Jon (00:00) It's also called ETA, Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, ETA. And this is a way for someone to be entrepreneurial by buying a small business and then running it. These kinds of businesses are what I call the good boring businesses. 35 % net returns of 40 years. They're still higher than private equity. They're still higher than the stock market. ICEO Technologies (00:26) With over 30 years in the investment world, John Steinberg has made more than 350 angel investments and managed portfolios exceeding $400 million. He is the founder of Agate Hound Fund, the world's first fund of funds investing in search funds, which are investment vehicles where an entrepreneur raises capital from investors to find, acquire, and operate small and medium companies. Jon (00:48) Phase one, you got to raise the money from a set of investors. You got to convince them you're that person who can do this. And you raise enough to pay yourself a little bit so that for up to two years, you can go out into the world and find the company you're going to buy. And that's hard. We're going to have something like 200 in our portfolio. 200. We're buying companies that are in fragmented industries. that are growing, that are about two to five in EBITDA, that don't have a lot of government regulation risk, that don't have a lot of customer concentration risk. ICEO Technologies (01:27) Here we are, perfect. So we can start then. Hi John, how you doing? Jon (01:31) doing fantastic. How are you? ICEO Technologies (01:33) Very good. Thank you. And very glad to have you here, ⁓ John, today. Again. Jon (01:36) Molte bene, right? Molte bene! ICEO Technologies (01:39) Very good, very good. Indeed, Everything good. Thanks a lot for joining us today, John. So, really looking forward to the conversation, to dig into your activity, the fund that you're running and all the details about the specific assets class that you're investing in. And before starting, John, I would like to have a... Jon (01:41) I'm ICEO Technologies (02:03) a first understanding in terms of motivation for you because you have been a VC in the past. Now, you you are into search fund investment, running, you know, this fund of funds. Tell us maybe what drives you as a leader and keeps you motivated in the first place. Jon (02:18) know, motivation is such an interesting question. A lot of my friends are getting to the age where we could retire, where traditionally people retired. But I kind of drink the Kool-Aid from the Warren Buffett School, who is 94 years old, and he skips to work every day because he loves what he's doing. And I am lucky enough to have found something that I love doing. And so I can't see myself as long as I'm able. I can't see myself retiring anytime soon because I have found what I love to do. And I love working with entrepreneurs. I love seeing positive momentum. I like mentoring, coaching. I like the world of capitalism. I like the world of innovation. I feel like I'm learning every day. So I just feel very lucky that I get to do something I truly love doing. And so that's what motivates me. I guess maybe I could say it the other way, which is I'm not a golfer, so I'm not going to go work on my golf game. I might work on my paddle game. I know in Spain, that's a big thing. Or pickleball here. But that still leaves me lots of time to work on. search funds and entrepreneurship through acquisition. So that's why I'm excited about what I'm doing and it's fun to talk about it with others. Also, I'm motivated because I think I'm in a category where if we do it really well, we're gonna help the world. And the world is a confusing place right now. And I think capitalism when it's really good can be a really strong agent of change. And it helps people who work hard and play by the rules to get ahead and feel like they're making a difference and they're providing for their family and their friends and for others. And so that also motivates me. ICEO Technologies (04:05) Perfect. Thanks for sharing, John. And now let's dig into the specific assets class that you are dealing with. And you are the CEO of Hagata Hunde, which is a founder of funds investing in search funds. So first of all, tell us what is a search fund in the first place. Jon (04:23) Oh, I do. I get to do this so many times a day, every day of the week, because search funds are a confusing name, first of all, and I'll explain that. And search funds are having a moment, and I'll explain that. And people sometimes even think they know what search funds are, but they don't. So that's the setup. So I am the founder of the first fund to funds. for search funds called Agate Hound Fund. And what we do is we invest in a small set of the best institutional funds investing into what I'm going to call searchers. So what is the, it's also called ETA, Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, ETA. And this is a way for someone to be entrepreneurial by buying a small business and then running it. These kinds of businesses are what I call the good boring businesses and they're very broad. So what I mean by that, it could be anything in your city or town that is a required business that every town has and that could be a plumber. That could be an HVAC company, that could