Football Quarterbacks Run Small Business Plays I Jeff Driskel & Jason Driskel I AO 21 Clip

In this episode of American Operator, we sit down with Jeff and Jason Driskel — brothers, quarterbacks, and now business partners. While Jeff continues his NFL career, Jason has stepped into the full-time operator role as they grow a portfolio of service-based businesses that prioritize freedom, fundamentals, and long-term value.

Their first acquisition? An accounting firm. Since then, it’s been all-in on ownership — no venture capital, no gimmicks, just consistent execution and family-driven grit.

Here’s what we break down:
- How Jeff balances entrepreneurship with pro football
- Why Jason went all-in as a full-time owner/operator
- How they chose their first business — and what they’ve learned since
- The dynamics of working with family while building legacy

Whether you're navigating a side hustle, diving into ownership, or building with family — this story will hit home.

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Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:09:15
Speaker 1
Hard work. Real talk. No shortcuts. I'm Joseph Cabrera. This is American operator.

00:00:09:15 - 00:00:25:09
Speaker 1
All right, team, we are here with the Driscoll's fresh in from this. I mean, I guess you can call it the East Coast. It's on the East Coast. But you wouldn't call for the East Coast, right? It's like its own thing. Yeah, it's unique for sure. Yeah, it's its own deal, that's for sure. So we got Jeff and Jason here.

00:00:25:11 - 00:00:49:22
Speaker 1
Gents, really do appreciate y'all coming in. And more Pro am excited about kind of some, topics that we don't really get to talk too much about this. One just kind of how sports, whether it's in the pro athlete space or collegiate, like how that can establish foundations for being a good business owner and operator. And then just kind of also some of the war stories I've had just kind of along the way and kind of all headed, so stoked to get into it.

00:00:50:00 - 00:01:05:15
Speaker 1
Let me ask the first thing. Just out of the gate, they always say, like going into business with family, don't do it yet. From the get go, I can tell you all have just some kind of chemistry. And that happened. Was this like something you all had to kind of really discern, or was it like, no question that now we're doing this thing you.

00:01:05:15 - 00:01:24:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'll take that one. So, you know, I had the I had a very similar light bulb moment that a lot of people in this space have. Right. Like, oh my gosh, normal people can buy these businesses that have, you know, seven figure earnings. Didn't know that that was a thing. Right. Did a bunch of research, like, is this actually a thing?

00:01:24:17 - 00:01:42:03
Speaker 3
Is this an Instagram thing? Right? Is is there some legitimacy to this? So in one of my offseasons, a few years back, you know, I was talking to Jason and, you know, told them how I've been spending my days. And I said, hey, man, like, I've been doing a bunch of research, talking to a bunch of people that are doing this at a high level.

00:01:42:05 - 00:02:01:05
Speaker 3
You know, from you know, buying a brand, a franchise to independent sponsors that are taking down nine figure deals. Right? Like everybody in between, very high level people and all pieces of the puzzle. But I said, hey, I want to get into this in some way, shape or form, and I don't want to wait until I'm done playing.

00:02:01:06 - 00:02:24:09
Speaker 3
Not so naive to think that I can own and operate a business. While I was playing football. But I said, hey, I want to get some exposure into this world, because when I'm done, whenever that might be. Like this. This is what I want my career path to look like. And like, I caught Jason at the right time, kind of, you know, told him, you know, all the things that I've uncovered over, over the past six months or year or whatever it was.

00:02:24:11 - 00:02:41:05
Speaker 3
And he said, hey, man, we'll let's do it was, you know, I he got the light bulb moment. He did his own research, you know, had difficult conversations with his wife and, you know, decided that, it was best for for his family to, to get out of his day job at the time and, and go look for business together.

00:02:41:05 - 00:03:01:15
Speaker 3
And we kind of outlined the rules of engagement, right? Like, hey, are we are we going to talk about this at Thanksgiving? Right. Hey, is that off limits? You know, do we have to have book meetings to talk about, you know, business stuff? But it's been great. Like, it's been one of the, you know, pleasures of my life over the past couple years to to work with Jason every day.

00:03:01:17 - 00:03:08:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Agreed. We spent a lot of time talking about, like, how could this go wrong for us, right. Like, because like.

00:03:08:18 - 00:03:09:14
Speaker 1
Before getting into it.

00:03:09:15 - 00:03:25:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Honestly, I remember I lived in Austin at the time and I would go into our office, my corporate job, I would go in early like six and we would do, our long meetings. And the first however many meetings we did, they were just talking about like, how can we not mess this up for our families, right?

00:03:25:09 - 00:03:42:09
Speaker 2
And, you know, we want to be friends. We want our kids to be friends. We now live super close to each other. We want to be able to hang out on the weekends and do whatever. And we we did. We spent a lot of time talking about how can we make sure that, however, this goes from a dollars and cents perspective, that, you know, our families, you know, signed up yet?

00:03:42:09 - 00:03:53:13
Speaker 2
So it was, you know, we spent time but, you know, well worth it. And I think we definitely had bad days. But I think like that groundwork that we sort of set in place, super helpful for us. Yeah. You know.

00:03:53:14 - 00:04:18:06
Speaker 3
There's there's no real way to, like, put that in a document, right? Yeah. It's we have obviously inherited trust. Yeah. You know, we being brothers and having kind of similar pasts in, in football and sports and everything like that. Like you have to trust each other. Yeah. And it's based on trust. Like I said, there's not like a formal, hey, we can and can't do this.

00:04:18:08 - 00:04:26:23
Speaker 3
But we did have those hard conversations early. You know, just to make sure that the hard conversations later or as hard as they otherwise might have been.

00:04:26:23 - 00:04:36:23
Speaker 1
What are like some of the rules of engagement that you feel like, ma'am has really worked well. Like, are there like off limit things or unbound things? What are those things?

00:04:36:23 - 00:04:52:02
Speaker 2
think we've always just sort of approach that a lot. And it's a trust thing, right? Like there isn't rules. But Jeff, as you'll probably see in this sort of deal, is is much better in certain things. I'm much better certain things. So that sort of bifurcation helps with with sort of giving up the workload, if you will.

00:04:52:02 - 00:05:10:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. But I think the biggest thing is just trusting that, you know, this is our this is our future, you know, professionally and like he is he's invested. I'm invested in. We're always going to be invested equally. Right. Like that is the goal. Like it's you know, it's we didn't want to get into the game of like weighing different roles or different contributions or whatever.

00:05:10:07 - 00:05:24:10
Speaker 2
It's it's like we would just always sort of want to be in a place where things are down the middle, which there's days where, Jeff would say he feels like he's get the short end, and I'm sure there's days where I feel the same. But I think when we look at things from 30,000ft, it it works out that way.

00:05:24:10 - 00:05:26:21
Speaker 2
So yeah, I don't know if there's anything else you want out of that.

00:05:26:21 - 00:05:49:00
Speaker 3
No. We, you know, if somebody calls somebody on Saturday and has a business question and the other person doesn't answer like, that's fine, you know? But, you know, if somebody calls it, you know, 230 on a Thursday, like, you should be pretty. Well, we'll answer that. Yeah. You know, and it's kind of just working on kind of that level that is that's worked well for us.

00:05:49:02 - 00:05:49:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:05:49:12 - 00:06:10:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, it sounds like you are. It is counterintuitive to folks to, like, prioritize the the the the brotherhood first before the business, but it's probably what is the unlock there to be able to kind of keep yourself, probably sane and at the same time, kind of enjoying each other's company. Do you find it as y'all are operating,

00:06:10:23 - 00:06:18:09
Speaker 1
where are the the natural things that y'all gravitate to from a skill set perspective, like on the technical side of things, where do the how do y'all divide that labor up?

00:06:18:09 - 00:06:25:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, Jason's definitely the brains of the operation. He just said five vacation or something. I've never heard that worked for you.

00:06:25:10 - 00:06:27:19
Speaker 3
Don't ask me to spell. You don't ask me to spell.

00:06:27:21 - 00:06:50:02
Speaker 2
I never heard that word before. But I guess, like, my. I don't know if roll or super power is is getting endorse that. You know, if I didn't have the NFL shield or, you know, in Florida, the Florida Gator logo carries a lot of weight. I played quarterback at the at the University of Florida. I've played nine years in the NFL, for a bunch of different teams.

00:06:50:04 - 00:07:09:00
Speaker 2
And that that gets you in a lot of doors. That doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to do business with you. Because of that. But it does get us in doors that we otherwise probably wouldn't be able to, to get into at this, you know, point in our, in our careers. But yeah, I, I love going to one shows folks.

