My interview today is with Cédric Sigoire. I love what Cédric's done. He wanted financial freedom, and he decided years ago that acquiring a business would be the way he got there — and he did it. In 2015, he bought a translation agency that was doing a million and a half euros annually. And not only that, he's gone on to acquire 11 more translation agencies. And this year, in 2021, he's closing in on 5 million euros in annual revenue, essentially all through acquisition. So that's more than tripling the company in six years through acquisition. This interview is packed with Cédric's tips and philosophy on business acquisition. You'll hear his story, of course, but there's one little perspective of his that I'll call out because I thought it was cool. He's French and he lives in Germany, and he took a loan from the German government to make his first acquisition. He was just a solo entrepreneur out there. Didn't have much savings, really didn't have much money. And so most of the money came from this loan from the German government. And it was a big sum for him. It was an intimidating prospect. But he realized that the fact that this loan program existed from the German government, it told him that acquiring a business wasn't overly risky or strange. It was something that the German government actually wanted to see entrepreneurs do. They don't want to see small businesses go out of business when the owner retires. They want a younger, dynamic, new generation of people to come in and inherit or acquire those businesses and keep them going and hopefully grow them. So that kind of shift — that recognition that the government supports this path of entrepreneurship, acquisition entrepreneurship — allowed him to get a little bit more comfortable with the prospect. And of course, here in the US we have a similar program, the very well-known SBA. And so his perspective shifted mine a little bit on the SBA. It can feel awfully lonely out there and daunting to acquire a business, but just remember that there's an entire governmental apparatus at your back that really wants you to do this, really wants you to take this path. So maybe that will help alleviate some of the more intimidating moments. Anyway, that and much more from Cédric Sigoire.

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