be a dental clinic, that could be a street cleaner, and on and on. And so all those businesses out there that we need from periodically are the kinds of businesses that we target with the searchers to go and buy and then support them as they grow the company. Now, why is it called a search fund because the way this playbook or the way that this system, and it really is a system, is set up is it is taught at the best business schools. Originally it was taught at Stanford and Harvard. I'm wearing the Stanford hat. And at the business school. So you're essentially saying to a 32, 33, 34 year old who's probably never run a business before. But because they got into one of these very good schools, they're saying you're smart, you're hungry, you can figure things out. Do you want to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur through buying a company? And they take them, it's a class. It's a detailed class. And there's three phases of a search. Phase one, you gotta raise the money from a set of investors. You gotta convince them you're that person who can do this. And you raise enough to pay yourself a little bit so that for up to two years, you can go out into the world and find the company you're gonna buy. And that's hard. You're on the phone, you're emailing, you're reaching out, you're going to trade shows, but it's mostly no, no, no, no, no, and no. And then every once in a while, someone says, yes, I'm interested in buying and selling, sorry. I'm interested in selling my company. But then there's a negotiation. There's the &A of that transaction. That's also hard. And so let's say you get through all that. Then you've got to actually run the company. And that's hard. So this is not a path for someone who wants it easy, for someone who wants to go to a venture-backed and ride along hoping that it becomes an unicorn and then get their stock options value for a bunch of money. That's another way to be an entrepreneurial, but it's not this way. This way is the gritty climb that mountain. do whatever it takes kind of entrepreneurship that is what small business, middle America certainly is all about. So just to give you a sense, Stanford, Harvard, there's Booth and Wharton and Northwestern and in Europe where you are, there's IA and ISA and London Business School and INSEAD, very few, something like 1%. of all the students who take this class decide to do this. Because ultimately they go, that's not something I want to do or take on. It takes a certain type of person. And so the people then say, I'm going to do this. Raise this fund. It's not really a fund. It's just a pool of money for the search process. But what's beautiful about that is they have, and you have a company. called ICEO Technologies, where you help venture-backed companies by placing really good mentors and coaches and business people into those companies. In search, it's built in. Because I'm raising money from these 10 to 12 investors who have literally, collectively, 200 years of actual experience of searching, buying, running and successfully exiting a company. So they're like a YPO form. They're like a coaching staff for the entrepreneur. And that is part of the magic. That is part of the success formula. And you know it, because you do this in your day-to-day job, but we're applying it to where it traditionally has not been applied. And so we're trying to take these small, good, boring businesses and applying best practices to them and growing them such that they're ready for private equity to buy them. So we are doing something in an area where most private equity doesn't wanna play, it's too small. And because of that, we get to buy them at a price that is lower because it reflects kind of a messiness. But with this playbook, we're able to take it to the point where we get to sell it all dressed up, cleaned up, better operating, better margins, growing faster, et cetera, et cetera. And we get to sell it at a multiple arbitrage because we bought it say at 4X EBITDA multiple. And now we get to sell it for 10X EBITDA multiple because it's worth more at that point, you know. It's like taking a apartment building and you buy it and you see that the paint has been neglected or that the landscaping hasn't been well taken care of or the management is just not very nice to the tenants and you buy it, it's making some money and you buy it and you start, we're gonna paint this, we're gonna clean up the kitchen, we're gonna be nicer and now I can raise the rents a little. ICEO Technologies (10:37) Thank Jon (10:49) Guess what? It's more valuable. And that's what we're doing with small businesses, if that makes sense. ICEO Technologies (10:54) Perfect. That's great. That's very much clear, John. tell us maybe, because you come from the venture capital world, and you've also been investing in hundreds of companies as an angel. Why did you choose to move from VC to the search fund in the first place? Jon (11:01) No, Well, I think there are two main reasons. For me, when I started venture a long time ago, venture capital was so exciting to me at the time. And it wasn't mainstream. It wasn't what everybody already knew about. It was something like search funds. I had to describe and explain. And even my mother, Why would you invest