Buyers and Builders
00:37:28 · Mark Sinatra
[00:37:28] S1: At our low point, you know, I remember we're talking to the board and we said, okay, well, you know, should we continue? Like what, what, you know, or what, what should we, what should we do here? Right? And this is what we got, you know, three years in. But I remember, there are a couple of things that, that really gave me conviction to move forward. And there's this old saying, Mikk, you know, and I'm glad you're bringing on that salesperson because it relates to this. You know, sales cures all problems. And it's overly simplistic, I get it, but it does cure a lot of them. And and so, you know, I remember, we had this big proposal for for a startup, but it was very well well financed startup. You know, we won that deal. We were 30% higher than our than our closest competitor, but we won that deal regardless. That that company actually in... Was proved to be after two years of selling that deal, our most profitable, largest customer. But at the time, like, winning that deal was one of those things that just was a huge boost to morale. It gave the company gave me the conviction that we were on the right track. And then if you look at the numbers too, we... I kind of validated, you know, from from, you know, kind of an objective perspective and looked at those leading indicators. Right? Looking at sales activity, looking at the pipeline, and comparing that to historical activity and pipeline levels, you know, we were at a much higher level looking at net promoter scores from a client perspective. Look, so looking at those leading predictable indicators, and seeing those continue to go up and up, gave us the validation and the confidence that we were we were on the right the right path. And so we had a good year, good run, you know, from from, you know, those last kind of six years leading us up to, to 2017, you know, in five thousand five years in a row, you know, multiple, you know, con... Consecutive years of double digit growth. And, and thankfully, you know, we found a great partner, in the company we ended up, selling to, you know, Oasis Outsourcing. They were, fantastic to, to partner with and, you know, they were kind of in the eighth inning of their roll up of the industry. And that's, you know, when, you know, Oasis end up selling to Paychex about a year after they bought us. So...
00:40:06 · Mikk, Mark Sinatra
[00:40:06] S0: And how... When selling in 2017, how was... How did your life... How did your role changed? And... Because in 2020, you started what you're building today, ETA Equity. [00:40:17] S1: Yeah. So the the role changed after after selling the business? [00:40:21] S0: Yep.
00:40:21 · Mark Sinatra
[00:40:21] S1: Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, had a one year earn out. And, you know, when you go through these... That's the other thing that's not talked a lot about in searches like, well, what happens, you know, after exit? Well, it really kind of kind of depends a lot. And the default line of thinking is, well, you sell the business and then, you know, depending on how, how, what that outcome is, you know, that could inform your next, your next step. But what about like opportunities at, you know, the parent company or with the new buyer, right? Obviously, if sell you the business and you, you recap it to a private equity firm, you know, you're likely going to continue in that role, right? Because they're excited that you're at the helm. But in my case, I sold to a large competitor, but I ended up forging really good relationships with the CEO, the executive team of that business. I liked their strategy a lot, so they created a new role for me to oversee the Western half of the country, because they they had done several acquisitions and they they, wanted to have a, kind of more kind of thoughtful org... Organizational structure. So I was a GM president of, you know, the Western half of the country for for that organization. And it was a role that I really, really enjoyed. It was a new role. Got to, to, you know, really embrace it for that short period of time through through the... Their sale, you know, to to the public company. Once the sale happened to the public company, you know, I kinda said to myself, okay, it's a great company, but it had been a long journey for me at that time. And I wanted to kind of step out, step back, recalibrate, and kind of think about like, you know, what the next, you know, step would be for me. And that leads, you know, into your other question, and this is in, the late summer of twenty nineteen, and then, you know, started to do a little bit of investing, you know, in in search, right, as a lot of former search operators will do. You know, for me, it was obviously, you know, space where at the time I had a had a lit... A little bit of a network in. So, you know, I was able to get some looks at some opportunities, But also, I felt like, and I still feel strongly about my experience as an operator is and can be very helpful to searchers during the search phase and the...