00:07:09:00 - 00:07:25:01
Speaker 2
I love having conversations. I love talking on the phone with people. And, Jason, I don't want to say he's the opposite of that, where he doesn't like doing that. Yeah. But, you know, he's got he's going to be the one that's, making the models, you know, he's going to be the one that's asking the difficult questions.

00:07:25:01 - 00:07:43:13
Speaker 2
If there was a good cop bad cop situation, I would be the good cop. Right. So we do have complementary skill sets, and, you know, I'm more of, interpersonal relationship, qualitative, you know, type of person, whereas Jason is more on the, on the quantitative. And, that's the hard questions.

00:07:43:18 - 00:08:03:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. I would put it this way. I studied engineering in college. I'm an outgoing engineer. Maybe not like a superstar business development guy. Right. Like, yeah. I think I'm interpersonal enough. I like a team dynamic, but, you know, if you think about, like, things charging your battery or draining your battery, Jeff probably gets charged up by things like this.

00:08:03:04 - 00:08:18:17
Speaker 3
And a lot of folks, I'll be very tired tonight. Right. Like, that's that's sort of how I think about it. But yeah, I think Jeff hit it on the head. And now, of course, my background is in corporate strategies and naturally I gravitate to more of the modeling. And yeah, I like to be the bad cop sometimes. It's when my wife gets on me about it all the time.

00:08:18:17 - 00:08:21:16
Speaker 3
But, you know, that's that's where I gravitate. Okay.

00:08:21:20 - 00:08:39:14
Speaker 1
Sounds like a powerful One-Two punch. I think that's what we found with like, folks that are trying to get in the inner seat. They're usually missing one or the other. You know, they either have like they know the business inside out from like a DNA molecular perspective, but they can't, like get enough trust with the new owner to, like, want them to even pick up the phone.

00:08:39:16 - 00:09:04:05
Speaker 1
And then on the other end, you get some folks that are great getting through doors, but like buying a bad business because they don't even know how to evaluate the thing. So I do think in this world it seems like A12 punch. How has sports been something I mean, it's obviously been core to both of you. I'd love to just get y'all's perspective on, like, how that as you reflect on your journey, with the picks you or otherwise, like, how is that either helped or maybe hurt you in this world?

00:09:04:05 - 00:09:08:20
Speaker 1
I'm assuming your prize yourself. Yeah. Other than getting doors.

00:09:08:20 - 00:09:30:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Sport. Sports uses so much, when you're in it every day, you don't realize the value of the of the soft skills that you're learning. So, I mean, there's probably a bunch of, of college and pro athletes out there that have had similar thoughts that I've had over the years. What the heck am I going to do when I'm done?

00:09:30:03 - 00:09:52:22
Speaker 2
Right? They'll go to a barbecue and their friends are talking about, you know, what they're doing and work and the modeling and the spreadsheets and, you know, we feel lost in those conversations because, you know, our high level discussions are about cover two defense or, hey, like, we're going to run this play action pass and we're going to find the the sweet spot in between the safeties in the, in the corners.

00:09:53:00 - 00:10:20:20
Speaker 2
So that's that's our high level, knowhow but but the soft skills, I think athletes don't put enough weight towards how valuable that is. In the workplace. So I think just the, the teamwork that that you naturally develop, you know, the hard work, the grit, the determination, especially to get to, you know, the collegiate level or the pro level, like that's started when you were a little kid, right?

00:10:20:20 - 00:10:42:07
Speaker 2
You in the business world, you hear about the the 20 year overnight success. Yeah. That's the same thing as everybody who just got drafted a couple weeks ago. Right. They went from not having much money in their bank account. Nil. It's it's is different. So they from it it is different to hey you know some of those guys you probably just got a direct deposit of about $1 million overnight success.

00:10:42:07 - 00:10:48:00
Speaker 2
No, but the guys were working, you know, from over seven years old, not knowing if it was ever going to pay off

00:10:48:00 - 00:11:08:02
Speaker 1
That's so fascinating. How do you. You talk? I mean, you don't mind, like, just getting in there more on the soft skills. I think you think athletes. And you must think technical, right? Not necessarily the math, although some of it can feel that way. What are the soft skills you guys are references in more. Just like how you get a team to like, be cohesive or what are those things that come to mind if.

00:11:08:02 - 00:11:25:02
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think for me the biggest one is teamwork. Like, and I have like a kind of a pet peeve or businesses call thing to family. Like I'm not a big like the business is a family. I'm a big it's a team. But people, I think, underestimate especially athletes when you're in the moment, what it actually means to be a team.

00:11:25:02 - 00:11:37:20
Speaker 3
Right. Like you have to understand, if you're on the scout team that you're not going to play for meals on Saturdays, but you're not gonna play on Saturday for NCAA team, but you are helping someone else that you know they're going to further your program, and maybe next year or the year after, you'll be, you know, the person playing.

00:11:37:21 - 00:11:53:11
Speaker 3
I think there's a lot of people out there that don't have that skill, right. It's about them. They want it to be about, how can I do my job as easy as possible for my personal success today? Not thinking about things from a big picture. And so I think sports teaches you from a young age to start, it's not a you.

00:11:53:11 - 00:12:00:07
Speaker 3
And if you're the quarterback of an NFL team, it's not all about you. And I think I really do think that's a little off skill in a lot of ways.

00:12:00:07 - 00:12:16:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm just about every team that I've been on. You know, in the NFL, they talk about we want great teammates whose great teammates make great teams. So yeah, I mean it's there's there's got to be something to that. And in the business world as well.

00:12:16:02 - 00:12:33:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you when y'all are playing either in the NFL or in college? What are the things that, as you look back on it that any leading indicators personality wise of other teammates to make you go, that person is going to be dependable or that person is going to be a good teammate. Like, what about them makes you think they're.

00:12:33:10 - 00:12:51:18
Speaker 3
I got I got one, and it's a small thing. It's like in college you're, you know, I'm sure it's different every school or whatever. But for us, we worked out super early in the morning and we met super early like, yeah, you're in college, right? Like for better or worse, you are. But people who are going to show up on time every day for 4 or 5 years, that person's dependable, right?

00:12:51:18 - 00:13:08:00
Speaker 3
They they might not know anything about anything, but you know that if you need them to do something on a certain time or whatever, they're going to be there. And those are like the little qualities that don't seem like much, probably. But, you know, when you look at again, taking a step back and you get into the real world, that's actually a harder skill than you think, you know, showing up on that.

00:13:08:00 - 00:13:10:04
Speaker 3
So I think, yeah, I think it's a little things like that.

00:13:10:04 - 00:13:28:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. And this might answer your question. It might not. But I'm going to go down one of those rabbit holes that I've talked about. So my daughter's six years old. She is in gymnastics. It's, you know, it's a it's a one man sport. You're out there by herself, but she's a, you know, she's on the team, right?

00:13:28:22 - 00:13:50:06
Speaker 2
There's 15 or so girls that are in practice at the same time as her. They compete at the same time. I said, were you were you a leader today? And she said, well, what does that mean? I said, what do you think leadership means? She says, well, like, maybe if the coach asks us to do something and my teammates aren't doing it, like maybe I'll say something and said, well, that's one way to do it.

00:13:50:06 - 00:14:22:06
Speaker 2
And she said, well, what do you think? Then I said, well, whenever I got on a new team, what I always wanted to do was in conditioning drills. They do conditioning drills in in gymnastics at six years old, which is crazy. So she was able to understand. I said, you know, nobody likes the conditioning. But what daddy did was I made sure that I won all the conditioning drills and some of that was like ability, but some of it was want to and drive and, like, showing the team without saying anything that like, I believe in those coaches that were doing the right thing here.

00:14:22:08 - 00:14:39:15
Speaker 2
I believe that us training together, you know, rowing the boat in the same direction is, is a worthwhile task. And when you do that, you know, time and time again, you know, that's that's where leadership's developed and, and. Yeah, so do it doing the same thing over and over again and doing the hard things.

00:14:39:17 - 00:14:45:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think makes a great teammate. And that's where, you know, the leaders of any team or organization emerge.

00:14:45:19 - 00:15:02:01
Speaker 1
Seems. I mean, you both kind of nailed something. That line you both captured my back in my time in the service. Like it is the small things. It's the things that I think we can get fancy about leaderships where I hang a lot of guys and gals get a little bit astray, like as I get into the owner, see it kind of doing the really sophisticated things.

00:15:02:01 - 00:15:22:12
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, but they're not like if you have especially like a trade group, they're there early in the morning in their tracks and they never see you. Like that's kind of a yeah, sure, you can run a successful business, but you expect your guys to be out there on their trucks ready to go to the first call at 630 in the morning, and they don't ever see you at 630 in the morning, even once in a while.

