Private Equity's People-and-Growth Playbook with Carr Preston

0:09Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real-time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, Blue Ways founder and CEO. In this episode, we have an awesome conversation with Carr Preston, Managing Director with Acoya Capital. Enjoy.

0:33I am super excited to be here with Carr Preston. Carr, thank you for joining. No, happy to do it. We're looking forward to it, Sean. I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. I think we're going to have some great insights here, topics, all the good stuff that brings people back here time and time again. As we jump in, as we always do, Carr, I'd love to get a bit about the story of you. So can you tell us about yourself, kind of where you grew up, formative experiences, college, out of college, and then ultimately how you got into this industry we call private equity? Yeah, sure. No, happy to.

1:09And it's a great place to start and it's great to be here. So I grew up in San Francisco, California, a place that's always will be near and dear to my heart. Still an avid 49ers and Giants and Warrior sports fan. And then stayed there until after high school. and after high school, I went to college at Morehouse in Atlanta, HBCU, and really fortunate, little right place, right time, because in the previous years, they really did a lot of establishing and investing in the business program, got a lot of benefit from that, so I was a business major there. And I think if you look back at Morehouse, there's just been an impressive number of business, financial, and kind of private equity leaders kind of through the years.

1:53So it was a real formative experience and learned a lot in the classroom, learned a lot out of the classroom. It's still a very effective network. So you grew up in San Francisco. You ultimately went to school in Atlanta. And then where did you go from there? What was your first step out of college? Yeah. So right after college, I went to law school with George Washington in Washington, D.C., and then I kind of went straight to business school after that at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. Then I went to New York and started out working at Chase for a couple of years and then really ended up moving into private equity when I joined Allied Capital back down in Washington, D.C.

2:39So that's, A, a great set of experiences. So growing up in San Francisco, you've kind of triangulated here, right? You've got, or it's like a square, I guess, because right now you're in Chicago. That is correct. That is correct. But San Francisco will kind of always be home and really enjoyed the time in New York and DC. And now I've been in Chicago for a number of years and it's kind of really treated me well. As you think about those kinds of stops, so an iconic, highly heralded college, you went to business school. what made you think about going to law school? Yeah, so I went to law school first and always was interested in business, thought about business law.

3:18And then I was fortunate to kind of get into business school right after law school and went straight and then thought I would kind of start my career kind of after business school. It's kind of an interesting path. I remember when I was coming up and I grew up in Texas and then I went to undergrad in Washington, DC. And then I ended up in New York after that. But it was like the degree was always the JD MBA. And everyone's like, you should do that. Now, I couldn't get into any schools that would allow me either do the JD or the JD MBA. Yeah. Well, as I said, I wasn't smart enough to do a combined program.

3:53So I did it sequentially, but it kind of all worked out. So it was a good all around experience. It was such a powerful combo though. Like when you could couple, particularly in private equity as I grew up in my career, so much of it becomes contracts and negotiations and understanding kind of the papering of the deal. And so how helpful was that before we get too far into maybe your business side of things? How much did that ultimately help you kind of being able to pull it all together? Yeah, it really helps kind of having a kind of broader perspective and seeing multiple sides or multiple components of the transaction.

4:29The predominant part is still business analysis, the investing, the diligence. But as you kind of work with lawyers, you may understand what they're saying a little faster, ask some more kind of insightful questions and just get a good feel for their role. And just making sure that that side of the transaction is kind of understood and buttoned up. So it's really served me well. For those listening, I think it's a powerful combination. As I reflect back to my career, as you're an associate, you're learning the art of understanding how to value the business in the private equity way, not necessarily the DCF investment banker way.

5:05Then you're learning the elements of value as you get into maybe your later associate to VP, like what makes a good company really well. But then suddenly, you're starting to negotiate term sheets and talking to lenders, and then you get into purchase agreement. And that was probably one of the biggest jumps for me, was trying to figure that out. And they don't teach that to you in undergrad. No, and just being able to understand how the different legal documents kind of fit together and the focus from the banks or the mezzanine investors, the equity, the seller reps and warranties and all those different parts as well as legal due diligence.