in something that's probably going to go to zero? Right? And really that was most people. That wasn't just my mom. And it was confusing. But when you understood that you could get one or two outsized returns to make up for all your mistakes, how exciting. And how exciting to be on the leading edge of innovation. And how exciting to be where entrepreneurship was about changing the world. And that's what it was when I got in. But another reason I got in is because I knew, and this is how I approach anything I do, I knew what my value add was. I knew what my differentiation was. At the time I had been working at Microsoft. And people cared in the startup world back then, less so recently. But they cared how are we going to compete with Microsoft or how are we going to partner with Microsoft? And so I was a guy that said, hey, I want to be in your best deals. I don't need to take very much. I'm a smaller fund, but I will be the guy that will help you interface and connect with Microsoft and navigate that relationship. So I was very clear about what I could do for my differentiation. and add and by the way, today I don't know how to do it. Today it's very noisy. Today it's moving very fast. Today I don't have that edge. And so I said to myself, this is not the game for me anymore. Sometimes you gotta know when to hold them and sometimes you gotta know when to fold them like the song says. But I wasn't done working. And again, I refer back to Warren Buffett and I thought, where can I get the kind of returns for myself? Actually, I was thinking for my own portfolio, given the craziness in the world. I mean, I just look at the world today and I say, you know, real estate had this amazing run. Is real estate going to have the same run? I don't know. You could argue no. The stock market. What a, what a interesting seven years or so in the stock. Is it going to continue in double-digit growth? I don't know, right? Name any category. And then I looked back at search funds, which anybody here listening today, there's a really good study by Stanford. The Stanford Search Fund study, you can search that. And no pun intended. And it gives you a 40-year analysis. It's been around 40 years and it's updated every two years and it gives you the analysis and it's kind of this almost unbelievable result in findings that says it's returned something like 35 % net returns for 40 years if you had done every search fund. I'm not sure when people hear that they realize how astonishing that is because if you think about 40 years compounded of 35%, that is Google. Some people go, well, you're buying these good, boring businesses, but that's not sexy. Well, 35 % compounded for 40 years is beyond sexy. I'll remind people listening that people who have bought and invested in search funds for the last several decades, they're rich. How else to put it? They're rich. I'm coming to it late in the game. and things are changing, but let's pretend that those returns come down a little bit. They're still higher than venture capital. They're still higher than private equity. They're still higher than the stock market. And you you look at asset classes and you think about risk and reward. So on the upside, that's the reward. But you also say, my gosh, what are the bad years? Search has not really had Down years and there's a reason for that search is buying profitable companies You're the entrepreneurship through acquisition you're acquiring The playbook says you're acquiring a two to five million dollar EBITDA business That's growing in profitability for the last three years So it's proven product market fit. It doesn't need a second round. It doesn't burn rate is not the question, right? And so you're already, and you have the luxury because you're hopefully growing this company, of being thoughtful and patient about when you need to sell it. And on the other side, venture, you asked me about venture, today, venture funds, there are some venture funds that will be 25 year venture funds. That's how long it's gonna take for liquidity. On the other side of search funds, of these acquisitions, is over a trillion dollars of private equity money that's been raised that has a time bomb, has a clock ticking that they have to invest in. So our liquidity is waiting just on the other side if we can grow these companies appropriately. So for me, all those reasons said I need to be spending my time in ETA. I need to be. And so that's part of it, just at the asset allocation, at the return. But the other thing is I'm doing it because it feels like venture 30 years ago. I love explaining and evangelizing and getting people excited about this as I am. And I also love to think about how I can add value. We go back to, said I added value in venture. Well, hopefully I can add value by taking some of the things I learned in venture and applying them to search. And where are we right now? At this moment, we are at the moment where AI is gonna disrupt everything. I don't even think people fully get what's about to happen. I mean, maybe people in the venture world, of course, do, right? But Main Street America and the rest of the world, I'm not sure. And so what I'm really excited about, I mean, ETA has been amazing, as I just described. But what if we can take