Small Business M&A for Athletes with Jeff Driskel

Private Market Insights with Guest Jeff Driskel hey everybody I am Josh LaVine and welcome to another episode of Private Market insights this is our conversation Series where we discuss important topics related to the small business m&a industry I am the co-founder and CEO of private Market Labs a new platform designed to democratize the small business Acquisitions process we have some really exciting updates to the platform coming next week so make sure to sign for an account at privat Market laabs dcom to try it out for yourself and be among the first to know when we release new features um our guest for private Market insights today is an awesome one he is entering our space with one of the most interesting angles yet I am pleased to welcome Jeff Driscoll who is building a hco while working as an active professional football player most recently as a quarterback with the Cleveland Browns welcome to the Pod Jeff I I'm excited to chat with you about your journey into m&a yeah Jos happy to be here um been listening to your podcast you've been doing a great job honored to be on the show and uh thanks for the introduction thank fantastic so um to to kick things off um you and I have talked a lot about your long-term view uh about how athletes need to plan for both the present and the future a little bit differently than other entrepreneurs so can you talk a little bit about some of the choices and challenges that athletes face as they navigate both your current career and your future career at the same time yeah it's it's so unique right like you get out of college and next thing you know you're making more money than you ever thought you would make in your life in when you're 21 years old right and you do that for you know hopefully 10 years 15 years but for the vast majority it's a very short time but the interesting part is you don't know how long it's going to be you know there's so many factors that go into how long someone plays you know whether it's the NFL MLB NBA um that are sometimes in your control sometimes out of your control that it's really hard to plan for you know what what's next because you don't know when that's going to be and you don't know how much money you're going to have in your pocket um or where you are in your life so it's it's a challenge because of all of the unknowns yeah so you know I guess you're I mean you we've talked a little bit about sort of like how different athletes are thinking about this process you know what are some of the thoughts you know particularly you know you're you're an active player you're thinking about next season and yet you're also saying to yourself hey like you know I need a plan for the future like what does what does your time Horizon look like when you're thinking about stuff like that yeah I mean like I think you hit it on the head and you did it in order right thinking about next season that's the first on my priority list right is right how do I figure out a way to get one more year two more year three more years um you know because I love what I'm doing I love playing professional football um you know it's the greatest job in the world and I hope to do it as long as possible but unfortunately it's not going to be as long as I want to probably you know most guys are told that they're not good enough anymore or their body doesn't work before they decide they don't want to play but uh but yeah I mean the average career in the NFL is three years maybe just over three years um and i' I'm fortunate enough to have just finished year eight so I mean the math says I'm on the back half of my career so um so yeah along along the eight years I've been fired for my job you know six or seven times every every time you get cut and you you know walk into the GM's office you know with your tail between your legs you know the thought gets into your head is like man is somebody else going to call is this the end of the road um so I've had thoughts throughout my whole career you know what do I want to do next but in the last few years I've really started to uh you know put the pen to the paper and and start taking action towards getting towards getting towards where I want to go um which I've really settled on um you know buying small businesses in some way shape or form yeah so let's let's talk about that you've been a proponent of Athletes and Entrepreneurship professional athletes pursuing entrepreneurship through acquisition specifically right why why this particular angle and uh you know that let's start there why why is this angle intriguing for you yeah so in the in the locker room right like there's you start hearing about you know passive income and you start hearing about you know making money outside of sport a lot of people think that's you know endorsement deals you know things of that nature but the reality is most guys aren't going to have the opportunity to get life-changing money through endorsement deals some guys are uh but the vast majority of us aren't so you start talking about real estate a lot of guys talk about real estate in the locker rooms which I think is a great asset class I'm an investor in the space thought I was going to be a real estate guy when I was done and and realized that the operations involved with real estate weren't for me um and then the other one is is Venture capitalism and uh you hear that when people are pushing it you hear the ones that hit right the ones that hit huge um but at the end of the day on an individual level um it's it's very risky you know you