Today’s guest didn’t set out to buy a business. She set out to run a factory. Leyla Sudbury had been drawn to factories since she was a kid in Manchester, England. An indelible moment of her childhood was when her dad held up a teddy-bear-shaped ham in the supermarket and told her he’d been inside the factory that made it. Flash forward to adulthood. After a decade at BCG, Leyla quit in 2025 to take her big swing and attempt to lead a factory of her own. Her search was 50 cups of coffee with anyone who might know someone selling a factory, and the factory tours that resulted. She landed on BSU Electronics in Austin, which builds complex printed circuit boards and generated $2-3m of EBITDA. Manufacturing is rare in search, so we discuss how Lelya recruited investors. She also shares how searchers drawn to manufacturing should think about it. Listen for the "diligence fund". With diligence costs mounting and her own savings on the hook, Leyla raised $200k from investors weeks before close, in exchange for first right to invest in the deal. I hadn’t heard of this structure; we unpack why it cooled things down for her and aligned her investors with the deal. Listen, too, for what mattered most to her in putting the deal together — it wasn’t how much equity she kept. It was the investors and advisors she surrounded herself with, because their help would determine whether this project succeeded. Here is Leyla Sudbury, CEO of BSU Electronics. 00:00 Introduction to Leyla Sudbury 04:42 Education and internship 07:40 Decision to leave BCG and pursue buying a factory to run 09:07 50 cups of coffee and factory visits 20:07 Narrowing focus to the PCBA industry 23:52 What BSU Electronics makes 29:27 Industry tailwinds driving demand 33:26 Assembling investors and partners 44:36 The due diligence fund