Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:13
What was the life lesson?
Dan Lee: 14:16
The life lesson was I left Comvest. Comvest was, is a great platform. I love the team. We built our leadership. I mean we just, we had a, it was a great run, but we had just gotten so big. I really liked the lower middle market and I enjoy independent sponsors. I did my first independent sponsor deal in 2006 and I wanted a.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:39
What range of revenue do you define as kind of middle market? What is that?
Dan Lee: 14:43
So I think of it more EBITDA tends to be in that kind of 3 to 15 million level. That’s the lower middle market I would say. And so when we got to 12 billion, frankly, we had, you know, past 7 or 8 billion, it gets really hard to access the lower middle market. It’s hard to justify writing a check less than 50 million per deal. That’s just a business reality, right. That’s no one’s fault. It’s just a reality of growth.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:06
Because certain things, it just won’t move the needle as much. So it doesn’t make sense.
Dan Lee: 15:11
Exactly. You need to, you need to put out.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:12
You spend the same amount of time on this deal than that. So you’re choosing much, much, much larger deals?
Dan Lee: 15:17
You have to. Yeah. It’s just if you’re going to scale and continue to grow, you’ve got to show investors that you can go upmarket and you can’t do it by writing $120 million checks. It’s just you can’t scale that way. And so it’s just a reality of scaling and I realized I was bored. I just like doing smaller creative deals and that part of the market is less competitive. It’s more fun. And so I decided I was going to make a move over to the private equity side. I went to Garnett Station and was going to focus on the lower middle market, independent sponsors and super excited about it.
I had known those guys for a long time and done five deals with them. The two co-founders are my Matt and Alex are my heroes. I mean, to this day, I just think the world of them and the team and culture they’ve built. And I went over there and it was just clear that it wasn’t quite working. My ideals were just just below the threshold and the ones that I believe in, I couldn’t get buy in for and, you know, it just never quite got traction. And after six months, you know, they were telling me very loudly, slow down. You don’t need to, you don’t need to be in a rush. You’re here. And don’t kill yourself because I was boiling the ocean. You don’t like these? Let me go find everything else and I’ll go find everything else and everything else.
And I had good friends, including Lou Sokolovskiy, who’s a great friend, telling me, I’m really worried about your health. You can’t do this to yourself. And I wasn’t going to have it because I was not going to disappoint my heroes. I was going to be successful even though they were telling me to slow down.
And ultimately, after a year, they just said, it’s not working out. And they were absolutely right. And I didn’t want to hear it because that was disappointing. And on levels that I can’t even tell you, it was heart wrenching. And at the same time, I knew they were absolutely right.
And they were incredibly generous to me on the way out. They were very fair. And I’m actually partnered with the brother of one of the senior Garnett Station guys, my partner’s O.D., who’s the brother of Rafi Haramati. So we have a great relationship with Garnett Station, and, you know, they’re showing us deals. We’re showing them deals.
And it’s a path that I never would have envisioned. I thought I was in that job for life. I was done as far as I was. Frankly, I was spiking the ball and but it was, it just wasn’t meant to be. It didn’t work out. And at 53, that’s a really hard life lesson to take. But it’s turned out to be a blessing. They were absolutely right. And they were watching me fail slowly, but fail. And I just yeah, I just didn’t know how to come to that conclusion. I couldn’t accept it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:08
Someone Dan maybe listening to this and they’re in the exact same situation now. Right. I’m curious what your process was because like now you could talk about it, but at the time it seems devastating. I’m not saying the world is ending, but like a big shift from what you thought you were going to be doing to what you’re doing, what was your process after you maybe started to come to terms with? I need to figure out what’s next.
Dan Lee: 18:37
Well, let me tell you, I’ll answer that question. I’ll tell you before, when I was joining, one of the things that I, when I, I was so excited about joining them and about this shift and from lending to private equity. And the world was going to hear it. Right. So my identity for 14 years had been Comvest. But no, no, no, no no. Now it’s Garnett Station. And I mean Jeremy. When I joined I had a jersey made, I had a helmet made, I had a football, I had shoes, I’m not joking. Like I walked in.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:05
Not Notre Dame, but.
Dan Lee: 19:07
It was a Notre Dame helmet with the GSP logo on it. I mean, you can’t make this shit up. I was just like, and my mom, I’ll never forget, said, Dan. Are you sure that that feels like you know a lot? Why don’t you wait till you close the deal? And I just couldn’t hear it, you know, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this is going to be great. This is the best thing ever. And it was I was cannonballing, you know, hey, we’ll check me out. I’m Garnett station now.