these 33, 34 year olds coming out of these business schools who are already tech comfortable and tech savvy, and they can apply basic AI tools to these small businesses? Well, all of a sudden, they're competing in a different way against the other plumbing companies. And the returns could be quite astonishing. So I'm excited about thinking about how I can help bring that to the ecosystem with all my contacts in the tech world and the venture world. And so that can be a differentiation. I'm working on other things to bring value add. What are the things I love the most? And I'll stop talking. I realize I'm going on and on. What are the things I love the most about Search Funds and the ETA world is it reminds me of when I was doing venture and it was a small group of venture funds and investors who all added value. And I really think it's hard for people to understand this until you've been to the Harvard Search Fund Conference or the Stanford. There's a mindset here that is almost academic, that it's I want to teach this generation of entrepreneurs, I want to coach them, I want to mentor them, I want to add value. And if you're not adding value, you're generally not asked to be at the table. And I take that very seriously. And I think it's, again, part of the magic of why this has worked so well. And I think will continue to work really well. ICEO Technologies (18:47) Perfect. And John, now looking at this process that you show, that you explain. So looking for the funds to look for the company in the first place, then acquire that company, go through all the acquisition phase and then running that company. So if we look at the identification phase, if you had to pick the top three type of companies out there to acquire? What would be that type of company that you chose? Jon (19:20) Yeah, I get this One of the professors at Harvard likes to say there's riches in the niches. And what that means is there's a broad set of companies that you can buy and improve. and make money on and grow the value. And so the way we think about it is what kinds of companies, what are the criteria? And it's pretty broad. For example, in my first fund, we're going to have something like 200 in our portfolio, 200. And with that, we'll have over 100 different industries represented. And so we're buying companies that are in fragmented industries, that are growing, that are about two to five EBITDA that don't have a lot of government regulation risk, that don't have a lot of customer concentration risk. And it's super broad. And that's what I like because just sorry, they're everywhere. ICEO Technologies (20:14) me. Jon (20:17) They're from Florida to Washington. They're in Topeka and Peoria and Omaha, Oklahoma City, right? These companies exist. And so that's the opportunity for an entrepreneur who says, I don't need to be in San Francisco or Miami or Austin. These companies exist all over and you're trying to take a company. know, in venture, you're kind of trying for perfection. You're trying to build the, it's called a unicorn. because there aren't very many of them. That's not the approach in our world. The approach in our world is take a good company and make it better. It's like Warren Buffett says, buy a really good company at a really fair price with good management and you've got a winning formula. And that's what we're trying ICEO Technologies (20:59) And if we look at maybe at the metrics, like what are those key metrics that you look for then when you try to find the best target among all of them. Jon (21:11) Yeah, I mean, you're trying to find a combination of a margin and a growth rate, sometimes a rule of 40. You're trying to find, again, what kind of earnings, what's the quality of earnings. you're making sure, ideally, you're looking, we learned from the SaaS world, you want some kind of recurring revenue, right? You want to look at how is the owner deploying capital back into the company or not. And sometimes not, by the way, is the opportunity because you can do that. So that's what you're looking for. You're looking for a type of size. You're looking for the customer concentration. And you're looking for the recurring. ICEO Technologies (21:52) And in terms of size of the company, so you said small company. So we are talking about like a few millions in revenue or even less. Jon (22:00) Not revenue, no, no, no, in profits, in EBITDA, EBITDA. Okay, so, you know, 15 to 40 million dollars in revenue, something. ICEO Technologies (22:03) ⁓ okay, so you speculated that. Okay, clear. And in terms of... Jon (22:10) ⁓ So it has, it is established. It is working. ICEO Technologies (22:13) Yeah. Okay. So, so yeah, in terms of acquiring the company, like usually what's the ideal process like with the investors that they backed you at the beginning, you rise an additional fund to acquire the company or maybe through the company. Jon (22:29) So what happened, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what you're doing is you're calling CEOs and you're saying, do you want to sell, do you want to sell? And the numbers are something like, I'm going to get over the couple of years that I'm doing this, 70 interested sellers. But interested does not mean they're gonna do it. They're just saying, yeah, tell me