have to be backed by a lot of money um to come out on top and venture capital and and Exploring Investment Opportunities in ETA obviously there's exceptions to the rule um but it's more risky than what I want to to play in um so I you know found out about this ETA space a couple years ago um um you know the returns historically are greater than real estate and it's a lot less risky than than Venture capitalism um so I just think as an investment class for athletes who want yield I think it's a great way uh you know to get to get some passive income if you want to go into ETA on the investor side yeah absolutely so is this is ET is something that you know you hear being talked about in the locker room at all yet are we are we me there's a lot of talk about you know we see the conferences growing in size every year I was just at the MIT conference last weekend and it was you know 30% bigger than it was the year before like it has has entrepreneurship through acquisition has buying small business sort of permeated that locker room conversation yet or is it you know still on like the very early in the very early stages not really um I mean I'm sure there's guys Understanding Private Equity Investments that that do it and don't really know the acronym right like they're investing in small business is you know you know whether they're their startups or you know their their deal or companies that have been around for a long time and they're just being acquired um but I think more more than that it's it's private Equity like guys know about investing into private Equity Funds um and things of that nature but not so much on the uh individual deal by deal um ETA economics level so I would I would love to to play a small part introducing the asset class the uh the economics behind behind it um you know and just bringing it to to locker rooms across the country fantastic um you've successfully bought a business within the last 12 months um what was that process like for you since a portion of that acquisition happened during the season yeah very much on on the investor side right so I'm not I understand that I'm I'm uh I can't handle you know running a small business playing in the NFL um you know handling my family you know I have a wife and three kids that's that's too much for one person to bite off so um you know I've talked to a bunch of very successful business people um across every industry and one of the biggest pieces of advice I've got is surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and uh you know fortunately for my case that's not too hard to do but uh yeah I've triy to do that I've triy to build up a network of really smart people who have been there and done that as well as younger guys like myself who are who are ambitious so uh you know help along the way has been huge and there's been so many people you know especially in the in the ETA world that have given me a little crumbs and uh leading me towards my Northstar awesome what's like a what's a great piece of advice that you've got you know from your from your close-in network and you know you maybe his device or support you got from you know your team around you you know or you know you said hey I'm interested in this kind of industry or this type of De deal was that conversation like what was some of the most interesting uh advice you've gotten as you you started dipping your toe into it yeah I think there's two pieces um you know the first is just really understanding what you're investing in you know under understand Balancing Business, Family, and Ambition the business you know understand the business model understand the um the historical numbers of the company but also understand you know how the business and grow and you know what's a realistic growth expectation um and also understand your risk profile you know I said earlier there's some guys that are interested in uh in getting into the VC world and that's just not me my risk profile um you know is not set up to to lose my you know to probably lose my principal but I also want a little bit more yield on part of my portfolio than what real estate was offering so kind of found a sweet spot of my risk profile what I want to see in terms of uh returns but also what I'm interested in I love the idea of operations of small business I love investing into local communities you know I love to see um you know found our own businesses go to the Next Generation and see their clients and see their employees have a have a great experience you know moving forward so I think uh that's that's one really big thing is understand what you're investing in and also is just sometimes you just got to get in the game right like so there's there's both sides of that coin you know you can get in the game while being educated you know even if you feel like yeah maybe I should wait until I'm done playing right like you can always have a after I do this or after I do that that's when I'll jump in um so I'm definitely biased towards action and uh you know wrong right or IND different that's that's how I've gotten here so um could you tell us a little bit about the business that you invested in and you know what is it obviously you know now that we're in the offseason you can you know think about in a slightly different way you know what is you know tell us a little bit about that that business and you know how has that transition been as you you know obviously you're gearing up for this season that was Priority One but then it's also you know you've got this asset now that is that is operating continuously