And so to answer your question, the hardest part was that I had been out there telling everybody, look at what I did. Look at what this is. Look at this partnership. Look how great we are. And then I wasn’t and it wasn’t my choice. And so it was. And it was devastating. And and again they were absolutely right. And I would, it was an act of grace. And so for me it was that kind of figuring, okay I need a new identity. Now what’s my identity? And I decided I want to call the shots. Not literally, but I want to be able to pick who I’m going to do business with. I spent 30 years.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:12
Yeah, because you got to get all your deals approved and you’re like, this is amazing. And it may be too big, it may be too small, it maybe doesn’t fit. And you need all these approvals.
Dan Lee: 20:22
And exactly right. And in many cases, I was bringing people that I really believed in, you know, and bringing them and I’m a, I’m a big hearted guy. And so I’d kind of bring them to the IC and they’re like, yeah, no, not for you. No. And it just it would break my heart. I took it too personally, just to be honest, between you and I as a deal guy. But it was. But that’s my part of my energy is just like committing myself, like, let’s do this.
And so now I get to pick Odie and I get to pick. And actually, Odie is a great partner for me because he helps me figure out. No, Dan, you’re being too emotional on that one that, you know, that’s a really good person, but it’s not a great deal, you know, as opposed to here’s a great person with a great deal. And so it’s a great yin and yang. And I think for me it’s everyone said take some time off when it happened and I couldn’t. I just felt like I need to get back in the game. I need to go. I need to go build again. I’m excited about this next chapter. And there was some licking of wounds for sure, but then it was very quickly I realized this is a very unique opportunity to partner with a guy that I believe in. And I will tell you, you know, we’re having a blast. We’re less than six months in and we’re working with some just absolutely killer clients and having a ball.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:42
Yeah, well, I guess it’s called the overnight success after 30 years, so, you know. But no, I mean, it’s really admirable. I mean, you just go all in, you know, and like, you can’t you can never someone can’t go back and go literally. I gave it literally everything I had. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. So I think that’s a testament to your character. Even though you had a helmet made and everything, like, who wouldn’t want a team member that comes in who has that type of commitment and enthusiasm?
Dan Lee: 22:11
Well, I’ll tell you, I did think I told Matt and Alex on first day. I said, don’t worry, you don’t need a restraining order. You know, just a little over the top. Jeremy, right? You know, you’re like, just objectively looking back.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:21
I’m like.
Dan Lee: 22:22
Oh, man, that was actually.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:24
Like, Will you sign my helmet? No.
Dan Lee: 22:26
This is funny. The day I got there, My first day reporting in, I had my uniform on right, I had my helmet, I had my shoes. Football.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:36
I need to see a picture of this.
Dan Lee: 22:37
I’m still I’ll show you. So I’m going into, I’m at security and this is in August, right. In the Hamptons. So people are in the Hamptons. It’s, you know, people are working remotely and security guys. Who are you going to see? And I’m like, it’s right here, Garnett Station, what do you think I’m going to see? Right? He’s like, okay, I’ll call. He’s like, no one’s picking up. I’m like, wait a minute, you know? So are you sure they’re expecting you? I’m like standing in line. People are walking past me. Jeremy. Guys are just walking into work, right? Like, who is this weirdo? Like, what is going on? It was yeah. In hindsight, it was kind of a sign that that. Yeah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t meant to be, you know, it was like just it wasn’t. It wasn’t peanut butter and chocolate, I’ll put it that way.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:21
No, I’m trying to visualize that. I have to see a picture. Talk about partnerships for a second. Right. Because you go from working at these companies, you need other people’s, you know, decisions and approval and stamp on it potentially. And you still decide to have a partner. Talk about why and what were the compliments that you saw, you know, with your personality and Odie.
Dan Lee: 23:49
Yeah. So listen, I know myself well enough to know that I need a partner. So, yes, relationships are important to me. I need a partner that understood the power of my relationships and the depth of my relationships. And I think, you know, Odie and I balance each other out really well in that I’m more strategic, more sort of, you know, a network built over 30 years, a reputation built over 30 years.
Odie is is a young, aggressive, ex-banker, very entrepreneurial, energetic, incredible network that he’s built just with, with being tenacious.
