:21:29] And you build that relationship because that's the most important relationship in your creativity.

[00:21:33] If they can finance this, you don't have to sell your equity to anyone.

[00:21:39] So that's something you should try.

[00:21:41] And the second thing is they don't tell, they don't share with their friends group because look, they're CEO.

[00:21:48] They know a lot of folks over their client is what's stopping them from growth, right?

[00:21:53] If it's capital, that should be, we're in a capital.

[00:21:56] This is the best country for capital.

[00:21:58] And you have a business where private equity is dying to come in.

[00:22:01] Family offices are dying to come in.

[00:22:03] Why don't you share this with other entrepreneurs or wealthy individuals saying, hey, would you finance this for me?

[00:22:08] I'm buying X amount.

[00:22:10] And this is how much money I need to grow the business.

[00:22:15] After I acquire this business, this is the valuation for my business, right?

[00:22:20] And you start sharing this because I share whatever is going on in the industry, in the MSP industry.

[00:22:26] I share this with my family office clients, right?

[00:22:29] Who I acquire businesses for, right?

[00:22:31] Find targets for.

[00:22:33] And they're awed by it.

[00:22:35] They were surprised.

[00:22:36] Why didn't they look at this up 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right?

[00:22:40] As I'm trying to help them put their capital to work, and I'm looking for targets in this industry for them as well.

[00:22:47] Because they also want a sizable product.

[00:22:50] But if I tell them there's, if we do two or three acquisitions with banks' capital, I can bring a lot more capital on the table for my clients saying, hey, this is a company.

[00:22:59] Now they have integrated two or three businesses together.

[00:23:05] Why don't we raise more capital for them and structure a deal where they'll be able to buy two or three more targets additionally?

[00:23:13] So I love that.

[00:23:14] So you can start, you might use an SBA loan to get your first one.

[00:23:17] You might use another one of those or your folks in your peer group to structure a second or third one.

[00:23:23] But then you're at a kind of critical mass where the family offices or others that you know, they're ready to come in and invest and unlock the next three or four or five.

[00:23:34] So this really could be quite the exponential growth or snowball if you realize that, from what I get what you're saying, RG, capital is really not your constraint.

[00:23:45] Capital is not your constraint.

[00:23:47] Your own mindset is.

[00:23:49] It's a lot of the roadblocks.

[00:23:51] It's a lot of the roadblocks in your own head that entrepreneurs don't overcome, right?

[00:24:00] Like I said, the conversation you and I started was entrepreneurs too busy in the business, not on the business, right?

[00:24:07] The working genius workshops were great yesterday.

[00:24:10] Like, I loved them because that'll help you get organized.

[00:24:12] It's that, you know, you should spend some time when on the weekend saying, how do I double or triple this?

[00:24:20] Those massive.

[00:24:21] Look, your easier wins are to grow this business by 10, 15, 20 percent per annum, right?

[00:24:26] That's your average win.

[00:24:27] But how do you grow exponentially, right?

[00:24:30] Those are the conversation when you go out for a walk on the weekend or others saying, hey, I know so many folks.

[00:24:36] Let me think about what do you think about acquisition, how they can help me.

[00:24:39] Those are the conversations that you need to start having.

[00:24:42] For my take, your business model is different, correct me if I'm wrong, right?

[00:24:45] There's the typical M&A advisor or investment banker that the best analogy I know to make is kind of like a realtor.

[00:24:52] You don't pay them until they close.

[00:24:55] And then you pay the closing fees.

[00:24:58] And so, you know, it sounds great.

[00:25:00] You don't pay me until we do a deal.

[00:25:02] And you can look at several of those and decide who you want to hire.

[00:25:06] But in my experience with realtors, they only want to show you a few houses and then move on because that's how they get paid.

[00:25:12] And then but you say that it's very important that there's a relationship and it can really take some time to find that right match.

[00:25:22] So do you only get paid when the deal is done?

[00:25:25] Do you have a different model that you offer?

[00:25:29] So our obviously, look, we are in the lead.

[00:25:32] You call it lead gen or finding acquisition target business, right?

[00:25:37] That gets us access to a lot of companies as we're having this conversation.

[00:25:42] And I'll have to put my team to work, right, to find the right match for you.

[00:25:45] So we do have a retainer for this time, but we become your in-house M&A team, right?

[00:25:52] We do the diligence.

[00:25:53] We find at a high level, talk to the entrepreneur to see if there's a match of the right personalities.

[00:26:01] Does the seller have the right mindset?

[00:26:03] Why they are selling other than, you know, if they're old or they want to, you know, realize your gain or they have the same burning desire to double Nibada?

