My podcast interview with Trish Higgins, Chenmark Capital

This is the first episode of a podcast I'm starting called Think Like An Owner where I seek out conversations with owners and investors of private businesses, with a special focus on micro private equity, search funds, and permanent capital. If you enjoy the episode and would like to contribute to the project through an interview (or know someone who might), please let me know as I'm always looking for new guests. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks of the first episode and I hope you'll share your feedback and a review once it gets to iTunes (awaiting verification). In the meantime, I want Searchfunder members to be the first to enjoy the interview!

I'm a student at the University of Portland and this is my project for our entrepreneurship program and beyond. I genuinely want to learn about this space and sharing those conversations and lessons through a podcast made perfect sense. 

Download link: http://traffic.libsyn.com/thinklikeowners/Trish_Higgins_HQ.mp3

For the first conversation of the podcast, I'm meeting with Trish Higgins who, along with her husband James Higgins and brother-in-law Palmer Higgins, run Chenmark Capital in Portland, Maine. Chenmark Capital acquires and operates small companies for the long term using their own capital, with no intention of selling - a perfect example of permanent equity. What makes Chenmark unique is they look for slow growing, steady, and boring businesses and seek to operate them as efficiently as possible. 

Trish is the perfect first guest for Think Like An Owner because she has experience being both the investor in the business and serving an operator role in their portfolio companies. Our conversation ranges from discussions around capital allocation within portfolio companies, to the "Chenmark carwash", and why the small business acquisition market at the moment feels a lot like Zillow. 

We held our conversation in a quieter area of a shopping mall in Boston so there is occasional background noise. I assure you however, that this past audio performance is not indicative of future audio performance. In fact, I hope it makes the conversation sound more authentic and relatable. Please enjoy my conversation with Trish Higgins.