00:15:22:14 - 00:15:48:19
Speaker 1
It's kind of makes you wonder, like, I don't know, I just, you know, it makes you kind of set the tone a little bit different when you guys are thinking about like how as you think about translating some of those skills on teams to the world, that is the private sector was kind of some of those challenging pieces because I feel like as you grow up in sports, you grew up in military and kind of like a around a little bit of a system that encourages like that kind of, yeah, call it aggression or whatever.

00:15:48:19 - 00:15:53:11
Speaker 1
You're like that tenacity, how do you do it in the like on the private sector side?

00:15:53:11 - 00:15:54:09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:15:54:11 - 00:15:55:10
Speaker 3
I don't know if this is the right.

00:15:55:10 - 00:16:10:13
Speaker 1
Dancer. It could be a bad answer, but what we've done sort of that very keen generally is we do, you know, weekly or every other week all hands meetings and it's it's definitely a white collar business. Right. So people are in the office working together. But the first thing we do in that meeting is we have core values.

00:16:10:13 - 00:16:16:00
Speaker 1
There's six of them, but the primary one is be a great teammate. That's all it is. But, we start the meeting with every.

00:16:16:00 - 00:16:17:02
Speaker 2
Person that's in.

00:16:17:02 - 00:16:34:17
Speaker 1
That meeting has to give someone a shout out on the team for something that they did. And look like we have weeks where it's hard to give shout outs, you know, and, you know, and I find myself not getting enough of them, so I need to, I gotta, I gotta look into that. But, that's what we do, and it's it's nothing.

00:16:34:19 - 00:16:35:19
Speaker 2
You know, it's nothing.

00:16:35:21 - 00:17:00:18
Speaker 1
Super rare or extraordinary. Right? And I think for me, it was just a way to have, you know, the team from our highest level accounts to sort of our admin staff recognize each other, right? Because it's it's a team that makes the building go and makes the business go. And I think it's it's things like that that, you know, I've elected to try to do to just sort of build that camaraderie and, you know, it also takes discipline, frankly, to like, oh, crap.

00:17:00:18 - 00:17:10:03
Speaker 1
On Tuesday morning at eight, I gotta shout out, because if not, we're going to sit here and look at, yeah, until you got one. Right. So yeah, that's that's one little thing that we've done, which I think is gone. Well, at least if you ask me.

00:17:10:06 - 00:17:28:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. No. That's good one, man. I think it's, cash is such it just being consistent about that. Even when it's hard. It's tough. The other day, it was. Y'all were, we had this, like, stretch or just rain here in Texas. It's been nice for the cool weather, but it's. It was just porn and so bad. Now, since leaving the servers, one thing I've always promised myself is never stop.

00:17:28:20 - 00:17:44:23
Speaker 1
You're kind of morning physical regimen. Like I always do it. For me, it's it's incorporating a lot of running in the morning. A lot of good thinking happens there. And, what kind of makes you smile? Get up and kind of, like, flip my legs on the side of the bed and it'll be raining in my life. I'll go stay dry.

00:17:45:01 - 00:18:06:10
Speaker 1
And so maybe, like she knows of any, she'll get good. I promised myself I would never do that. You know, I don't like, you know, who likes you. And so necessarily. And I think it is a small things that you stay consistent with the kind of driving you long way do you have like in the locker room? Are there things that make you like other kind of rituals or things that you keep up with just to kind of make sure that you're you're staying true to yourself, or just an example for other folks.

00:18:06:18 - 00:18:27:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I think you referenced it a little earlier, like we're brought up in these systems that like kind of force you to do things a certain way. And if you don't, you kind of get weeded out. Yeah. But I think that stuff shows up, at least at the NFL level in the offseason. In college, you're you're with your team year round.

00:18:27:18 - 00:18:49:01
Speaker 2
Right? Like after the season, you have a couple week break. You're right back into training. You NFL is a lot different than that. You know, when you're done with the season, boom, you're home the next day. Next, you know, a couple days after the season, you're home. And, you know, you can hire a trainer, you can work out on your own, you can throw, you can not throw like no one's watching you.

00:18:49:02 - 00:19:13:20
Speaker 2
Right. And that's a change from college to the NFL. And that's where a lot of people can either, like, separate themselves in the off seasons or they'll fall behind and it always shows up and during it, you know, guys are learning to sharpen their skills. Or maybe they'll get soft, soft tissue injury. You know, that person probably didn't work out enough or run enough or, you know, there's some unfortunate things that happened that, are out of people's control.

00:19:13:21 - 00:19:37:14
Speaker 2
But, I think it's the offseason. I think it's when no one's watching. But you see those Gatorade commercials all the time where guys are training at random parks and, and then, you know, it's wee hours of the morning or late at night training. It's just stuff like that, right? Little by little, each and every day. If you can continue to, to do what you've been doing since you were a little kid, but now there's no oversight, that's when you can, you know, make jokes.

00:19:37:14 - 00:19:39:23
Speaker 2
And the same is true and anything.

00:19:39:23 - 00:19:58:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. And I think like it really is. And you know, our business is a systems business. Right. Like it's an accounting firm. So it's I don't want to say repetitive, but there is a lot of system in place. And it's it is to Jeff's points, doing the stuff that seems monotonous, that keeps things running smoothly for our clients.

00:19:58:02 - 00:20:02:10
Speaker 1
Right. And it's, it's it is like that. I think it's a good comparison.

00:20:02:14 - 00:20:16:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let's talk about your visit business for a second. Is this this, this one here? Tell us a little bit about it, but really also just kind of thinking through, like, how you all arrived at that being the thing you wanted to buy first at the gate.

00:20:16:00 - 00:20:41:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think, arriving to it is probably a story on itself. But, you know, I think the, the short of it is that we knew about this whole ecosystem. You know, we learned over time, and so we knew that there was opportunities to buy small businesses. Right? We knew that was it was a fact. And there some things that we didn't like, you know, we there are some constraints about how big the business could be, etc., but we weren't necessarily setting out to buy an accounting firm in western Kentucky.

00:20:41:18 - 00:21:01:07
Speaker 1
Right. Like that's definitely not what happened. But what did happen was, you know, through relationships that Jeff largely felt we got connected with a broker and ultimately got, you know, this business came across our desk, our desk, for lack of a better phrase. And, you know, obviously, me being the bad cop, like we talked about earlier, like you got inside black Hat, by the way.

00:21:01:07 - 00:21:19:09
Speaker 1
Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Over me. Oh, you know, I think it has to check certain box or we can't. We're not going to overpay for an asset. It has to, you know, be something that I can realistically operate myself and feel comfortable doing that. You know, I'm taking a personal guarantee on the debt. So, you know, I gotta feel super comfortable.

00:21:19:11 - 00:21:40:11
Speaker 1
But then ultimately it comes with very frank conversations with the sellers, like, what is your guys's expectations? You know what? What's going to be the thing that doesn't work for you guys after close? Because, you know, business like this. I wanted them to be around for some time afterwards. And so, you know, it's conversations like that that we're had, and you know, ultimately, sort of the cream rose, I guess, you know, I think that's, you know, one way opportunities.

00:21:40:11 - 00:22:10:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then, like, how do we land on accounting? Bookkeeping. Yeah. You know, we kind of started with the person in the person in, in our first acquisition was Jason. Where are you comfortable and what do you not comfortable? And Jason, you know, after after college, he was in corporate finance and strategy. And then he moved on and worked with the, with a venture back company and, you know, in a white collar setting in both of those, in both of those companies.

00:22:10:05 - 00:22:30:07
Speaker 2
So he said, well, you know, I've been around white collar folks for, for years now. I kind of know how they think, you know, I'm a white collar guy myself. Engineering background, or engineering education. Let's go find something, with a white collar workforce, because I think I'll be able to relate to them better. I think I'll be able to recruit that workforce better.

00:22:30:09 - 00:22:48:17
Speaker 2
Okay, well, that makes sense. So let's let's start with the operator and then, hey, like there is going to be some risk here. And you mentioned the personal guarantee. How risk averse are you how you know non risk averse. Are you. Well yes. Like I said engineer my education. So relatively risk averse. You want something with pretty stick with pretty sticky clients.

00:22:48:17 - 00:22:57:16
Speaker 2
Right. And that's that's accounting right. There's very little churn. You know I don't know what the stats were from this past year. Yeah. For what you can you can say we.

00:22:57:16 - 00:23:13:19
Speaker 1
Do like we do like 5000 or so you know, returns in a given year. And so obviously we pull the numbers on all this. And you know you would think the churn would be like 100 returns. It was like we touched if we touched 1498 this year, last year I think we had 1496 right here. Yeah. It is good.