what what is that like yeah so it's a it's a white collar financial services company and it's it's very old Transitioning a Traditional Financial Services Company school it's a great company it's uh you know it's kind of the leader in the market in a in a relatively small small Market um very old school with great people um you know the the owners were were passionate about selling it to a group that is like I said going to treat the clients treat the employees you know in a way that they're used to being treated and provide a great work environment uh but also invest in in the future right they understand that the way that the company's been running for the past 30 years can't be how it's run in the next 30 Years and they have they they were just they were tired they didn't have the energy they didn't have the want to to get it where it needs to go and where the company deserves to go um so the the transition has been it's been fun there's there's a lot and I was I was telling you preall that uh yeah you know we went through an internal audit after close um to really get some feedback from employees to understand systems you know a paper trail of of everything that goes on within the business and it really uncovered a lot you know and the first thing that it uncovered was was man we have some really great people in the building which is you know something that we knew going into it um but just great reassurance that uh you know the the people that are in the day-to-day enjoy what they're doing and are good people um but also getting some feedback with some pain points hey why do we do this this way you know the people at the top might not know that this affects me but when I have to do this task in this manner you know it takes away from the from the rest of my day so uh there's there so many moving parts to a small business and you know it's painful to uncover everything it it definitely wasn't easy um you know going in and doing the audit and poking and prodding but uh in the long term you know it'll definitely be worth it but other other than the uh the initial audit there's just so much conversations with with my partner that we get to discuss on a high level like I love you know we call it our Jam sessions or rap sessions or whatever where we just get to talk St let's talk about 5 years from now all right well let's talk about 6 months from now you know well let's what but hey we still got to pay the bills tomorrow so just uh you know working that side of the brain has been a blast and uh and yeah we we are definitely in the Do no harm phase nice yeah I think Understanding Business Acquisition it's we talk a lot about like the different phases of an acquisition right people will step in and it's kind of just like fire hose of information okay how do I make use of the data that I have how do I make that data work better for me how do I figure out you know opportunities you know three months six months year ahead you know into the into the cycle and there's just I think both like there's this concept of like you know people talk about working in the business versus working on the business and when you're an S&B owner you're doing both at the same time all the time right and I think that's that's always so so fascinating yeah the cool the cool part one of the reasons why we picked the business that we did is because my operating partner is not qualified to work in the business you know he he just can't yeah you know when whenever there's a very technical question of you know what's going on you know whether it's with a client or whether it's you know how do I submit this paperwork you know my you know my operating partner just basically says I don't know ask the person that's in charge of that task you know we mapped it out you know and that that's his job so he he's in a position where he can really work on the business while learning about what happens in the business which I think is a unique position to be in yeah and um we've got you know all I'll put a we have an interesting comment from uh Anthony feedler here and I I'll put this on the screen um you know so mentions that one of his favorite things when you know discussing Consulting with a choir as post close is you know what's one thing that would be a change for the better or what's one thing that you love that you don't want to change and I see that the uh the question got cut off a little bit in the video but um you know that's the the gist of the question you know how have you you know thought through that Employee Engagement piece yeah I mean I think going in and and really doing that internal audit we did it through a third party so they could feel comfortable you know airing everything out not feel you know be put in a weird position maybe saying negative things you know to the people who just took over the firm um but yeah it's it was a chance for them to be heard we wanted to show the staff that hey you're heard we value your feedback and uh and yeah sometimes these things don't just don't get discussed for years so it never comes up yeah and uh you know showing that we're willing to learn and willing to make changes that's going to help somebody I think that goes a long way you know for that individual but also for the business and uh in the bottom line at the end of the day so what's what's next for you in terms of your role within the SB Community you know it feels like you're wearing a lot of hats you've got the investor hat you've got the sort of you know standard Bearer like more athletes need to get into ETA and then you've got