more. And then I'm gonna get down to three actual letters of intent. And of the three, only one, one out of three actually gets consummated into a sale. So it's a grind, it's a long process. But again, let me explain to answer your question. My 12 investors, At that point, get the first right of refusal to invest into the acquisition. So that's when they do the bigger investment. They may say, I like you as a searcher. I like the deal. I like the industry. I'm in. I'm going to do my first right of refusal pro rata and invest in this company with you running it. And so that same set of investors who's got to know me for the last year, year and a half, as I've done this search, are now going to be on my board and still continue to coach me through success. as a CEO. ICEO Technologies (23:40) And in terms of investment, are talking about 10, 30 millions of investment in that company. Jon (23:46) Yeah, but we, so we use a little leverage, usually both bank financing and seller financing. So the seller is motivated to stay in the game and make sure the transition is successful. That's very important. People buying companies without this playbook don't usually get that. That's hard. And this, you know, we're cautious about using leverage with those kinds of returns. Some leverage makes a lot of sense, but generally speaking, we also want to be careful because we know there's a J curve. You buy a company and often the first year as you're transitioning, you don't have this, you have more like this as you're changing things and getting to know the culture and the culture is getting to know you. So you don't put too much debt on it, which by the way, when private equity buys, they put more debt on it. and they replace the CEO and they have a different playbook. But for this size of company, that's our playbook. So we put half debt, maybe half equity, and off we go. ICEO Technologies (24:44) And the CEO stays in place or is replaced? But the first one becomes the CEO. OK. Jon (24:46) No, the searcher becomes the CEO. But there's a transition plan. So you make sure that you don't pay out the full amount upfront, you pay out some of it, but you also make sure there's something associated with continued growth and involvement. ICEO Technologies (24:52) Mm-hmm. Clear. And in of structure of the team, usually there's a bigger structure internally or... ⁓ Jon (25:08) No, you try and keep you hope that the team wants to stay in place just with the transition of the CEO. You're hopefully buying a company where you feel good about the team. Maybe there's a little bit of change. Maybe some people don't change, but it's not a wholesale change. ICEO Technologies (25:21) Okay, clear. And in terms of challenges that you see or main risk, like during this phase in terms of identification, what do you think are the biggest risks that either ones? Jon (25:34) I mean, look, Small businesses are messy. People don't always represent the truth. You come in and you've got a transition. People don't like change. Some people are going to leave. Some people are aging out. Different motivations. I mean, for sure, expect the unexpected. You go in and you do your due diligence and you get your quality of earnings and you have experts look at the industry and you've got expect the unexpected. That always happens. But thankfully we're working with a group of people who have done this and been part of so many transitions. There's some pretty good pattern recognition. So that when that unexpected happens, it's not panic time. It's okay. Now we need to do this, this, and this. Let's get this back on track. But if you're a sole individual trying to just go out and buy a business, that sounds really hard to me. I like this system because it has so many guardrails built in for the unexp... ICEO Technologies (26:34) I And clear. In terms of examples of successful companies, like, I know that most of them, you know, they're still running, of course, but for sure there's gonna be one that have been, they had a great mission. Jon (26:47) Well, there is one. ⁓ There is a Google. And it's fun. I was just listening to a podcast with Irv Grossback and people who were part of this first deal called a Shurion. And I think it's probably, I don't know, even venture deals that have had this kind of return. It's extraordinary. And they were buying originally a, I think it was a car towing company. and selling some side products around cellular back in the day. And it eventually morphed into the largest product guarantee, you the extended warranty. They were really the leaders in, you you buy an electronics device and would you like to extend the warranty? That's a Shurian. And I mean, I don't even know if it's 50,000 X. or something. It's a great story and there's a bunch of podcasts on it. And it really, the people and what's cool for me about that is the people who invested in it and who found that company and who led that company. Most of them are still today teaching at the business schools, investing into the asset class, available for advice. And that's the power. mean, You really, that to me describes how much passion there is for people within this small little ecosystem for continuing and playing off there. That's how Silicon Valley used to be. You