5:46So, yeah, it does really give you a broader perspective and just make sure you're kind of focusing on the right things and frankly, that you have the right type of coverage and the right advisors. So after you've had these experiences, you start off in Chase, which is also another one of these incubators for really a lot of the private equity industry in terms of they had this really famous training program. So many of the people that I knew started off at, what was it, Chemical and then Chase. And there's this series of logos that all ultimately became Chase, which ultimately became JP Morgan.

6:21And so you're going to business school, and then you can kind of go one of two ways when you come back. How did you think about like, okay, I can go ultimately get into investing. I can go and do investment banking. What was your kind of decision process when you left your business school? Yeah. You know, after kind of networking and talking to people, really wanted to try to, you know, make the move into private equity. I was really fortunate that I ended up joining kind of Allied Capital in Washington, D.C., you know, a publicly traded kind of private equity firm. It just really started at the right time.

6:57This is kind of the early 90s, kind of left in the early 2000s. So it was there, you know, a little over 11 years. It was just a great place to learn the fundamentals of investing, company and business model analysis, and kind of what makes a successful company. You know, Due Diligence, the founder of Ally, kind of started out in the FBI. So, you know, Due Diligence was kind of born and deeply embedded in the DNA. So it was just a great overall experience. I worked with a lot of really smart, really talented people, and it was a great kind of overall experience. As I recall from those firms, and there's really two huge innovators that came out of the area.

7:36There was Allied and there was American Capital, if I'm right. And they essentially created this public company structure for doing private equity. You're at the kind of like the birthplace. A lot of the structures now, in some ways, started all back in Washington, D.C. I thought the other thing that was great about those firms having friends that went to both of those who said like you also had a variety of structures that you could use to invest with is that an accurate representation yeah no it really is I mean you had kind of you know mezzanine you had growth equity you had more kind of buyouts and just the number of deals and the velocity so you just kind of learned a lot saw a lot so it was just a really great environment to be in with that part of my career.

8:23I always thought it was such a great training ground. In a place like that, you get to learn the risk-adjusted perspectives of where you can play in a capital structure and how it differences in matters in terms of how you're making investment, how you're playing with the capital structure. Very few places anywhere could give you that kind of understanding, particularly earlier in your career. No, it's a great point, Sean, because one of the benefits there, there was just a number of different investment products where you could work your way up and down the balance sheet on the right side, just based on whether you had more of a debt viewpoint, equity, whether you want a blended, what risk you wanted to protect and find the right structure, really that kind of tied into the deal and really kind of what supported your investment thesis.

9:13It was great having that flexibility where you're not always a hammer kind of looking for a nail. There are a lot of variables, a lot of variations on different structures and different approaches. And you're talking and working with a lot of really smart people. So it's just a great all-around experience finding the right solution for the right deal. A similar type of mentality, different structure firm was a firm called Key Principal Partners where I started out. And similar, what we would do is we could kind of pick our security. We would do mezzanine debt with warrants. we would do preferred stock or we would do buyouts.

9:46And it really depended, we would look at the company and say, where do we think that best risk adjusted return exists? And very often what we would do with a founder owner is give them two term sheets. We're going to price the debt in preferred structure one way or the buyout the other, which way do you want to go? It was a tremendous learning opportunity. And then we would go all the way to doing like buyouts in China, which I think all of us wished we didn't do. Yeah, exactly. That's one of the reasons why I went gray very early. But that's right. Yeah, I've probably still learned a lot. That's a very different conversation.

10:18Yeah. Hey, as a quick interlude, this is Sean here. I wanted to address one quick question that we regularly get. We often get people who show up at our website, call our account executives and say, hey, I'm not private equity. Can I still use Blue Wave to get connected with resources? And the short answer is yes. Even though we're mostly and largely used by hundreds of private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio company leaders, every day we get calls from everyday top proactive business leaders at public companies, independent companies, family companies. So absolutely, you can use this as well.