your Acquisitions hat right you've got your your own company that you know you're you're working you're working on as well so like what's kind of the what are the next phases for you uh in in those areas yeah you you mentioned wearing a lot of hats you know and earlier I said uh playing in the NFL is the best job in the world you know you get six months of offseason where you know you work out a couple hours a day you take your kids to school and next thing you know you have the rest of the day to do whatever and I really just enjoy diving into this world as much as possible if I look at my calendar it looks different every day and uh you know that's kind of what I want to design my life uh after football to look like but yeah I mean I connect with Searchers all the time I connect with lenders I connect with pretty much every piece of the ecosystem to you know pick one nugget or you know in some cases now give back to young guys guys who are looking um you know looking to get into this world as well um but yeah I want to I want to connect dots that's what I want to do a lot of people have connected dots for myself and uh you know I want to use the platform that I've been given as long as possible uh to spread this message to uh you know some folks out there that you know feel like they're trapped in their W2 and and don't have any other options um and especially you know to the to the pro-athlete community what what do you think trans Ates well from being an athlete and having an athletic career to running an Transition from Athletics to Running a Small Business SMB yeah I mean I see I see things on Twitter that say like searching for deals right now is the most competitive environment in the world and I CH I challenge that and I do it's competitive don't get me wrong but I think that the world that I live in in professional sports there's no more comp competitive field out there it's the best of the best it's the top 1% of the top 1% um they're looking to to churn every year they're looking to to get rid of the older guys or the guys that are on big contracts so that they can replace those contracts with younger um you know more athletic guys that are going to take your spot and uh you know every year the roster in the NFL starts at 90 and it gets trim down to 53 there's no other business in the world that's cutting right you know 35 40% of the workforce every year and you know when it's coming so it's I I think that just the competitive nature of professional athletes and high performing athletes just translates so well into not just finding a business and putting yourself in position to to close on a deal but also just figuring it out and competing every day um and obviously that's not the only thing you need but I think having that innate competitive ability um you know it goes a long way yeah absolutely and um you know what uh on kind of on the flip side what's something that surprised you you know anything about you know the you running an SMB that you know isn't exactly what you expected yeah um yeah so I talked about you know the the professional Athletics work world you know being being in a very competitive environment and one of one of the things that I wanted to do after football was position my professional career where I can be around and work with um you know people that perform on on very high levels and uh the people that are looking for businesses the people that have bought businesses everybody in the ecosystem they're they're high performing people these people are sharp um so I've just been very impressed by the caliber of people that are in the ecosystem and it's hard to tell on Twitter or it's hard to tell on LinkedIn you know how sharp some of these people are and it's been a real pleasure you know to get to know some of them you know whether it's via the Internet or in person it's it's been so cool to uh just get to see the pedigree of people um you know that you get to to do this deal alongside with yeah and then one of the what was the other part of the question oh just what was something that was surprising in terms of like you know owning a small business versus you know what you what you thought it was going to be before you came in to the to the space yeah I mean I guess just it's so funny like you hear all of these things you know in podcasts that you know the number one fear of a of a Searcher or somebody who's acquiring a business is everyone's going to walk out of the door right like that's the number one fear and on the on the other side the number one fear is and am I going to get fired right so it's just it's just the the mental battle that you have to have with yourself you know and the tension that comes with you know the first few days of uh of transitioning a business you know I knew that there would be tension but I guess I didn't know how tense it is you know when because it is at the end of the day it's people's livelihoods livelihoods and uh you know that's not something that comes lightly but you know once you break that barrier and you earn the trust you know from your from your staff you know then you can uh then you can really start to you know move in the right direction yeah no that that's awesome Expectations vs Reality in Small Business Ownership um so how should other athletes considering entrepreneurship through acquisition as a second career how should people get started where go ahead no I was just gonna go back to what I said earlier you know when you asked about you know what's a piece of advice that you've gotten from people in your network yeah