00:23:13:21 - 00:23:30:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's you know, it's it's, from a business, a metrics perspective. Very encouraging. But I think to Jeff's point, right. It it's just an industry, especially in, you know, a small town in Kentucky, which is where our firm is, where, you know, you provide a really good service at a really fair price. It's a it's a pain to go find a new accountant.

00:23:30:10 - 00:23:35:02
Speaker 1
Right. So, I think that hypothesis turned out to be very true. Yeah.

00:23:35:02 - 00:23:51:23
Speaker 2
We we back into it based off of the operators preferences. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of how we're doing the, the four pillars as well. We're finding the operator, you know, what are you believe in. What's your background. Do we believe in that as well? Yeah. If so, we can we can get behind that and look for an opportunity that matches your skill set.

00:23:52:01 - 00:23:58:11
Speaker 2
You know, because if we think that, you'll be excited about going to work every day, there's a, there's a higher likelihood of, of a good result.

00:23:58:17 - 00:24:14:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I think that that comfort factor, you kind of want to have the one thing that you can at least one thing, if you can walk into the new team and feel like I may not know this business as well, you guys know this really well, right? And that's kind of what establishes confidence. How's it working out?

00:24:14:06 - 00:24:15:05
Speaker 2
know, largely.

00:24:15:05 - 00:24:36:03
Speaker 1
I think things have gone really well. Obviously there's ups and downs, right? There's, there's good days and bad days. And I was not you know, I'm sure you've had people on the show that were sort of entrepreneurial from, you know, the lemonade stand that they opened up on there. I was not that right. So I've learned that sort of being an entrepreneur, the bad days are worse than they were before, but the good days are much better.

00:24:36:05 - 00:24:53:09
Speaker 1
And we've had a mix of both. Right? I think largely speaking, it's been really great. I think the one thing that I maybe discounted going into it was like how much I would enjoy working with the people that, you know, work at my firm. Right. You know, it's an unknown, right? You know, they're talented, they do the job, the business is performing well, whatever.

00:24:53:09 - 00:25:16:21
Speaker 1
But you know, I like would have never met these people, right? I'd never been to this town in Kentucky before. The due diligence. And, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have 15 employees that I like to work with, which I think is really cool. And, you know, they've embraced me. You know, one of the people that we bought from, I've been to his house multiple times and not to talk business just to hang out and have barbecue and bourbon, you know, you're in bourbon country.

00:25:16:21 - 00:25:32:11
Speaker 1
There's, you know, it's. Yeah, you know, stuff like that. It's the stuff that's not on paper. And obviously I would, be in a different mood if we weren't making our, our debt payments and all that fun stuff. Right? So the business performing well, but it's things like that. But I think it really been the enlightening part of it.

00:25:32:11 - 00:25:33:14
Speaker 1
Maybe it's best to say that.

00:25:33:16 - 00:25:47:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Do you like the, It's. It sounds like it was. It was sounds like it's a good. What did what did it teach you about? What was something about yourself that you learned that you didn't other than of the risk averse things or whatnot? What were the other things that you're like? Well, okay, I didn't know that about myself.

00:25:47:00 - 00:25:47:18
Speaker 1
Good or bad.

00:25:47:18 - 00:25:48:02
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:25:48:05 - 00:25:55:11
Speaker 1
I think I had manage people sort of in a corporate environment. But they're much bigger companies. Right. So, you know, I.

00:25:55:11 - 00:26:10:04
Speaker 1
I think part of me has to, you know, especially early on. I spent a lot of time just learning what everybody did. Right. Needless to say. But I think I had to take a step back and trust the team was going to do a good job, right? And really had no reason not to trust it to begin with.

00:26:10:04 - 00:26:11:21
Speaker 2
But I think innately.

00:26:11:21 - 00:26:28:05
Speaker 1
We come in and have this, you know, stranglehold or angst or whatever you want to say. And, you know, I found myself having to look myself in the mirror a lot and just say, like, you know, trust that they're doing their job well and they are right. Like, I can tell you over whatever, 16 or 17 months now, they are doing a good job.

00:26:28:05 - 00:26:33:08
Speaker 1
But I think that was something that I sort of had to learn. I wouldn't say the hard way, but it definitely took me some time.

00:26:33:08 - 00:26:51:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. And probably even like. How do you know? Yeah, I just don't. Knew. You know where where those things are. For both of you. But maybe even a little more in line. Jess. I'm curious. Like, do you do you look at, like, how much are you checking in on? Like, your brother's kind of, like, state of mind?

00:26:51:13 - 00:27:06:02
Speaker 1
I guess he's kind of maybe in the day to day running it. And you're continuing to go out there and, like, open more doors and those kind of things, like, what's that relationship look like with checking in on kind of his health and well-being? Seriously, while y'all are also probably looking for the next thing to, to kind of look at and invest in.

00:27:06:02 - 00:27:30:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, that's that's a challenge. Because we do have like the two separate entities going, right. Yeah. Jason's got to make sure that the lights are staying on and that, you know, he's doing what he said he was going to do whatever report the accounting, bookkeeping company, servicing those, clients. Well, treating the employees right, growing that business while also spending some, some spending some time with our Four pillars group, venture.

00:27:31:00 - 00:27:50:08
Speaker 2
But yeah, I mean, we have conversations all the time. Most of them are informal, right? Quick little check ins. You know, we look ten minutes down the road from each other, so, you know, we're in front of each other almost every day, if not every day. Yeah. I mean, it's it comes up in conversation all the time.

00:27:50:10 - 00:28:14:08
Speaker 2
Most days he's doing well, some days, like, not, not as good. And the same goes for me. Right. So, yeah, those conversations happen. Happen all the time. And, you know, good or bad, they're quick snapshots in time. Yeah. It's it's the constant up and down and, it's taken me some time to, really understand that, you know, you talked about what you what you discover about yourself, too.

00:28:14:08 - 00:28:42:13
Speaker 2
Jason, was ready in case you to ask me the same questions. But, you know, I've been in this big multi-billion dollar companies for the past nine years in these in these, you know, NFL teams. And no matter what you do, I was a backup quarterback. Like, you know, during my career thus far. And, you know, if maybe I didn't put the right amount of effort in a certain day, the team was going to keep going like no one would really notice most days.

00:28:42:13 - 00:29:05:05
Speaker 2
Right. And there wasn't a lot of days where I did that, but there was definitely some days where I didn't give my best effort further than other ventures. It's gonna you feel it. It'll be obvious. You'll feel it. So, you know, in a in a much smaller company like, it matters. Everything matters. So that's kind of something that I've discovered, and I probably knew it, but now I actually feel it.

00:29:05:06 - 00:29:05:19
Speaker 2
And you feel that.

00:29:05:21 - 00:29:20:23
Speaker 1
Is that? Do you find that to be both you all coming from big or big organization, so to speak? Is there a reward in that, like having that kind of tactile feel with, you know, the effort, so to speak, like you get that kind of instant feedback loop.

00:29:21:01 - 00:29:39:23
Speaker 2
I don't know about instant feedback I've had about how to create internal scoreboards to make sure, like, I can look back at a week and say, hey, like I did, or I did good or did bad during like, and it can't be. Did I, you know, close on the deal this week or did we, you know, move the needle 10%, you know, this week or did we get X amount of clients this week?

00:29:39:23 - 00:29:56:17
Speaker 2
It's the inputs, right? If I did the inputs and I consistently do those inputs, there's going to be outputs down the line. But it does take time. You never know when those are going to surface. But I had to put those in place because, you know, there's times where it feels like you're spinning your wheels but with no fruit.

00:29:56:19 - 00:30:01:23
Speaker 2
But then when the fruit comes, all right, now I can look back and say, hey, these inputs were what got us here.

00:30:02:01 - 00:30:02:16
Speaker 3
So, yeah,

00:30:02:16 - 00:30:23:17
Speaker 1
Makes sense. I'm not. I just curious, man. You all just like even talking to y'all right now. Just seems like they're, talk. They're, like, growing up. I'm curious. Like, y'all just seem tight, and, you know, you would expect get out of brothers. But not all brothers are that way. But you also kind of have, even though y'all kind of live different careers, so to speak.

00:30:23:19 - 00:30:37:19
Speaker 1
It seems to me that y'all have kind of a shared value system, set of ways of kind of thinking about things like, was that mom and dad instilling that in? Yeah. What, like what kind of what is that underlying foundation that kind of got you to where you're at?