And it’s a it’s a really good yin and yang. We just you know I think the he’s a great golfer. I’m a terrible golfer. So you know that that balances balances out nicely. But I think it’s just a complement of kind of more strategic skills with with tactical skills. And he’s a little bit more he’s a little bit more objective than I am. Again, I’m I’m the kind of want to make everything happen. Believe in every everybody want to make everybody happy. He helps me more, be more balanced about that.
And so yeah, it’s been I know that I’ve left to my own devices. I would I would fade out pretty quickly because I would be trying to make everyone happy, and I would be making no one happy.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:21
Because it’s key. And I ask this, you know, selfishly, how did you think about, okay, identifying your key strengths so that you can focus on them and also surround yourself with people who complement you? How did you think about identifying your key strengths? What are some of them that you you think about? Because like some I figure like sometimes strengths is like it’s not obvious to ourselves.
At least I can speak for myself because it’s just something that comes naturally. So like, I don’t think of it as a strength per se. Right. Yeah. So yeah, I’m curious how you kind of identified your, your key strengths and what you found there.
Dan Lee: 26:03
Yeah. So look, I think I wish I had been that analytical about it, but the way I so I mean, I, I, my dad was a big fan of t charts. You know, he loved t charts. And I should have drawn out of T charts exactly what you’re asking. But I would say like my, my strengths are that I’m energetic, I’m passionate, and my weaknesses are that I’m energetic and passionate.
Right? I mean, it’s just it’s absolutely cuts both ways. And so I needed someone that’s willing that’s can take a more cold eyed look at things and help me be objective. And, you know, that’s what helps me do is make sure that at the end of the day, what we want to make sure is when we engage with someone, we are going to engage deeply. We’re going to get the deal done and we’re going to help them, not just short term.
We build long term partnerships where we’re helping them think about growth through different stages of the growth of their business. And so we’re looking to build deep, long term partnerships. And you can only do that if you have someone that’s objectively able to identify this is a good match of resources, not just because I like this guy or girl, but because it’s a it’s actually objectively, the teacher works, the resources line up and there’s a there’s a collaborative mix.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:27
You know, you have a lot of experiences and all these other companies you worked with. I’m curious what service, when you came to start the company, what services were you thinking of offering? Right, because there’s a lot of things you could do for companies, right? And then maybe what services did you decide on? And maybe you expanded them from the first thought, maybe not.
But talk about what services you decide to focus in on.
Dan Lee: 27:53
Yeah. From the beginning we’ve known that it would be it would it would start with capital raising. So and it’s not just capital raising its capital raising from 30 years in the industry. So knowing the different types of capital that are available, knowing the players that provide them what they can and can’t provide, not what they tell you they can and can’t provide, but what they actually what kind of partner they’ll actually be. Because from having been in the trenches.
And so it’s not just when I say capital raising, I don’t mean just, hey, we’ll get we’ll find you 20 million of equity or we’ll find you 30 million of debt. It’s. No let’s sit down and talk through. Let’s. It’s an advisory service.
We’re really helping you think through. Sure. You could raise 20 million of of non-control equity. Maybe you should consider selling to a controlled private equity firm. Enroll in a really big piece where you might get a second bite at the apple.
Maybe not. Maybe you shouldn’t even raise equity at all. Have you thought about this type of debt where you can really scale the business to the next level and get a better valuation when you raise that non-controlling control equity? So it’s bringing a private equity mindset to founders primarily, but also to independent sponsors. Just think of it as we’re like an active board member.
So that that really it’s more than it’s really strategic growth options is how I would think about it. And then what we’ve the way some of our service offerings are changing is we’ve realized, oh, we have access to a lot of other services that we don’t provide, but we know the people that do. And so we’ll bring them to the table when appropriate. So whether it’s a fractional CFO, CMO, whether it’s a consulting firm like Gray Box, Intel is going to come in and do customer diligence at an independent sponsor pricing, whether it’s an insurance firm or an accounting firm, like we know all these people, we can bring them to the table. Preparing investment materials.
Right. Just making things look buttoned up so that you can get the right run, the right kind of process, get the right kind of outcome.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:57
So do the, you know, from the standpoint of let’s talk about founder owned businesses for a second. Are they usually coming to you when they’re in that 3 to $15 million of EBITDA range. Is that. Yeah. And so what are some of the things they may be surprised out about with options they didn’t think about because of your experience with capital raising.