and um you know really understanding what you're investing in um so what I did and I don't know if this is the best thing to do but what I did you know about a year and a half ago or so when I settled on uh you know getting into the ETA world was I got to educate myself right nobody's going to do it for me you know I don't have two two to four years to go to business school to learn this stuff while I'm still playing um so what do I do so I Googled it right what's the best book and I I found you know buy and build that's probably you know the first book that the bulk majority of uh you know people in the space read I read that book I get on Twitter Hey I just read buy then build what's another book you know and then it's the uh you know the Stanford the Stanford book um so I read that one and then you know I make a The Power of Networking and Self-Education couple tweets and those tweets turn into conversations and then you meet that person you tell them what you want to do hey you should talk to this person this person that person and next thing you know your web just grows and you have all these 30 minute intro conversations and you know coming coming from the uh from the NFL world I had to figure out how to use Google Calendar and send uh email invites um and and get that going but uh just the more that you can expand you know you have to you have to be willing to teach yourself people aren't going to pour into you unless you're you're you show that you really want it um so so just figuring out a way to educate yourself figuring out a way to get in front of the right people and uh and just staying at it you can't just do it for a month and expect it just to just to happen yeah and that's you know that's that's great advice and that's advice that you know whenever we engage with Searchers we're also giving very similar advice it's it's really one of those classic you get what you put into it kind of in Industry yeah where you know if you see a deal that you like and you follow follow up with the broker three times you're much more likely to get access to an NDA and a Sim then if you reach out once and then just say oh I didn't hear back let's uh let's give up on that one right it's yeah it's it's a numbers game right in every in every aspect of this world it's a numbers game and then I will add one more touch point so I listen to a bunch of podcasts like this one and uh you know a lot of times if there's you know a guest that I resonate with or hey I wish I could ask that guy this question everybody in the ecosystem is super approachable yeah I've had so many convers ations with guests on podcasts and I reach out to them via Twitter via LinkedIn via email and you know probably 8 times out of 10 I get an email back within a day and we're on the phone in in two or three days time um so just the the willingness for people to to give back is is something that I I never saw coming yeah that's awesome and I think you know really reflects this community really well and you mentioned something about you know finding people on Twitter and and how you know people on Twitter are even sharper sometimes in person than they see online and there's this element of you know we're all kind of playing this public Persona of an ETA person on Twitter but people think really deeply about this and there are a lot of people who you know there's kind of the classic qu person who's quiet on Twitter and then just has a lot of really deep insights that they'll share with you oneon-one and you know that recommendation system getting involved in the community you know peeling back the layers say oh you should talk to this person great I'll talk to them like that that compounds on itself you know and yeah I used to think I used to think Twitter was so dumb I really did I I was like why would I meet try to meet somebody on the internet you know it's I just I did I thought it was dumb I was like why did why did you post that and nobody wants to see that but they people do people read that stuff that's how I learned a lot of information was through Twitter and through threads and connecting through people on Twitter you know I used to tell my wife hey um you know have a call in 20 minutes with so and so she said who's that how'd you meet them and when I when I first got going I would like cringe and say uh Twitter and she' look at me like what met some talking to some dude on Twitter you know that you met through Twitter but now it's it's commonplace and uh you know there there's some really good connections that go that turn into deals being done with each other through a simple Twitter DM or comment or whatever yeah that's awesome um I'm gonna I'm going to pause my questions here and see if anyone in the audience has some additional questions for Jeff um obviously we we're seeing the chats come in so whatever platform you're using please uh submit your questions and uh we can answer them here um and uh as everyone submits their questions um I have I have a couple more that I I've already prepped so um yeah fire away Jos yeah so um what's something you're looking forward to you know obviously we're now at the end of February I've been asking this question for a couple months and it was more of a year a year looking forward but what what sort of do 2024 look like for you in the acquisition space you know what are you looking forward to and you know what are you seeing coming down the pipe Yeah you mentioned earlier in the uh you know in the introduction that you know I'm aspiring to build a holding company right like right now the