00:30:37:21 - 00:30:55:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, I don't speak for Jeff like we can't I well, I guess we can't, speak highly enough of our parents. I think our dad was in the military, so he was a 20 year Navy that, And I think, you know, for better or worse, he expects discipline, right? But it was in a way that was constructive.

00:30:55:12 - 00:31:11:16
Speaker 1
I think for us. And Jeff and I are different. We were even more different when we were younger. I was not the kind of guy that wanted to give you any discipline, and I wanted to let you know that I didn't want to do it. But I think our parents figured out a way to sort of instill the big picture values in our lives.

00:31:11:16 - 00:31:32:01
Speaker 1
And, you know, I think looking back when you're little at sports, right? Like, that was the thing that taught us a ton of discipline, I think. And, obviously just made a career out of it. I was fortunate not to play in college, but, you know, I think, you know, if I'm answering the question, it's our parents or, and they just did a really good job of sharing that that foundation was, you know, super strong.

00:31:32:03 - 00:31:55:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, Jason mentioned like, the discipline around sports. You know, my, my dad, he knew that we were both really talented in sports, knew that there was, like, legitimate potential down the line for for college and pros. You know, he knew that we both loved it. So he pushed us to do it every day.

00:31:55:07 - 00:32:22:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. We definitely didn't want to do it. When I say every day, I mean every single day after school batting cage. Yeah. Go to go throw immediately after school every single day. It's just you to just. So. Okay, so the discipline piece was huge. But for me specifically, like humility was it was something that was huge in my high school prep time.

00:32:22:21 - 00:32:58:18
Speaker 2
So just for some background, without talking about humility, about that was a little bit I was, so I was the number one rated quarterback in high school in the country, could get anywhere. Offers from everywhere. When got drafted, you know, for a second round in baseball, decided to go football. And my dad did not let me get the big head because he wouldn't let me, and looking back on a now 16, 17 year old kid who doesn't have that type of guidance, you know, the Nick Saban's of the world, you know, Urban Meyer's of the world was small.

00:32:58:18 - 00:33:14:19
Speaker 2
All these big time people coming in there to court you and your peers, seeing you in school, getting taken out of class and doing all these wild things and the spotlight and on the cover of magazines like, you don't have that guidance and somebody like keeping you grounded. It can get out of control.

00:33:14:19 - 00:33:16:06
Speaker 3
Caught in there.

00:33:16:08 - 00:33:17:11
Speaker 2
And he never let me do that.

00:33:17:11 - 00:33:22:05
Speaker 1
How did that come out? Was it just like checking you if you did grow too far? Or was he.

00:33:22:05 - 00:33:22:12
Speaker 3
It was.

00:33:22:12 - 00:33:27:14
Speaker 2
I never verbalized it was. It probably was. Don't get a big head like I didn't make that turn quick.

00:33:27:17 - 00:33:29:21
Speaker 1
That's kind of how it has to be.

00:33:29:23 - 00:33:52:08
Speaker 2
But yeah, it was it was again, I mentioned it earlier. It's the, the consistency. You know, he didn't care if I was had 50 offers. I've, I had George to do it or. Yeah. So yeah, he just he treated me like a son and, you know, that that's gone out when he. Yeah. The expectations didn't change.

00:33:52:10 - 00:34:00:13
Speaker 2
And, forever. Forever grateful for that. Because that would have been, it would have been tough to navigate as a, as a 17 year old with no direction.

00:34:00:16 - 00:34:27:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. That little black foundation is so hard. When you are, you're thinking about your time curling the. And I'm just while we're kind of on that same line of thinking, like, we're Jason Kang Rubin and playing football and then going into the corporate world, and you kind of get a little bit more exposure to, everything is boring is like your 401 K plan all the way to, like, just being responsible with your money and your career.

00:34:27:13 - 00:34:31:05
Speaker 1
And where are you going to next at 25 years from now and all that stuff?

00:34:31:05 - 00:34:46:13
Speaker 1
But I imagine the NFL, I mean, they make movies about just guys just playing their hearts out. And then at some point there's like this brick wall they hit and then you're off on your own hot. Was there someone who told you, hey, man, like, look a little further ahead in this career?

00:34:46:13 - 00:34:53:08
Speaker 1
Or like, how come it seemed that you kind of had an awareness around it were like, it seems like so many athletes just may have fall off a cliff.

00:34:53:08 - 00:35:14:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, it's financially. Anyways, it starts. I went to a big school in the University of Florida. They start educating you really, really early. They give you the horror stories of guys that made, you know, 20, 30, 40 million bucks and spent it all in a broke. Yeah. So we got the horror stories pretty early.

00:35:14:05 - 00:35:34:23
Speaker 2
And that kind of was like, hold on to it. Don't spend it. And then for me personally and in you're also told NFL stands for not for long. Right. The average is two and a half years. If you make it past that you're lucky it could be not playing. Well, it could be. You know, coaching staff doesn't like you could be injuries, whatever it might be.

00:35:35:01 - 00:35:52:22
Speaker 2
A lot of things got to go right to last even two and a half years. So that was always in the back of my mind was, hey, I'm going to have a chance, and I'd like to play as long as possible, but it's it's going to end whether it's one year, ten years. Right. But I got cut after my first training camp, so.

00:35:53:03 - 00:35:55:10
Speaker 2
Right when it started, before it started, before the.

00:35:55:10 - 00:36:12:05
Speaker 1
My first NFL season, I got cut and I wasn't cut for long. I got I got cut and the next day I got picked up by another team and, you know, kind of went through that season. And then after the season, I kind of reflected on, you know, my, my rookie year and said, man, that was I was kind of crazy.

00:36:12:05 - 00:36:29:20
Speaker 1
And I got I got cut before my first year. It could have been over before it started. But I was always like on the cut line, you know, there's 53 guys that make the roster. I was probably, you know, in the bottom ten of every roster that I've been on as far as guys that were going to make the team.

00:36:29:22 - 00:36:51:22
Speaker 1
So I always thought about, hey, what's next? I want to be prepared in some way, shape or form without, you know, I was always and I still am super dialed into doing well in sport, and I'm not taking away from that. Yeah, I'm just using another piece of me to prepare myself for down the line. You know, early on in my career, I thought I was going to be in medical sales when I got done.

00:36:51:22 - 00:37:16:20
Speaker 1
So I spent my offseasons getting to know people in Orlando in the in the medical sales world. You know, a couple years went by, started wanting this passive income, you know, that people were talking about in the locker room. So I got into real estate, spent the offseasons, you know, doing flips, single family buying, olds investing in, you know, other people's deals, thinking that I, I'm going to be, a GP on in real estate when I'm done.

00:37:16:22 - 00:37:36:18
Speaker 1
Decided I don't want to go down that route with my professional time when I'm done playing. But I always spent the time to at least figure out if this is what I want to do. So that when I am done, I can I can transition more smoothly and, at least know what I want to do and know what I don't know, rather than don't know what I don't know.

00:37:36:18 - 00:37:48:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So it kind of was like a, like a blessing almost at the beginning, that reality hit fast because then you kind of immediately go, okay, this is and forever. I better kind of get my head on straight and kind of start thinking about that.

00:37:48:01 - 00:37:59:01
Speaker 1
Was that like just from your seat, like as you were kind of observing that going now, did you all have conversations about, you know, what medical sales, corporate America, what that looks like?

00:37:59:04 - 00:38:00:21
Speaker 1
What what was happening behind behind the scenes?

00:38:00:21 - 00:38:23:06
Speaker 3
No, it's it's funny because earlier you asked about our relationship growing up. And yeah, I would say that, like, you know, our relationship was always friendly, but we Jeff was a high performing athlete. I was a high performing athlete to a different degree. And so we weren't ever like in the same circles, right? Like we would spend the weekends where my mom or dad would be with Jeff at a baseball tournament and one place in Florida, and, you know, the other parent and me would be somewhere else.

00:38:23:06 - 00:38:40:02
Speaker 3
So I wouldn't say that it was something that we were talking about, ever, I think and going back to Jeff's earlier point about like one of the joys of this whole thing, it's been able to spend a lot more time with Jeff. I think this has really been the start of that. I this is a couple of years old now, but this is really headed in sort of the start of that.

00:38:40:02 - 00:38:46:18
Speaker 3
And, you know, I think I couldn't echo the previous point about it being a joy and like one of the highlights of this whole whole venture.

00:38:46:18 - 00:38:47:07
Speaker 2
So

00:38:47:07 - 00:39:07:00
Speaker 1
From your perspective, like why I what would you tell folks out there who are considering maybe becoming that? Because they know. I think there's a lot of folks who know it's hard and know that that, that that, that weight is all on your shoulders. Why would you say that? It's worth doing. Y'all both experience can the bigger organization type stuff.