Dan Lee: 30:18
Yeah. So listen, I think founders when they if they’re if they don’t come from investment banking, if they’re just been building this, this business, they haven’t really needed to think about capital options. A lot of cases the best businesses are self-funded. Right. And so they’re not even thinking about raising capital.
And they’re not thinking about taking it from being a small business to an enterprise. Right. And that’s not a you know, there’s a there’s a distinct contrast between the entrepreneurial mindset and the operator mindset, right? The entrepreneur can can build a business, start a business that’s a superpower, right? But not many entrepreneurs can scale the business.
Then the operators needed to come in and make the tough decisions and the investments needed, and the investments require capital. And so I think the thing that’s surprising, it’s not surprising to me, but a lot of founders, it’s amazing what they’ve started. They’ve they’ve started a restaurant from scratch. They’ve taken it to 20, 2030 locations. They never thought that they would need to think about raising capital or entering new markets, and they’ve had it in the back of their mind.
But it’s really what they’ve relied on is effectively some business brokers or the country club. You know, their buddies who have done it before, and everyone has their opinions and everyone, but they haven’t had a more really reasoned, you know, sort of long term approach.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:41
They may have grown organically in the beginning, like we go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 and you know, they putting fuel on it.
Dan Lee: 31:49
They’ve been busy just managing their own success and growth. Right. And they built an amazing platform. And they’ve gone from zero to 10 to 20 stores. They’ve entered a couple markets.
And it’s really they haven’t had the time because they’ve been so busy just trying to, you know, put out fires as they’ve grown. They haven’t had time to step back and think, okay, how do I want to capitalize this business? Is there a bigger opportunity if I raise capital And if I suffered some delusion, could I grow the pie bigger? Right. Could could I create a more valuable steak for myself and all my shareholders?
If I do take a little bit dilution, or maybe, maybe I want to take dilution in 12 or 24 months and use the debt for the next stage of growth. So it’s really, you know, we that’s why I say we want to go deep with a few groups rather than have a million clients. We really want to create opportunities where we know that business cold and we’re able to be very objective. Part of our business model is we take equity stakes in our clients, and that aligns us for long term growth. We’re going to benefit from their success and we’re going to feel their pain if they’re not succeeding.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:56
Give me a. With the capital raising, you mentioned a few options that you’ve presented to people. Can you just go through a few just to give people a sense? Sure. An example.
Dan Lee: 33:07
Yeah. So I mean the simple is is commercial Bank. You know, you go to your local bank, they’re going to be very conservative and very cheap. And then you’ve got mezzanine providers that’ll give you a little bit more flexibility. They’re going to be more expensive.
And but they’re going to give you a lot more operating flexibility. Commercial banks are going to be very tight on operations and it’s going to limit it’s going to hamper what you can invest in and where you know where your capital can go. And I would say the most there’s there’s control private equity of course. And you know that’s that’s been a massive grower the last 30 years. It’s remarkable to watch the way private equity has grown and and it’s been it’s its success has been key to helping solve, if you remember 15, 20 years ago, there was a massive pension crisis.
And private equity has been a huge part of helping to make sure those those get more properly funded. And so it’s been it’s it’s benefited an awful lot of pensioners. And then the class that’s really growing the last five years, I mean certainly it was around ten years ago, but in the last five years is Non-control equity, and it’s got a million different flavors from pref equity to you’ve got Holdco notes. And so it’s just a whole lot of different ways you can structure paper that might have a cash component to it might be pick so that you can keep the capital in the business can range from anywhere from a 10 or 15% stake up to 45. And in many cases it can be the path to a controlled transaction.
And so it’s a it’s sort of giving you an opportunity to get to know your partner before you give them control. And and then ultimately, once you realize it’s a it’s a beneficial partnership. In many cases those become controlled partnerships. And and the founders able to get a couple different bites at the apple.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:58
Because then the PE will sell again and they’ve rolled in a certain amount of percentage into that deal. They may have taken some money off the table but rolled a certain percentage in there.
Dan Lee: 35:08
Exactly right. Yeah. It’s I mean there’s there’s opportunities. You’ve seen founders get 6 or 7 bites at the apple. It’s it’s unusual but far from unheard of. And it’s very it’s not uncommon to get two or 3 or 4 bites at the apple. And and each bite can get bigger if it’s the right kind of partnership.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:25
Yeah. I’ll give a shout out to Todd Taskey, who runs the Second Bite Podcast. He specializes in digital agencies, digital agencies with private equity to help sell digital agencies. So it’s a really interesting niche. Maybe you guys should chat at some point.