00:43:07 · Mark Sinatra, Mikk
And particularly, like, in the operating phase. The experience that I went through, the mistakes I made, the lessons I learned fuels my passion for investing in this space, because the goal is to impart on this next wave of entrepreneurs, of CEOs, and to flatten that learning curve for them, so ideally they don't make the same mistakes that I made, you know, years ago. And so I just... I I really love investing in in the space. You know, early twenty twenty, partnered up with a good friend of mine, from business school who, you know, had known for for a while, you know, met on, I think it was like the first week of orientation, for business school, and and he had, you know, his own kind of separate path when it came to ETA and search as well, both from a being a searcher, didn't acquire, but also, subsequently worked for family office and invested in some search deals. We decided to say, you know, listen, like, let's see, you know, if there's any way we can kind of scale our efforts, and that formed the inception of, you know, Equity in early twenty twenty. [00:44:23] S0: Today, it's 2026. What have you done so far? Can you maybe share the investments, acquisitions? Because going through your website, there's... I can keep scrolling for a long, long time. There are a lot of different companies. Maybe you can share an overview of what you've done so far.
00:44:23 · Mikk, Mark Sinatra
[00:44:23] S0: Today, it's 2026. What have you done so far? Can you maybe share the investments, acquisitions? Because going through your website, there's... I can keep scrolling for a long, long time. There are a lot of different companies. Maybe you can share an overview of what you've done so far. [00:44:40] S1: Yeah. About 80, you know, we've supported and invested about 80 searchers through ETA. It's actually been more, about 35, companies. And and for, you know, the the companies that's really been, like, the vast majority of those have been in the last, like, I would say two to four years. So, you know, when initially investing, you know, invested in in cohorts or groups of of searchers really for the first year or year and a half, and then ultimately, the transactions that resulted from some of those searchers. [00:45:20] S0: Your partnership with Matthew, him being the investor, you being more the operator based on the previous experience. How are your conversations when it comes to what type of people are you looking for to pack? I'm asking this because you have this experience of, let's put it in this way, having a lot of scars on your back. You mentioned losing your hair. So, who are those young people who you're willing to, you bet your hard earned money?
00:45:52 · Mark Sinatra
[00:45:52] S1: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. So, the... I I would say the answer maybe is a lot of it stayed the same, but it's kind of shifted a bit as well recently. You know, as I mentioned, like, you know, searching in this market, it's never been easy, but it's a competitive credit market now. So there's such a premium and importance on breaking through the noise, standing out. I talk a lot about, like, what's your right to acquire, and having that be super, super tight, and having the skills to appropriately and effectively communicate that to your ideal sellers. So it's, you know, having a clear investment thesis, you know, I think the days of, and I would put myself in this bucket, like, the days of the opportunisticgeneralist searcher, you know, are numbered. Right? It's it's really hard to to have, like, more of an opportunistic generalist, you know, kind of playbook nowadays. I think the searchers that, we have seen, you know, been successful in in, you know, acquiring and getting significant traction in their search are the ones who are able to, you know, they have that clear conviction on an investment thesis, and it's more than likely, you know, an industry thesis, and they're going deep into that industry. So we, you know, we look for things and and it is tough, right? I mean, you you try to kind of assess, like, you know, the the kind of the the quality of that investment industry thesis, and is that something that, you know, we would get excited about to subjectively on paper, but then you also try to get a sense of, well, you know, does the searcher, you know, have the grit and tenacity for what I would call, like, I always like to call it, like, the Friday 5PM test. Right? So, you know, if if, you know, they... It's Friday 5PM, they haven't hit what they deem to be their weekly goal, are they gonna make five more cold calls? Are they gonna send out, you know, 10 more customized emails? Are they gonna do what it takes, right, to climb up the mountain knowing they haven't reached the peak yet, but they have the confidence to continue climbing because they know what they need to do day in and day out to ultimately reach the peak. So those are the the types of things. I mean, I think, you know, it's it's been, the whole journey is a sales process from the very beginning. You're selling yourself to investors.