10:54If you want to use the exact same resources that are trusted and being deployed and perfectly calibrated for your business needs, give us a call. Visit our website at bluewave.net. Thanks. Back to the episode.

11:10One of the questions I love to ask, Carr, is we would know you better if we knew this about you. So what might be one of these things that doesn't maybe make it to your LinkedIn or your bio that we would know you better if we knew? Yeah, I think one of the things that was a lot of fun was probably in a kind of relatively short period of time, you know, I went to 11 Prince concerts. so it was really the kind of soundtrack of my undergrad grad and actually even some high school years as well so that was a real fun period so about seven or eight years was just a real kind of fanatic and really enjoyed that so that's one of the things that he doesn't make it into linkedin or into the bio prince is is one of the all-time best for younger listeners they broke the mold with him.

12:00He was the musician for probably a decade straight. I mean, I don't know. I don't think anyone could outdo them. No. And just so prolific with the music, the energy, and the performance. So if you look at that high school, college, as I said, grad school, so there was always a backdrop and with a different kind of sets of friends at different points in your time. So it was just really just a lot of fun. It was a blast. now back in the day you used to have to listen to music on these things called cassette tapes for some of our listeners here and i'm pretty sure one of prince's early albums was like my very first cassette i was ever given by my parents and that thing was just like play it rewind it play it rewind it play it rewind yeah but that's a great point because one of the things is you hit it is just playing the albums putting the album on the turntable kind of with the needle and you remember the cassette tapes and then Walkman where you were kind of fully mobile, the forerunner to the iPod.

13:02So yeah, a lot of good memories. So that was a pretty special time. So what was one of your favorite songs of his and one of your favorite locations that you saw the concert? Favorite song was probably, you know, Purple Rain has to rank high up there, kind of one of the iconic songs. Red Beret was another great one we always kind of liked. And then had a chance to see kind of New York, Atlanta, saw him in Paris. So really just a great overall kind of experience. But yeah, I mean, as good as they get, he still makes it on all my favorite song lists. If you're not familiar with him, that's something you definitely need to fire up on Spotify, and then I think you'll get hooked.

13:46Well, everybody has those touch points with certain audiences. You know, hear a song, takes you back to a time, a place, people. And Prince has really kind of done that, as I said, for about, you know, 10 years. So it was just a great reference point. If my kids are any judgment, the 80s and 90s have been coming back in a big way. So it's... Everything comes full circle. So all you have to do is just kind of wait long enough. That's exactly right. So let's maybe turn the page here on our conversation and get into some of your business insights. And one of the things I always like to do, and I get the good fortune of being able to speak with people like you, Carr, who've had these types of careers, is to get a sense for how you look at the drivers and elements of value in a business.

14:32And so you're looking at tons of businesses every year. You've invested in tons of businesses over time. When you see a company and they're coming up to you and you're trying to say, is this going to be a good Akoya Capital partner for us to invest in and help create value and build a better business over time? What are some of the elements of value that you look at to say, is this a good company? Or probably as importantly, will this be a good company in the days ahead? Yeah, I think those are two kind of really good questions and slightly different. And it really all starts with the leadership team and the CEO of the company and really having a vision, a perspective, being able to develop a strategy, and then as importantly, being able to execute that strategy because that's where the rubber meets the road.

15:22And you really look at roles, who's doing what, making sure that there's accountability, but that kind of framework is in place. And then I think the second piece is really just looking for tangible, kind of verifiable business and economic model. How do they win? Where do they win? How do they differentiate themselves? What's sustainable? What's recurring? What's the value prop to the customer? And really being able to articulate that in a short kind of concise way of what gets you excited, what separates them, and just making sure you have that part of the thesis. And then the third area we pay particular attention to is really the sales function or business development?

