Fifteen million dollars in EBITDA. It's a number few self-funded searchers ever reach. Today's guests Robert Graham and Aaron Blick have gotten there in 4 years, and this interview will show you how. I want to call out a few topics to listen for. These are all key elements to Robert & Aaron's success with Pillar Health Group. First, buying businesses with operators. You don't get to EBITDA of $15m working in your business. You've got to focus on higher-leverage work. So you need an operator in each acquisition as soon as possible, preferably from day 1. Key point though: this is not buy a business, hire an operator, the business runs itself, and you get mailbox money. No, you are extremely involved, but just at a higher level. You've delegated the daily blocking & tackling to your operator. Second, choosing your industry. Robert actually recommends against identifying an industry to pursue a roll-up in. But, when considering a business to buy, one of your criteria should be: does the industry have roll-up potential? It's important for the potential to be there, but that shouldn't be your leading criterion. An important distinction there. Third, the structure. For me this was the most eye-opening bit of the interview. So typically a roll-up does not use SBA loans, at least not beyond the first acquisition or so. Instead the capital the roll-up uses to buy businesses is a combination of a lot of equity and conventional debt (non-SBA debt). But Robert & Aaron are blending a self-funded search with a roll-up model by coming up with a way to use SBA debt for their acquisitions. End result: they've raised relatively little equity and used much more (and cheaper) leverage. To build the entire Pillar Health empire, they've only raised about $3m. Whereas a conventional roll-up might raise $30m in equity to get to the same place. There are nuances to this, and many more personal guarantees involved than you would see in a conventional roll-up. But still. Very powerful. That and much much more in today's interview with Robert Graham and Aaron Blick of Pillar Health Group. Enjoy.

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