Todd’s a great guy. We run his podcast and I’ve learned a lot just through listening to his episodes so people can check out the Second Bite podcast. I want to talk about the restaurant vertical, right. You mentioned restaurants expanding. You have a lot of experience there. Can you talk about some of the things you’ve seen and done there?
Dan Lee: 36:03
Yeah. So this is at you know, it was my my lieutenant, Nick Nic MacLellan and I decided we thought we were looking for. You’re always it’s. It’s when you’re a lender. It helps if you have a focus on verticals because you get to know that vertical well, you get to know the players and restaurants is a relatively less competitive vertical. There’s a good reason it’s less competitive because it’s pretty risky. And a lot of lenders have lost money.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:28
Every time I go to a restaurant, I’m like, there’s no way I want to run this thing. The inventory goes bad after like a couple days. The margins are tight. It seems like a terrible business.
Dan Lee: 36:38
No, it’s it’s challenging.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:39
I’m glad people run them because I want to go to them. But I don’t want to own one.
Dan Lee: 36:43
No. And. And the real the real challenge as a lender is when things aren’t going well, they can be really difficult. I mean, you’re putting good money after bad in some cases. And so there’s no question there’s, there’s a there’s a trail of heartbreak in restaurant lending.
Right. But but we had a thesis that there’s a, there’s a type of restaurants that’s more durable. And they have to have been around for a long time, you know, 15 years. They have to Have many, many units that have proven stable, stable unit level economics over time. And you’ve got to have a really strong private equity sponsor, an experienced operator.
And because they’re less competitive, you can do like a typical LTV in a in a non restaurant transaction is going to be, you know, 65%, 60% in restaurant land it can be 40 to 50%. So you’re doing a much lower. You’re advancing a lower LTV and you’re getting better pricing because it is less competitive. And so you have to keep the bar really high. That’s that’s the key in my my partners help me make sure that I didn’t get us into trouble.
I again, I tend to be optimistic. And so they would kind of help me understand, you know. No Dan that’s bad. That’s that’s not that’s not a good a good business. Yeah.
He’s a great guy. But don’t that’s not a business we can lend to. And so we found some really strong I mean we built the restaurant vertical around Garnett Station, and we found, you know, in lending with them and watching them manage their restaurants through, you know, the the toughest challenge you could imagine in Covid. You know, they proved we had we had many, many private equity firms that we invested with in restaurant land. Garnett station was one of the youngest firms of the in our portfolio, and they outperformed everybody else in terms of the way that they provided resources and, you know, rolled up their sleeves and got resources to the ground. It was remarkable.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 38:38
How did they pivot? What did they do during Covid to make sure things didn’t just crash and burn?
Dan Lee: 38:46
Well, they they had had experience in working through some tough situation with restaurants. So they just, you know, they they got their people out into the field, you know, for restaurant operators, people that had, you know, most of the people that they were investing with were founders. And so, you know, they had great experience, but they hadn’t been through that type of challenge before who had. But it was really knowing, just understanding that we need to prepare these businesses for a long term challenge, right? This could take time and we need to provide some some incremental capital.
And but we think they can come back stronger on the other side. This is going to this is unfortunately going to. Wipe out a big chunk of the restaurant mom and pops and the groups that are better capitalized. I mean, the real answer is they properly capitalized them. So they didn’t have a lot of debt and they so they could service the debt comfortably even while the restaurants weren’t open.
And they got the restaurants up and running quickly. And, you know, they were some of the first ones up and running in our portfolio. And they performed great. On the other side.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:50
Talk about just, you know, that growth and some of the things that that you saw and did when we talked, confessed when you’re there, went from 250 million to 12 billion, right. What were some of those key inflection points or things that you look back on that you learn from.
Dan Lee: 40:08
It’s understanding where you matter as you get bigger. So when you’re when you start in the lower middle market, it’s a less competitive market by definition, there’s just less people playing there. And the challenge is going from doing 10 or $15 million deals, where it tends to be much less competitive to 50, 75, 100. Recognizing that there’s a lot more competition there. So you really have to focus on where you matter.
So what that meant for us at compass was let’s really focus on verticals. Let’s build resources, operating partners that we can use for diligence. Let’s let’s build internal teams that can just rip this industry apart, you know, like just in their sleep. Right. And and then as we, as we do that, as we go deep, we’ll develop a reputation amongst the private equity community for being the guys that know healthcare, that no restaurants, that no consumer.