16:09Because a lot of these businesses lower in the middle market, it really is about driving revenue. How do they go to market? What's the sales strategy? How do they kind of convince customers? How do they identify customers? How large is the market? How do they onboard customers? What's the follow-up? And is that really scalable or is it kind of more of a one-trick pony a lot of times, as I'm sure you were aware, is that you run into customer concentrations. You just really want to make sure that there's a scalable model you could build to drive the pipeline to ultimately drive, you know, the new business side of the equation.

16:48I like how you very succinctly summed up about 20 years of my private equity career in about two minutes there. Well, it takes a lot longer to learn and then you've got to relearn it. And it's all about, you know, they like to say the tuition you pay along the way about trying to identify things that go right and some of the lessons learned. All the scars, you know. That's part of our business. You learn it by doing it. But you did a great job of, you know, ultimately it's the people that matter. As much as everyone talks about AI, it's the people. And then do they have a product that people want to come to?

17:21Is that product differentiated? And does the company have a strong competitive position? And then ultimately what I thought you did a really nice job then was, does that create growth? that not only grows in time, but sustainably over time. Like I said, you kind of summed up what matters. And it took me probably 15 of those 20 years to figure that out. And then everything changed and I didn't know it again. No, you kind of learned. And then the other part is, you know, a lot of businesses at Acoya, they're family held owner operator businesses. And we also make sure there's a really strong partnership dynamic.

17:56Obviously, you have an economic component to the transaction, But you really want people that are looking for a kind of knowledgeable, credible buyer that help the business kind of get to the next level that is concerned about all the different stakeholders, customers, suppliers, community. And that kind of factors in. And then in our deals, they usually stay involved in some role. They have the conventional rollovers. That's really important for us as well, that there's the right leadership team in place, the right business model, valuation and structure. sure, but there's always that partnership dynamic.

18:31And we spend a lot of time there. We're big believers and still face-to-face, breaking bread, getting to know each other, and just making sure that we're the right partners for each other or we're not the right partners for each other. This is something that also gets to the complexity and challenge of being a good private equity investor is you need to understand what makes a good business, the elements of value that you share. You have to be able to assess people and teams, and not only individually, but how they work together. And then you have to be able to figure out how much that's valued and then figure out how much you think you can actually make by seeing the future and bending space and time.

19:08And all of that is super, super hard. Hey, Karma School listeners, this is Sean with a quick aside. Virtually every day I'm having conversations with private equity from professionals and business operators, and we're talking about the same exact thing. Where and how do we actually start with AI? The answer is you start with people who have already done it successfully for others. This is exactly what Blue Wave does. We have built a one-of-one, invitation-only network of trusted AI enablement providers that top private equity firms are using right now to create real value. Private equity-grade quality, pre-vetted by Blue Wave, ready to go at a moment's notice.

19:49And they're not just for PE. Whether you're a PE professional or an operating company CEO, go to bluewave.net. That's B-L-U-W-A-V-E. We'll get you to the right resources so you can start on your AI journey right now.

20:10One of the most complicated things that I always had is particularly coming up in my younger age, and I think today still is a challenge, is like when you're looking at a team, what are some of the things that you're looking for to say, oh, I think they got the stuff and they're going to be aligned with us. Not only are they good, but we're also going to be good together, as you pointed out. Yeah, I think it starts with here at Akoya, just realizing that it is a team sport. So really working with people kind of on your team that everybody's assessing, everybody's evaluating and everybody's a sounding board and able to get different perspectives, but it's really just looking at the effectiveness of the team, how they make decisions, removing any ambiguity, how they've kind of worked through challenges.

20:57Are they all speaking the same language? What's the tone? What's the tenor? We've been in situations where it's been things where we didn't get comfortable. It's clearly more of a command and control type of environment where people more took instructions and been in others where there There is more collaborative, kind of more consensus. And, you know, in our business as well, where we play a lot of times, it may be strong in a certain functional area. It could be technology or operationally. And then how do you shore up the other kind of sides of the business as well? But as you know, Sean, there's really no substitute for that evaluation other than kind of time through the initial management meetings and then spending more time during diligence.