00:39:07:01 - 00:39:14:01
Speaker 1
It obviously sounds like this is kind of what life looks like for your future for the foreseeable future. Why is it worth doing?

00:39:14:07 - 00:39:34:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I think and I think it's personal, you know, I think for different people it'll be a different reason. For me, I always sort of wanted to be the person that, you know, I get to bounce ideas off of people now, but I get to make the decision and, like, I can rest easy at night knowing that the decision and I make bad decisions, I make wrong decisions.

00:39:34:14 - 00:39:48:22
Speaker 3
I do it every day, I'm sure. But I think that's sort of been the thing that's been encouraging and super cool for me is like, that's what I aspire to write. Once I got into corporate America, as I well, there was a CEO of a big company or something. I just wanted to be the guy that.

00:39:49:00 - 00:39:50:11
Speaker 1
I got to make the call.

00:39:50:13 - 00:40:05:13
Speaker 3
And, you know, I don't know if that's like the quarterback in me, which is kind of a lame little quote there, but like I do, I like to make the call. And, you know, I like to think I'm smart enough to ask smart people that, you know, I work with and, you know, work for me to make sure that I'm making the best decisions possible.

00:40:05:15 - 00:40:12:19
Speaker 3
But I think it's it's a really freeing feeling to to be the end all, be all, you know, when, when push comes to shove.

00:40:13:00 - 00:40:26:13
Speaker 1
Is that a I want you to just saw it to. But like, is that a if you like some people I mean, were you kind of born that way because if for some folks would give them a terrible narrative in the to being like, wait a minute, I'm good to go. Yeah. No thank you. You make a call.

00:40:26:13 - 00:40:48:23
Speaker 3
It's a it's a good question, maybe a little bit. You could be the sports thing too. And like, I don't know, I just, I can just, I have anxiety when I don't feel like I'm in control of my own destiny. Right? Like you're the past tense, right? Right. I want to be driving. And, you know, it's probably not for everyone in that regard, but for me, it definitely is.

00:40:49:03 - 00:41:11:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. To pick to piggyback, to piggyback off Jason thought, about controlling your own destiny. I've been cut that are fires, you know. Yeah, like eight times, right? In the past nine years. You know, I want to be in a position to where that, you know, will happen again. So there's something to controlling your own destiny, good or bad.

00:41:11:18 - 00:41:33:07
Speaker 1
But for me, like, what gets me excited behind, like, the very real opportunity to make life changing money and wealth for your family is, doing something different every day. You know, I can look back on my last nine years and you can tell me the day of the week. In the time, I can probably tell you, like, exactly what I was doing.

00:41:33:09 - 00:41:51:09
Speaker 1
And there's good parts of that, but there's also, like, gets monotonous. But I look back on the past, you know, year and a half or whatever it's been. And, you know, some of the highlights, like just sitting here right now, if we were doing something different, we wouldn't have made this trip to Austin. I'd be hanging out here.

00:41:51:11 - 00:42:13:04
Speaker 1
We went on a due diligence trip for a roofing company that we're set to close on here next couple weeks, and we had a guy come in who's going to be on the cap table, and we made the 45 minute drive from Orlando, and we talked shop and we got wings and, you know, another couple beers and, you know, drove around, drove around town scoping things out.

00:42:13:06 - 00:42:31:06
Speaker 1
You know, Jason reference going up to Kentucky with one of the the guys that, that we bought from and having beers in his garage. You know, all the seller calls that I get to do meeting people and random industries that I've never even heard of has a ChatGPT, you know, what does this company actually do?

00:42:31:06 - 00:42:58:12
Speaker 1
Like the just learning about the ways that people make money is fascinating to me. But also learning like that, these folks that have been in their business for 30 years, they're so concerned about their clients and they're so concerned about, you know, their workforce, it's just you. So it's the people and it's the, you get to do something different just about every day if you want to.

00:42:58:12 - 00:43:12:19
Speaker 1
And there's the days where, you know, I'm. So they're on the phone all day, which I don't love, but that's also part of it. So, yeah, just, doing different things, getting in different rooms, every day looks different. Is, is something that's a lot of fun for me.

00:43:12:19 - 00:43:33:18
Speaker 1
Talk to me about. You both kind of mentioned a little bit about the the owners themselves, the people you all ran from, dig what you said about their. It is like literally their, their blood, sweat and tears going into this thing. They have this like highly personal attachment to is probably why they just don't want to let it go to anybody.

00:43:33:19 - 00:43:44:12
Speaker 1
Tell me just to kind of balik how y'all been able to kind of earn the trust with those folks, like, how have you been able to get in there and really get them to understand, like, I am going to take care of this thing for you. Don't worry. You can be proud of it.

00:43:44:12 - 00:44:08:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, for me, it's it's doubling down, right? Their names are still on the building, you know? So, but I think during due diligence, it's it's like, it's a little bit of old school, but it's just being honest with them, right? Like in our philosophy, you know, it's probably different than a lot of others, which is like, we're not going to do anything drastic here, right?

00:44:08:10 - 00:44:27:15
Speaker 3
You know, we heard their concerns during during due diligence. They, they voiced like, hey, recruiting has been a big challenge for us, right? We have a really good business. We have great clients. So like getting the next generation of great accountants has been very tough for us. And you would that's a great thing for us to hear because that's what we could do really well, really.

00:44:27:15 - 00:44:54:21
Speaker 3
I can go to a, you know, a university that's an hour away and give a Ted talk, which I've done twice, right? Like I can do those things, and I'm probably a little bit more approachable than the people that are. So. So I think there's an element of just being honest. And it goes both ways. Right. Then being also with us about potentially what's not so easy or what's not gone so good, and us being very honest with them about, you know, our intentions with their business after the close and, you know, with any sort of business deal, it's there's an element of trust.

00:44:54:21 - 00:45:12:06
Speaker 3
Sure. Yeah. Purchase agreement a bunch of legal documentation that says this, that and the other. And I can't read them anyway. Right. But like if we lied going into it day five, whenever the lie came out, it was going to be a big deal, right? It wasn't going to go well. And the same thing can be said for them.

00:45:12:09 - 00:45:24:05
Speaker 3
They were super honest with me about the things that worked well and didn't work well. So long way of saying I think it's a trust thing. And that's built sort of during due diligence and then lived out, you know, once the dotted line of sight, you.

00:45:24:05 - 00:45:47:20
Speaker 1
Know, and then on the, like, the potential seller side, you know, I've had a lot of seller calls, seller meetings, and I've gotten very comfortable with the fact that ten out of ten times I'm the dumbest guy in that room or on my call, and I don't try to act like I'm not. Like I tell those folks straight up, hey, I do not have the industry expertise that you have.

00:45:47:22 - 00:45:55:10
Speaker 1
Like I don't, and I think that level of of humility and honesty goes a long way to. Hey, we're just.

00:45:55:10 - 00:46:13:15
Speaker 1
Dudes, right? We can say where this group, we have this much money, we've done this amount of acquisitions. But at the end of the day, we're just dudes that are trying to buy very quality businesses from really quality people. And I think that goes a long way, for at least the people that we want to buy it from.

00:46:13:16 - 00:46:20:09
Speaker 1
You know, there's some people that don't see that as a positive, and those are the people that we don't really want to do business with.

00:46:20:09 - 00:46:37:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, you kind of need that puzzle piece. Needs to go ahead and. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And I think there is a, a power in knowing that, that there's stuff so nuanced not only by industry but like literally by the human who ran the thing. It's just so different. I mean, we see we see these guys.

00:46:37:08 - 00:46:56:17
Speaker 1
It like you have we'll see these operators and one of them going to two and a half years trying to find the right thing. And you get this other guy who just like started thinking about doing this three weeks ago and he's already got a deal online. And they ask him, what was your pro tip? Because I don't know, we both like bird hunting and it's just kind of worked out and it's like, wait a minute, that was your hack?

00:46:56:18 - 00:47:09:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, I didn't know it was a hack. I just recognize like and but to some owners, they wouldn't care if you share the same hobby. So you just kind of like don't really know what those things are. And you find that just the ad bats kind of get you. Yeah. There's reps in there.

00:47:09:07 - 00:47:13:05
Speaker 3
And you can only be yourself, right. Like I think that's the thing that we've tried to lean into is.

00:47:13:07 - 00:47:14:03
Speaker 1
That we can just.

00:47:14:04 - 00:47:22:11
Speaker 3
We can just be ourselves, be honest, be open. If it doesn't work out, that's okay. Right? Like that's just that's something that we're just going to be okay with ultimately.

