Buyers and Builders
PrivateEquityGuy
22 episodes
How I Invested in 150+ Companies and Built a $2B AUM Private Equity Firm | James Andersen Interview
21 Oct · 1 h 0 min
- Clearview Capital manages $2bn and has completed over 150 transactions since 1999.
- Andersen steps off Clearview's management committee but stays on its investment committee and five boards, investing his own capital as an adviser.
How Marc Stad Raised $180M and Grew Dragoneer to $40 Billion in AUM
19 Oct · 22 min
- Dragoneer has grown from a $180m first fund to over $40bn in assets.
- SoftBank beats Marc Stad on Uber, but he assembles $6bn in indications and a $10bn Berkshire-backed offer, then works with SoftBank on a $12bn deal.
He's 30, Raised $25 Million, and Bought Two Boring Businesses | Giuseppe Balzano Interview
12 Oct · 1 h 17 min
- Novaterra approved a $25m capital increase and targets three to four acquisitions a year.
- It bought a pharma and food machinery component maker that is the only one of its kind in Italy and an aerospace avionics supplier with 700 IPs.
I Met Roll-Up and Serial Acquisition Outliers. Here’s What I Learned
3 Oct · 24 min
- Evergreen completed roughly 160 acquisitions, including 47 in 2025, and runs $1.8bn of revenue.
- Ramsay wishes Evergreen had focused on organic growth and value creation much earlier than its first four and a half years.
A Private Equity Approach to Public Markets | Deiya and Dean Pernas Interview
21 Sept · 52 min
- Pernas Research launches a fund around October 1 that charges fees only on outperformance of the S&P 500, with a high watermark.
- The Pernas brothers have compounded capital at roughly 30% a year over nine years.
How to Scale a Services Business Like a Tech Company | Sam Allsopp Interview
12 Sept · 50 min
- Neal Roofing and Waterproofing grew organically from zero to roughly $50m in 2026 revenue, roughly doubling profitability.
- Sam Allsopp says Neal Roofing averages about 7% of revenue on marketing, rising to 12% to fill backlog, with Facebook leads now around $120.
The Roll-Up Playbook: From Zero to $100M Revenue | Felix Jander Interview
3 Sept · 57 min
- Arsipa has done just over 40 acquisitions, not 80, and now exceeds €100m revenue with 1,100 employees.
- Felix Jander and Alex screened 60 boring industries before buying a Hildesheim practice at €350,000 EBITDA.
The Anti-Private Equity Playbook: Buy Great Businesses and Don’t Change Them | Justin Escajeda
25 Aug · 44 min
- Justin Escajeda owns 12 Pittsburgh trade businesses with roughly 250 employees and more than $50M in annual revenue.
- He buys good companies under $10M, tells employees nothing will change, and says accounting is the biggest change he makes.
Masters of Private Equity: Warren Hellman, Tully Friedman and Joseph Rice
18 Aug · 51 min
Mikk of the Buyers and Builders podcast works through Robert Finkel's book The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital, focusing on two private equity masters: Joseph Rice III of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Warren Hellman of Hellman & Friedman. He covers Rice's operating philosophy, the Uniroyal-Goodrich and Lexmark deals, the Kinko's success and US Office Products failure, and Rice's five lessons, then turns to Hellman's guilty-until-proven-innocent rule, the Levi Strauss buyout, Mobile Media's collapse and Hellman's five investing rules.
How Two First-Time CEOs Bought a $5M EBITDA Business | Greg Geronemus Interview
12 Aug · 57 min
- First-time CEOs Greg Geronemus and David Rosner bought smarTours at about five times EBITDA and sold it four years later near nine times.
- They financed the $29m deal with a 50% seller note, grew EBITDA 50%, and cut debt from $19.5m.
Inside a Public 14-Acquisition Compounder | Eric Tan and Patrick Grove
5 Aug · 1 h 2 min
- Catcha Digital has made 14 acquisitions across digital media, B2B expos, and software, with about $30m revenue and $6m EBITDA.
- It buys roughly one of every 100 companies reviewed, rejecting most on valuation expectations, then culture fit.
Why Buy-and-Build Is One of the Best Investment Opportunities | Frederik Brandis Interview
24 Jul · 50 min
- Brandis was an early investor in Arsipa, which made 80 acquisitions before selling to Warburg Pincus.
- Aven Capital Partners backs founders from day zero but only funds once they have a fixed industry thesis and companies under LOI, targeting business services where AI is a productivity gain.