And so that really that was the lesson learned was, was don’t kid yourself that you can continue to be a generalist as you grow. That is a that is a very, very difficult you tend you tend to get to adverse selection, frankly. And that’s that’s can be a disaster for a lender because this is one of the things that if you’re not a lender, you don’t know this. It’s not rocket science, but in private equity you can afford to have a bad deal. You can’t have many, but you can afford to have a bad deal because you get all of the upside.
So you can earn three X across nine portfolio companies and have a dud. And you and you’re raising your next fund because across the fund you got that upside. As a lender you don’t get the upside. It’s really challenging to scale a credit platform. And because of those dynamics you just cannot afford to take losses.
And so what determines success for lenders long term is not the number of losses, it’s the severity of loss. You can have a number of bad performers, as long as you get the vast majority of your money back and and have an otherwise healthy portfolio. And that’s what we learned at Comvest. And that’s what that’s what helped us scale.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:16
First of all, Dan, I have one last question before I ask it. I just want to thanks for sharing your stories and your journey. And people can check out Pin High Strategies.com. My last question is just some of the mentors and colleagues that you’ve respect, that maybe you learned a lesson from over the years?
Who are a few of those mentors and a lesson learned?
Dan Lee: 42:41
Yeah. So I mean, I’ve had so many people that have had a huge impact and I’m going to leave somebody out, but I’m going to start with Brian Gallagher, who was my first mentor back at Arthur Andersen and remains a very, very good friend. He’s someone that I’ve just collaborated with and and have a lot of respect for Ken Leonard. Certainly he was my mentor at Heller and hired me at Dimas and has been just, you know, an absolute killer partner for me over time.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:15
Is there any from Ken, any lesson you learned from him or something he imparted on you?
Dan Lee: 43:23
I think from Ken it would be love your energy. Be careful. So he could see that it was again, it goes back to that blessing and curse, right? It’s like, man, it’s great that you’ve got all that energy and all the enthusiasm and belief. Just be careful because it can lead you, you know, just make sure you’re being objective.
So he’s helped me stay objective over the years, my partners Greg Reynolds and Jason Gilbert and Robert O’Sullivan, you know, just learned a ton building with them, working with them. And then I would say Matt and Alex at Garnet Station. I mean, that was a master class in private equity. I got to see the inside workings of one of the best platforms in the business right now. I mean, I absolutely have no regrets about having taken a chance.
And it was a big risk. We said it on day one. Who knows if this is going to work. Right. And it didn’t.
And I’m happier now because I’m working with someone that I’m having incredible chemistry with. And, and we just we were fortunate that we’ve had some incredibly good clients that have tapped us. And we’re we’re excited to for what the future holds together.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:43
What were the learnings from Matt and Alex for you?
Dan Lee: 44:48
Oh, man. I mean, figuring out where you matter. So, you know, really being honest with yourself about why are we so special? You know. What do we bring to the table that’s unique to this counterparty?
So if you want to be disciplined on price, which which they have been, that’s why they’ve had so much success. They’ve been they’ve figured out how to build collaborations where price wasn’t the determining factor. It’s the counter counterparty decided, I want to work with you because I see you believe in what I what I am building, and you bring resources to table that help me. By the way, price wins nine times out of ten, let’s be honest. So you got to be you have to have the tenacity to really, you know, flip over enough stones and have commit yourself to all of those conversations because you don’t know, out of those ten conversations, those 100 conversations, which one or 2 or 3 is going to be the one where the founder says, you know what price isn’t the most important collaborative partnership is, and I’m going to grow the pie bigger with you.
And again, that second bite, third bite. So that’s what they’ve built the firm on. It’s just believing in their founders and bringing, you know, bringing best in class resources to them. And it became just a, you know, a reference cycle, right. They could I mean, it’s just people would come to them because they heard the story and they heard the founder raving about them because they just they provided the kind of support that, that only they could.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:15
Dan, I want to just thank you and check out Pin High Strategies. I feel like these are different chapters of your future book. You know, some of the mentors, colleagues and like something they said to you like chapter is love your energy. Be careful in one chapter. But thank you.
We’ll see everyone next time. Thanks so much.
Dan Lee: 46:34
Thanks, Jeremy. It was a blast.