00:47:22:12 - 00:47:23:01
Speaker 2
So

00:47:23:01 - 00:47:33:07
Speaker 1
Paint the picture for me. Like what's yours? What's the daydream look like? Like, you know, And I know, as for ten, 15 years from now, like, what's all this look like? What's it all for?

00:47:33:07 - 00:47:54:06
Speaker 3
I think there's we have to two entities to venture. So I think the daydream is different for both. So I can start with sort of the accounting firm. You know, I think I alluded to it earlier, but like, I spend a lot of my time recruiting new people. And, you know, I manage the business from a thousand miles away, and I try to go, at least, you know, 1 or 2 weeks a month.

00:47:54:08 - 00:48:10:04
Speaker 3
But I like to continue to lean into hiring really, really quality people and making it a great place to work. You know, I think one of the hypothesis, if you will, going into the acquisition that has been wrong so far is like the ability for remote employees to do as good of a job as people are on the ground.

00:48:10:06 - 00:48:30:18
Speaker 3
And so, like, you know, the focus going into it was a very broad recruiting that now it's it's much more, you know, regional. And so, you know, I think the, the five, ten year dream is to continue to recruit really, really talented people. And, you know, it is it's an hours business. Right. And so if we can continue to hire really good people, we can continue to find clients.

00:48:30:20 - 00:48:47:08
Speaker 3
And I think, you know, ultimately, like within any sort of accounting firm, you can start to talk like geographic expansion or go like an industry expert if you are like, find a niche. But I think my dream is one year from now to have at least 1 or 2 more really talented people. And, you know, the year after that, it will be the same thing.

00:48:47:09 - 00:48:54:21
Speaker 3
And I think if I'm doing that year over year, it'll be good outcomes for sort of me. Yes. But also the business and our clients enjoy.

00:48:54:23 - 00:49:04:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, I'll kind of take it from the from the four pillars, perspective. And it's going to be very similar to Jason because it's centered around people.

00:49:04:11 - 00:49:30:01
Speaker 1
You know, we're we're getting ready to close on our first, acquisition as, as independent sponsors. And I am so excited and nervous, because we're, we're working with an unbelievably talented guy that's been in industry for ten, 12 years, was ready to do his own thing, you know, didn't didn't have the want to the means whatever to to go do it on his own.

00:49:30:02 - 00:49:54:03
Speaker 1
And we're helping him, you know, buy a company that does seven figures and bottom line earnings. That's life changing, you know, for for for him, for us, for for anybody who's part of that venture that's life changing. So in ten years, if we can look up and say, hey, we helped 20 or 30 people become entrepreneurs and have a life changing outcomes, that that's the dream for me.

00:49:54:03 - 00:50:11:06
Speaker 1
That's a I mean it. It's funny how like that. It's kind of like you reach a stage in your life for, like, the the the enabling others to be great. I imagine that also probably comes from natural sportsmanship and, you know, kind of out of that natural coach, you need to kind of get there.

00:50:11:06 - 00:50:12:06
Speaker 1
in a piece of the pie now.

00:50:12:06 - 00:50:17:13
Speaker 1
No, no, no. I just give it for,

00:50:18:00 - 00:50:34:03
Speaker 1
How about the how about the family dynamics? I get to imagine, man, like, this isn't, easy. I know. Got to imagine. I know it's not easy work. How do you get the family kind of on board with that? The grind that it takes to do what y'all are trying to do.

00:50:34:03 - 00:50:51:23
Speaker 1
you know, I think for for my wife personally, she's seen she's seen the grind that it takes to get to where I've made it in football for us. You know, we do it in college. She understood, you know, all the workouts that I had to do. She was never the one that's in, like, a practice squad over a four.

00:50:51:23 - 00:51:10:19
Speaker 1
Why aren't you a little bit before 15? Or why didn't you call me back? Whatever. Like she gets, she gets that innately. Like, if you want to excel in anything, like you have to put in the time. And she understand this, understands that that's no different in any venture. So like, the full support of her has been huge.

00:51:10:21 - 00:51:39:06
Speaker 1
You know, she's asked me, she asks me a lot of questions. But they're not questions that aren't encouraging questions. Right? It's the questions that are trying to help me help understand what I do. How can she help me better? But the encouragement that I've seen from her is, you know, there's there's no, like, end a like if we don't get X amount of revenue by, you know, the end of this year that we I got to go do something else like that's, that's never been a topic of discussion.

00:51:39:07 - 00:51:48:15
Speaker 1
She trusts that I'm going to make the best decisions for our family, for the long term. And, you know, that's that's what keeps me going.

00:51:48:17 - 00:51:49:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. There when you get.

00:51:49:23 - 00:52:12:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think largely. Yes. But, you know, I'm a little risk averse, like we talked about. My wife's, an attorney, so she's probably even more risk averse. She. You're looking urging you to an attorney. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But no, I think you know, a similar vein, but obviously different. You know, I first started at at school, it was a at, 3G capital owns Burger King, Popeyes, Tim Hortons, and that's where I worked.

00:52:12:19 - 00:52:28:21
Speaker 3
And it was other culture at that time. You know, it's been a number of years where it was it was a six hour week kind of kind of gig. Right. So I get in early and get home late. And, you know, I think my wife is just understands now that like, that's just what it takes to be successful at anything.

00:52:28:23 - 00:52:47:09
Speaker 3
And so, you know, similar to Jeff's point, she's not there's no strings attached. Right. She, she trusts that I'm doing everything I can to make our household, our family be in a better spot, ultimately. And I think she sees, frankly, like, the joy that I have. Right. And like, just like I have a four month old, like we talked about sort of before the show.

00:52:47:09 - 00:53:00:14
Speaker 3
But yeah, Jeff sort of sneaks into the house now and comes up to my office and we we have little sessions, but he has his sneak in because baby might be asleep. And I think that's, you know, I think from my wife's perspective she probably sees that. Right. Because I probably am different now than I was before we started,

00:53:00:14 - 00:53:01:04
Speaker 3
you know, doing this.

00:53:01:09 - 00:53:15:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. Part of my ten year dream, like you mentioned earlier, is we can look back and remember that. Remember when we first got going and I had to sneak up when it's actually when Jackson was, was just a little guy. That's right. You know, maybe one of these years we'll get digs like this. I'm the one year dream.

00:53:15:19 - 00:53:19:15
Speaker 3
The one year to you is going to better occur. And in that office story is what so much

00:53:19:15 - 00:53:34:03
Speaker 1
Headed for for what is rare. They had no idea how big or small it was. Me as well as I was this or no. And he's just an hour getting a call. Boo! Yeah, that's what it was. That's exactly that had to give me. No, I think there's so many folks. The reason I asked I do that and I think it's a good perspective.

00:53:34:03 - 00:53:54:16
Speaker 1
It, it man, so much of this journey can be you get buy the right business. You gotta do the diligence. You gotta meet the rules, all that stuff. But gosh, you see so many folks that get into it without kind of the right, household partnership, strength, foundation man, good thing can go bad or vice versa.

00:53:54:16 - 00:54:10:08
Speaker 1
I think this kind of mediocre can go really great if you get somebody really kind of encouraging and kind of bought in. Y'all have any, like, family Matters that you're just I mean, kind of like y'all's ROE is there things within y'all's family that you keep it so that like all right then husband they're getting after it. You know I can accept that.

00:54:10:08 - 00:54:19:01
Speaker 1
And that's you know they're doing their job their earning, their keeps, their speak. Are there things that you kind of draw hard line on to make sure that you're giving family the time that need?

00:54:19:15 - 00:54:41:10
Speaker 1
I mean, I have three kids, six, four and two. You know, they typically wake up around seven and try to do, you know, an hour or whatever before, they wake up and then whatever's going on show down from 7 to 745 and get them ready to go to school some day. Some days I'll take them to school and they'll, you know, get going with my day after that.

00:54:41:10 - 00:55:01:16
Speaker 1
But, you know, what's six, four and two year old? There's soccer, there's gymnastics. There's all these things. And, you know, I'm not going say go to all of them, but I go to most, most events, right? There's a lot of school functions like, that's part of the dream of, like, doing your own deal is like, you don't have to check in with the boss and say, you know, two weeks before or, hey, my daughter's graduation.

00:55:01:18 - 00:55:21:04
Speaker 1
Is it okay if I'm out for one hour? Like, you don't have to do that. And that's that's a big reason why a lot of people get into this game. But as far as, like, familial boundaries, like, I think our, our families understand it takes a little. It takes a lot of hours and some weeks that's more hours than others.

00:55:21:04 - 00:55:30:01
Speaker 1
And sometimes on vacation, like, got to answer a couple emails. But on the other side of that, like, like can't go to that graduation without having to check it.