Search Funds, Buy-and-Builds & the Future of ETA | Greg Geronemus Interview
16 Jul · 55 min
- Greg Geronemus says traditional searchers grew from 10 in 2010 to 94 in 2023, with hundreds more in ETA.
- Greg Geronemus concedes buying businesses is moderately harder amid competition from searchers, independent sponsors and private equity moving down market.
How to Build a Roll-Up to 8-Figure Revenue | Nathan Lindley Interview
6 Jul · 50 min
- Lindley Home Services has completed 11 HVAC acquisitions and is at roughly $16m annual revenue in 2026.
- Lindley is weighing an exit within 12 months and wants to repeat his 3x-to-10x HVAC roll-up at a $5m to $30m scale every three years.
13 Acquisitions and Why Permanent Capital Beats Private Equity | Chris Rolls of PieLab Capital
24 Jun · 49 min
Chris Rolls, founder of PieLAB Capital, joins Mikk on Buyers and Builders to explain how he built what he describes as Australia's first serial acquirer, a permanent-capital holding company with nine portfolio companies built through 13 acquisitions. He covers why he abandoned the traditional closed-end private equity fund model, why private markets beat public markets, the three levers he uses to create value after buying a business, and how PieLAB uses AI across its portfolio. The conversation also covers the Detector Inspector story, bolt-on acquisitions and his personal motivation for a multi-decade holding company.
A $6.5M Estimate in 23 Minutes: How AI Is Rewiring SMBs | David Flickinger Interview
15 Jun · 51 min
- Vellm.ai CEO David Flickinger says a roofing AI estimator produced a $6.5m bid in 23 minutes, within $400 of the two-week human estimate.
- The roofing company doubled its commercial win rate and expects to double next year without hiring.
90+ Acquisitions, 30% Revenue CAGR, 35% Book Value Growth | Brett Kelly Interview
7 Jun · 47 min
Mikk interviews Brett Kelly, founder and CEO of Kelly Partners Group, the Australian accounting firm he started in 2006 that has completed more than 90 acquisitions and compounded revenue at over 30% a year. Brett Kelly tells how he lost his job at 22, wrote to 80 prominent Australians for a self-published book, and built a systemised accounting business modelled on Disney, McDonald's, Ritz-Carlton and Berkshire Hathaway. They cover the 51/49 partner model, the 204-step operating system, going public in 2020, AI in accounting, permanent capital versus private equity, and his plan to list in the US and grow to 1,000 firms.
How We Bought 14 Businesses and Built a $120M HoldCo | Andrea Allegrini of Lindbergh
22 May · 51 min
- Lindbergh has acquired 14 businesses since 2023, 13 of them HVAC companies, as it pivots from European logistics to building Italy's first national HVAC maintenance group.
- Lindbergh always buys 100% of a company with no earn-outs, paying 4 to 4.5 times EBITDA plus net financial position, with 30 to 40% upfront and the rest over two to four years.
How We Bought 160 Businesses and Built a $1.5B HoldCo at 33 and 35 | Ramsey Sahyoun of Evergreen
13 May · 58 min
- Ramsey Sahyoun and Jeff Totten founded Evergreen at 25 and 27 in 2017, buying about 160 businesses and generating roughly $250m in adjusted EBITDA.
- A 2018 MSP roll-up destroyed customer intimacy and drove churn, so Evergreen abandoned platform consolidation and keeps acquired companies decentralized.
35+ Acquisitions, $1.3B Exit and Backing 80+ Searchers | Mark Sinatra of ETA Equity
7 May · 1 h 6 min
- Mark Sinatra sells Staff One HR to Oasis Outsourcing, which Paychex later acquires for $1.3bn.
- ETA Equity has backed about 80 searchers and roughly 35 companies since forming in early 2020.
9 Add-Ons in 24 Months | Dan Lifshits of Dwelly Interview
28 Mar · 34 min
- Dwelly is buying independent UK letting agencies because organic growth is slow, since landlords rarely switch agents and customer retention runs around 95%.
- Dan Lifshits says Dwelly fell between venture and private equity investors, forcing it to raise from flexible-minded investors, venture firms and family offices for close to 70m pounds.
From VC to Main Street: How AI Is Rewiring Service Businesses
3 Dec 2025 · 52 min
- Cyrus Hessabi, who architected OpenOcean's AI-enabled roll-up strategy, now backs $1M to $10M EBITDA buy-and-build roll-ups in fragmented services at Shore Capital Partners.
- He defines AI-enabled services as built from first principles with AI in the toolbox, letting AI-native accounting firms beat incumbents on cost and outcomes.