didn't have this great outcome and then go sit on the beach. You had a great outcome and you said, how can I do it again? How can I support others doing it? And that's very much what the search fund world. is like and that is again part of the reason for success but also part of the reason why I love being involved. I learn so much from these people continuously. There's not a time where I'm with them that I don't think, ah, okay, well that's it. You've done some really interesting things. You're really smart. I mean, if you want great people on this podcast, you get those people who have lived in the trenches, who have done it time and time again. They're the heroes. ICEO Technologies (28:50) That's great. And do you have also some examples maybe of companies that had the kind of low operational cost and high potential in terms of automations? So really to drive kind of more massive things in a way. Jon (29:05) Yeah, I mean, sure. ⁓ I think we're at this moment right now where people are really thinking about that. One of the things about AI is for the first time in the history of the world, literally if you can think it, you can basically create it right here on your desktop in minutes. So just think about all the categories that are gonna be disrupted. Lawyers, why am I paying a lawyer tens of thousands of dollars for a template document when I know right now? Or accountants, or, or, or. And so I think that the opportunity for increasing automation in almost any company Now, maybe one of the areas that we invest in a lot are what I'll call guys in trucks. People that, you know, until the robots take over, you're still going to need those guys going out to do a service call or what have you. That's not going to be as automated, but the customer service will be, right? The sales process will be, the HR will be, the accounting will be. And so you're taking a company. I mean, Look, let me step back for one second. Italy, where you're from, has a negative birth rate. Japan has a negative birth rate. Demographics around the world are an issue for a lot of countries, as you know. And so, in those countries, there are small businesses that literally have had great success that will just have to close their door. There will be no one to buy them. The kids don't want to take over anymore. So automation is going to have to be a solution for some of those businesses, right? Because there just going to be less people to do it. And so for me, this conversation, I'm thinking about this almost every day. How can we take a small business and take the processes and make them more efficient through technology? ICEO Technologies (30:49) Because of course, what you're saying that, yeah, it could be ideal to target one of these like a Aras that has high potential of automation, but at same time, there's probably also a high risk that the entire specific role of that ⁓ company is replaced by automation itself. So either you lead it or, yeah. Jon (31:08) Yeah, people are already thinking about this and venture people are thinking about it and private equity people are thinking. It's going to happen quite fast, I think. I think it's going to be really interesting. think, you know, whenever there's change, change means there's opportunity. And that's why right now is such an interesting. ICEO Technologies (31:28) the moment that you are running that company, what do you think are the main areas that a person like the new entrepreneur should target first to drive improvements? Jon (31:38) Well, the good news is I don't have to do that. But the people who are doing it, that's what they've been studying in business school. That's what the people around the table are helping them with. So by the time they come in, they've literally had classes on how do you hire a board? How do you fire people? What are you doing your first 100 days? They have had seminars and classes and case studies on exactly all the areas it takes to run a company. Now, it's different in a practical sense when you're in the company, but you've had, you've actually been learning this throughout your business school career and beyond. And the people who invest in you have ongoing courses and there are great books on this and there are great podcasts and the blah, blah. So it, and the answer to your question specifically is it's not one thing. You come in, you're running a business. As you know, it's a lot of things. And it's not even just, gotta make sure our accounting function is great. I gotta make sure, you know, our sales process. I gotta talk to my customers. It's also, how do I come in and create the culture that allows me as a leader to be embedded and leading this organization to success? That's the entrepreneurial part. That's what this whole journey is about. But it's, you know, a hundred things, not one. ICEO Technologies (32:59) Of course. And if we look at how AI jumping back to what you were saying when it comes to AI, how is impacting the asset class itself? Do you think it's going to increase returns through this or is it to be a shaky situation? Jon (33:17) Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know is the answer. I do think that just as a natural rollout of AI, it's going to happen at the big companies first and trickle down