[00:26:13] Would they take equity in the whole code?

[00:26:15] We do all this groundwork for you.

[00:26:18] So we want, you know, it's a lot of time being spent.

[00:26:21] So we do have a retainer-based model on a monthly basis.

[00:26:26] But how many companies can say we have an in-house M&A analyst at a 250K?

[00:26:31] It doesn't have to, even at a million-dollar EBITDA business, those companies need, don't have an M&A.

[00:26:37] So usually, so we are an in-house M&A analyst for about a dozen firms, right?

[00:26:43] And what we do is we simply say, look, we need two months, 30 days just to build everything together, a pipeline.

[00:26:51] After two months, if we don't, if we're not successful, you fire us, right?

[00:26:55] But the goal is, this is where we create our reputation to find the right targets.

[00:27:00] Our goal is every week we'll give you 30 minutes of our time.

[00:27:04] But after three weeks we do this, we send them a nice teaser on a particular profile, why they're selling.

[00:27:11] And do, you know, sometimes entrepreneurs know the founders, sometimes they don't.

[00:27:14] And they're open to the call.

[00:27:16] They start getting too much dealt into deal flow because on their own, they don't have the time to take time out of their schedule.

[00:27:23] It's a full-time job to do an acquisition.

[00:27:26] And we're just lending a hand here.

[00:27:28] And it works out really, really well.

[00:27:30] Yeah, I love that difference between a retainer versus kind of what I would call the realtor model,

[00:27:36] which is how it seems like investment banking is because even the best investment bankers,

[00:27:41] I'm not saying they all happen, but they can get short-sighted because, you know, here's a few and then here's a transaction.

[00:27:50] And that way if you want to take two months or you want to take ten months, you can find the right deal.

[00:27:57] So we, look, there's obviously, there's a billionaire on our advisory board.

[00:28:04] So we've been doing this for five years.

[00:28:06] I have never lost a client.

[00:28:07] The goal is to be honest, have honest conversation every week, day in, day out when we're coming to these type of conversations.

[00:28:19] We will be very successful if the founder is very honest about the financing, the numbers, and follows the proper playbook.

[00:28:27] It will be, it will help us to understand what does the ideal acquisition target looks like or IAP, you know, ideal acquisition profile in our case.

[00:28:38] And this is where we make our living.

[00:28:41] I want to be known in the industry that we know how to find targets.

[00:28:45] If there's looking for a perfect target with 90% above match, I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to find it.

[00:28:51] Why?

[00:28:52] We're building our own databases for five years in a bunch of different industries.

[00:28:58] But this is what I want to be known.

[00:29:00] This is what I want my legacy to be in the MSV world, that if they come to transact the capital, it's not about a transaction.

[00:29:07] But it's more about somebody who can get the job done, find the right target, enhance wealth for their generation.

[00:29:15] Right?

[00:29:15] So tomorrow, you know, I have 10 years in me.

[00:29:19] And this is my, I think, you know, after my last exit, I was looking for something to do.

[00:29:25] I was hired.

[00:29:26] I became an accidental into all this.

[00:29:28] I knew Sonny really, really well from ITBD.

[00:29:31] He, he's been a great friend who mentored me, what the MSP industry is all about.

[00:29:36] So, you know, I do speak to him often, pick his brain.

[00:29:39] And he said, look, the opportunity is how do you serve these small, small companies?

[00:29:45] If you figure out a product or a service for this market and they're successful, right, this is your claim to fame.

[00:29:54] And I think I found the solution for this market.

[00:29:57] That's why I'm here, you know, at this conference and obviously sponsoring the ITBD conference for the first time.

[00:30:03] And I tend to be, I think, you know, after speaking to almost 60, 70 entrepreneurs in the last two days, I think this is much needed in the MSP space.

[00:30:15] Absolutely.

[00:30:16] Well, Harjit, how can folks find you if they're interested to pick your brain or learn more?

[00:30:20] So it's Transacta Capital, T-R-A-N-S-A-C-T-A Capital.com.

[00:30:26] You can Google me, Harjit Singh on LinkedIn, right, H-A-R-J-I-T-S-I-N-G-H and Transacta Capital.

[00:30:35] It's easier to find me or Harjit at Transacta Capital.com.

[00:30:39] Wonderful.

[00:30:40] Thank you for making time on your busy schedule at Build IT Live.

[00:30:43] And thank you for being on MSP Mindset.

[00:30:45] Thank you.

[00:30:46] Appreciate it.

[00:30:46] Thanks, Damien.