00:55:30:03 - 00:55:39:11
Speaker 3
Yeah. And for and for what? It's it's it is a weird thing, right. Because, you know, before we started doing this and in my job when I went on vacation, I'll check my emails. Right. So it's.

00:55:39:13 - 00:55:40:05
Speaker 1
You know, it's not.

00:55:40:05 - 00:55:52:18
Speaker 3
Like the work demand for me is change the tone. I think the cool thing now is Jeff's kids practice soccer like a three minute walk from my house. So a 445 on Thursdays I get to go to my niece and nephew soccer.

00:55:52:18 - 00:55:54:01
Speaker 1
Practice and.

00:55:54:03 - 00:55:55:11
Speaker 3
That's fine because I.

00:55:55:11 - 00:56:11:06
Speaker 1
I know that if someone on my team calls me at six in the morning or seven at night, any day of the week, is any any of your answer? And so like goes back to sort of making your own schedule. And my big thing is like I'm always available and I just go back to the trust thing. I trust my team's not going to bug me at 7 p.m. on Saturday night.

00:56:11:06 - 00:56:12:07
Speaker 1
Let's. It's really important.

00:56:12:09 - 00:56:13:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah,

00:56:13:02 - 00:56:25:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know that, your family just kind of has to be bought into. This is just who you are. Yeah, and then they just kind of understand that, which can be tough for some folks if they like. That's our title. Odds are it.

00:56:25:01 - 00:56:42:15
Speaker 3
I have a home office, and my door is glass, and I did that on purpose so I could kind of see out into, like, kind of the living room, you know, to kind of have some visual interactions here or there when they're out there, in the office. But that sucker is like handprints. Drool on it.

00:56:42:16 - 00:56:50:13
Speaker 3
You know, there's countless times where I've been on calls and they're banging on that door and they're real blow and strawberries on the glass. I'm doing one of these trying to.

00:56:50:13 - 00:56:54:06
Speaker 1
So give a bad call on the glass door. Good caller.

00:56:54:06 - 00:56:57:17
Speaker 3
But, I don't I don't know where I was going with that, but

00:56:57:17 - 00:57:18:21
Speaker 1
Now you're going to like the math on that. Well, I. Yeah. You want to ask? I mean, I think so many, I don't know if it's our generation, or maybe it's just you get to a point where you stop giving a hoot. I actually love being on a call, and you can tell somebody is in their home office, and they kind of have to, like, take a break real quick because you got their little doing something.

00:57:18:23 - 00:57:23:12
Speaker 1
I can't be mad at that. I got just like, man, that humans get a life of his own.

00:57:23:12 - 00:57:24:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:57:24:04 - 00:57:40:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. You go figure this out. Yeah. All right, let them go. Take a break. Man, y'all been awesome. I got one thing left on my mind, and I think, I think y'all. I think it probably would be great to get y'all just kind of independent perspective on that. And then you start with Jeff.

00:57:40:03 - 00:57:50:15
Speaker 1
What's something that you think most folks from the outside looking in wouldn't appreciate kind of about the life of being a pro baller, you know, pro, athlete.

00:57:50:15 - 00:58:06:18
Speaker 1
You know, I just kind of say anything on Jason about being a, a day to day small business owner. I always think there's a lot of, I call it, like, insta truth out there, which is not true at all. And so what's something that like that life you think most people have no appreciation for? But this is how it really is.

00:58:07:01 - 00:58:38:20
Speaker 3
I think people don't have appreciation for the 90% of the league that isn't super high paid and a celebrity. Right? Most of every sports league are role players and not, you know, the people who have generational wealth, off of a couple contracts and they're the starter ex-wife position. So I think there's it's a lot more challenging on a day to day mentally than people think.

00:58:39:01 - 00:59:09:00
Speaker 3
Because when I was a little kid, you know, I would see, you know, NFL players getting in trouble for like DUI or doing whatever. And I'm like, man, they're in the NFL. They're so rich, right? Like, why would they ever do anything outside of just play sports. Like there's a lot going on up top. For not, you know, not for every player, but specifically for the guys that, that are the high paid guys.

00:59:09:02 - 00:59:30:18
Speaker 3
It's hard to stay in the league. You're always worried about getting caught. You know what's next? So there's a balance of, like, I got to be in this with 100% of my, you know, my body, soul to be able to do well, but also, like, it's going to end. And just not knowing when that's going to happen is, is a constant battle that I don't think anybody really, really saw.

00:59:30:19 - 00:59:41:01
Speaker 3
So, just the the mental challenges behind being in and staying in the league or, or difficult and really even hard for me to like verbalize.

00:59:41:01 - 00:59:55:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's kind of about it. It's very you kind of have to probably like, be in that world to really appreciate it. I imagine the doing this, doing this with your brothers probably helpful very to kind of have this like, okay, out of the out of my periphery here. Yeah. I also see one another like.

00:59:55:01 - 01:00:09:09
Speaker 3
a lot of people also think that, you know, if you're a pro athlete, you have no other interests or likes. Right? But I think that it's like all consuming. And in a lot of ways it is. But, you know, you can go to, any roster in the NFL, 53 guys, there's going to be a bunch of different interests.

01:00:09:09 - 01:00:29:10
Speaker 3
Some guys are in the poetry, some guys are into art, some guys are into, you know, real estate investing, whatever. So they're we're just normal people who happen to be really talented and had some really fortunate breaks, to be able to make it, make it at that level. But we're all we're all just dudes that that have our likes and dislikes.

01:00:29:10 - 01:00:44:11
Speaker 1
And it is great. Me and you guys like the. What would you say for folks looking to get into this life? You know, there seems like a lot of pros. What's the thing that you wouldn't think you didn't even appreciate until you got into the seat?

01:00:44:11 - 01:01:04:17
Speaker 1
Yeah I think it for me it's going to be like just go back to people. I think like, you know, I'm sure everyone's due diligence stuff's all different. But, like, we didn't really get a ton of exposure to the team, right outside of the sellers until you've committed. Right. For me. For me, I've committed at least ten years of my life.

01:01:04:17 - 01:01:22:14
Speaker 1
And in a bunch of dollars and all the fun stuff and, Yeah, I think that's the one thing that you have to, like, embrace. You're not really going to know until it happens, but like to really lean into enjoying the time you spend with with people that you may have otherwise never engaged with. Right. Like that has been so cool for me.

01:01:22:14 - 01:01:39:21
Speaker 1
I have what I would call now friends, but people that I work with, that again, I would have never met in all likelihood. And I think that's not something like you talked about the instant, you know, whatever. Like you're not going to see that on Instagram. Right? And, I think that's just been such a rewarding thing that it's hard to quantify in a lot of ways.

01:01:39:23 - 01:01:40:06
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:01:40:13 - 01:01:45:20
Speaker 1
Exposure to a whole group of folks that yeah, otherwise would have been non-existent.

01:01:45:20 - 01:02:05:12
Speaker 1
Yes. I appreciate all you do. Thanks for the combo today. I think that, I think if anything, at least what I took away from it all was just kind of like the groundedness that is. And like, you can still be high performing folks and still kind of be rooted in that humility and that is a that's a really tough, it's called balance to strike.

01:02:05:12 - 01:02:26:12
Speaker 1
I think that is the thing that I see over and over again. You get really sharp, talented, high speed folks, and I have a hard time in this world of small businesses kind of humbling themselves to kind of really like doing the work that they need. So we appreciate you all flying in all the way here from Florida there and giving us, we feel we feel good when we get folks like you here in office.

01:02:26:12 - 01:02:37:07
Speaker 1
And also for folks watching this thing, they probably are looking for the first time, this whole new build up looking different. And I probably, my team was like, we're not gonna just have one. We're gonna have to the first.

01:02:37:07 - 01:02:38:08
Speaker 2
two. You got three already.

01:02:38:13 - 01:02:39:18
Speaker 1
Hey, really? Test it out. Yeah.

01:02:39:19 - 01:02:40:18
Speaker 2
Great. Feel fit. Great.

01:02:40:18 - 01:02:45:13
Speaker 1
Exit at a time. We get folks to come in like we're going to have two people. I'm like, we had two football players.

01:02:45:14 - 01:02:48:18
Speaker 2
Right, man. So I think so. Thank you, James, for coming on.

01:02:48:18 - 01:02:50:23
Speaker 3
I said yes or else having us. This is great.

01:02:51:20 - 01:03:18:02
Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in to the American Operator Podcast, where we celebrate the backbone of America small business owners and operators like you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss out on more of these stories and insights from people who keep our community strong. Until next time, keep building, keep operating and keep America moving forward.