to the smaller companies. And if we can learn from what's happening here and apply it here before others, it sure seems like we have a really interesting opportunity. I mean, again, the returns have been great. Are they going to get better? That seems like an outlandish statement. But if they do, watch out. And to be clear, more money is figuring this out. So more money is coming into what I'm going to call lower market private equity, which is what this is. But there only so many business schools teaching this. And there are only so many experienced investors around the table applying this system. As long as we stick to what we do, which is investing in this system with these great CEOs, I think we'll do well. And I think they asked. ICEO Technologies (34:13) Okay, John, a few last questions before concluding. Share with us maybe your piece of advice for an entrepreneur who wants to go out there and buy a company. Jon (34:23) Well, first of all, really, really ask yourself if you want to do this. You know, what people don't realize It's not hard to buy a small business. It's hard buying a small business and successfully running it and getting an outcome. Don't buy yourself a job if that's what you're doing this for. Do it because you are motivated as an entrepreneur. And then if this is what you think you want to do after you have really done your homework, after you've read the books, after you've gone to the comp... after you've spoken to others who have done this. I think some people do this for the wrong reason and they're not going to be successful, generally speaking. So that's number one. Like really be clear this is what you want to do. Number two, if you do want to do it, there's an ever increasing amount of great resources available for people who want to do it. And I personally believe The more that you can replicate this system or playbook, the better your chances for success are gonna be. And then think about... Are you willing to do it in a place that's not obvious? Are you willing to do it in a city that maybe isn't sexy to live in? Are you willing to do it in an industry that at a cocktail party, nobody wants to hear about? That's what you have to ask yourself. Well, again, why are you doing it? And if all those things still say yes to you, then go for it. Because it's... It's the silver tsunami. It's the greatest transition of wealth in the history of the world. But I'm just telling you, I don't think enough people really ask themselves the hard questions. And that's the first thing I would be doing if I was gonna really say this is what I wanna do. ICEO Technologies (36:04) And now looking at your background and your experience in the past, so more of a personal question here. Tell us what you would have done differently. Jon (36:15) Well, that's a question. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've failed a lot. I've fallen down a lot. But I don't live with regret that way. I just try and learn from it. I mean, I've been very lucky. I feel like I've had a front row seat at the rollout of some of the greatest innovation and technological change in the history of the world. So all I do is try and guide with the principles of learning a little bit more every day, staying curious and hungry, being around really exciting, inspiring people and trying to give back. And if I can do all those things, the rest takes care of itself. ICEO Technologies (36:52) And one last question here, looking at the accelerating pace of change that is happening in the world during to technological development. What is your main concern about the digital future, but also what excites you most about it? Jon (37:04) We don't know what we don't know. And it's happening faster. Someone said it the other day by saying a century in a decade. And I think the next 10 years is going to be a wild ride. So either you're going to embrace it or you're going to shield yourself from it. I'm going to embrace it and try and bring good where possible. And You know, I'm a believer, I'm an optimist, ⁓ I'm hopeful. Like anything in the history of the world, there's always a trade-off, there's always good, there's always bad, there's always, you know, for every action there's an opposite equal reaction. We'll see. But I will say humans, I'm not sure are yet ready to manage the kind of accelerated change that you're talking about. So I hope we figure out not how to be divided, but how to come together and realize it there's never been a more important time for that. And, you know, just to bring it back to small businesses, I honestly believe that what made America great for the last 50 years is that people had hope that they were, if they worked hard and followed the rules, they could get ahead. And I think that's what search funds are about. And I think if we create a society where people are given that chance, then they'll feel good. They'll treat others kindly. The society will prosper. and we'll survive all of this. So that's my hope and that's my. ICEO Technologies (38:30) Done. It's been a really great conversation. Thanks for sharing your insights. And definitely it's going to be another occasion to speak more. Jon (38:38) Thank you so much, I really enjoyed it. ICEO Technologies (38:40) Thank you. Bye bye.