holding company has one piece of a business in it right so I go a my I'm looking forward to really figuring out how to go after deal two deal three deal four what does that logistically look like what types of businesses do we want go after um so just really you know figuring out the exact model and how I want to approach going after deals in the future is something that's you know it's not easy there's there's a lot of different ways to do it and uh you know I want to put myself in the best position um you know to kind of capitalize on the pieces that I've put together and just figuring out how to put those together in the best way possible yeah so I guess strategically what are some of the Avenues you're you're thinking about so far you know you've talked I think we've tried a little bit about okay you've built like your your team around you you know y'all are all working together to find businesses you know partnering with other investors like you know what are some of the things you're thinking about as you look for that that next business yeah I mean there's there's some low hanging fruit right like I could go invest in a Searcher right I could I could find somebody that I think really is talented and I think hey I can provide a little bit of a value ad here and um invest in their deal you know when I'm done playing I could go be an owner operator um you know there there's other ways outside of you know SBA land where you know you can get involved in pulling together capital and pulling together resources and going after a bigger type of deal um so yeah I mean there's a lot of ways to to skin the cat but but right now my focus is just building out the infrastructure and getting the pieces um and then fig figuring out a way to use those pieces in the best way yeah I it feels like you know we're we're just sort of scratching the surface of you know we see that you know I think there's some recent data that showed up you know Heather erson posted some really good data on SBA Loans over the course of the last few years we've seen some interesting data um you know coming through across the ecoystem the number of SBA transactions for acquisition are are have been relatively stable um you know up to stable stable to up I mean over the last couple of years and this is at a moment when you know private equity in general hasn't been you know has seen some dips or you know Venture Capital has seen some very large dips yeah you know it's a testament to both the um socioeconomic you know demographic waves that we're seeing with their retirements of small businesses plus you know the way that you know our industry is encouraging additional transactions through creative deal structuring seller financing things like that so you know particular you know hope the hope is that as we get into 2024 we'll be in a position to say you know the econom is a little bit better for an acquisition now how do we capitalize on that you know I would you whether love to I'd love to see you know this be the start of you know more athletes getting involved and investing in more deals and you know seeing how this could be a great Avenue you know there's this we we hear a lot about you know some you know very famous you know like magic Johnson and his you know um you know young Brands franchises and things like that and it doesn't have to be you know buying you know or buying a 100 Papa John's and pay the right it doesn't have to be that we can you know you can make fantastic returns off of a portfolio of small business Acquisitions like this and I think that yeah I mean it and it really doesn't even have to be a portfolio right like yeah it can be one it can be one business and you can be the owner operator yeah you can put your heart and soul into that business and you can grow it you know all a lot of people in my networks like you know they own a construction company or they own a landscaping company or they own whatever company right like companies that you didn't think could you know be what they are um but over a long period of time with the right people doing it the right way you can grow these things to be really good businesses to one day exit or one day you know pass it down to your kids or whatever you might be and uh I would love to see some of those some of those folks you know former football players that uh could say hey I heard Jeff on a podcast and you know I reached out on Twitter and said what the heck does ETA stand for I love it we're we're we're perpetuating the cycle of a podcast to uh to support right here I love it um awesome well I think that's a great way to uh to wrap up the conversation um but Jeff thank you so much for for being here I really appreciate you being on the pod appreciate the work that you're doing to to bring entrepreneurship through acquisition to a wider audience in this case an audience of extremely capable competitive and motivated professional athletes just really exciting as a you know a sports fan and as an advocate for the space you know just a thrilled to have you on um and uh you know anyone who has additional questions you know like Jeff said reach out on uh to either of us on Twitter yeah thank you and thank you for having me and thanks for what you're doing for the community Josh um you know even people who don't reach out or anything and just listen to the podcast it it goes a long way and uh and yeah it's it helps someone like myself get started and I'm sure it's it's doing that for a bunch of other folks even today so again thanks for having me awesome y'all take care see you Josh