21:41But that's really, you know, the heart of it. And the other nice thing about Acquia is kind of the origins of a firm really starts with human capital, the founder built and sold a successful executive search firm. So that evaluation, partnership, dynamic, strengthening, augmenting teams is kind of in our DNA. All the things you share there, I think we're so on par. And one of the things that I think you mentioned amongst many really good points that is lost on a lot of, I'd say, businesses as they're growing is, do you have a CEO who's kind of like a command and control person or is there a collaboration going?

22:18And that was something that I think I eventually figured out is like, if you're in a management meeting and the CEO is the only one talking, it creates so much risk to not only like key person risk, you know, hit by the bus risk, as they say. but it's also like scalability risk. It's just like, if it's just one person, there's only 25 hours in a day. There's only so far you can go, but very few people mention that. Yeah. Well, there's little tricks you kind of learn along the way. One that we always look at is we do a lot of management meetings and if the CEO was kind of leading the plant tour versus the VP of ops or the COO, because you're like someone else kind of being able to do that.

22:57and they have trust and confidence because you're bringing through a prospective investor. Are you making eye contact? Are you speaking to the employees and people that are working in the facility? And what's that dynamic or what's that kind of vibe like? So you can really get a lot. As you said, if you have a CEO that's really leading the management presentation, doing all the talking, dominating the dinner. If you go to dinner, it's just the CEO. And then he's also doing the plant tour versus incorporating other kind of members of the team. That tells you a lot right there. That's why it's good to have just a team approach because you're just able to sanity check things and bounce things off each other.

23:38Kind of our team, do we all see the same thing? Do we read it the same way? What do we need to address? Just kind of doing that feedback after the meetings. That's really so important. Once again, those are all little pearls of wisdom there. And I also love your plant tour comment. It's like when you walk around and do they know the employees by name and is there a relationship? And it's really almost like more looking at the employees and see how they're responding. Yeah, no, do they make eye contact and are they kind of engaged? Because one of the hardest things to do in this business is kind of a cultural kind of transformation.

24:11And that's got to be part of it because one of the things that we need to do and have to do is take that family-held business and start to professionalize it. but when and how you do that, who's at the helm, thinking through the implications just has to be very intentional and very thoughtful. I think that's, once again, right on point. I'd say we had one other test I'll add that I thought was nothing else unique. We would call it the golf club test. And so one of us would make it so that we would go to the dinner with the CEO of the company. And then we would ask to put our briefcase in the back trunk.

24:46and we were looking to see if there were golf clubs in the trunk. We wanted to see if they were ready for how quickly the world was going to change. Yeah, that's great. That's a good one. I don't know if I'd recommend that for anyone. Yeah. But maybe a little old school. I don't know if that's necessary. So I'd probably sunset that test, but 20 years ago was a good one. So one of the things that I'd also love to understand, so you've made your investment now. You have that alignment. You have the people, the product, the engine that can grow. there's a fit between you and the team that you're investing with.

25:21How then does Acoya work with that company? What kind of support do you offer them as you're kind of creating value together? Yeah, I think it really kind of goes back to our investment strategy. And we really have an operating centric approach. And it's really kind of thesis driven where we're not generalists. There are certain verticals that we really focus on, and we have a team of investment professionals, but we also have a team of operating partners that spent 30 or 40 years in their given industry. They have domain expertise. They have operating experience. They created value. So when we sit down with an owner-operator, there's usually a strong kind of affinity.

26:03They speak the same language, may have similar war stories, things they had to manage through, and really understanding that business, looking at what it is today and what it can become. And then as we get closer to close and you kind of get through the balance of the kind of confirmatory diligence, it's really spending time between the Acoya team, our operating partner, the CEO, and then the seller of the business that usually is a rollover and kind of creating what we call like a lot of people value creation plan. But one of the differentiators for us is really working with people that kind of grew up on the Akoya side in that industry and things that we're looking for.

26:46And then what levers are we really going to turn post-close to add value and create value, new products, new markets, moving into different geographies, margin expansion, you know, add on that, whatever it is, resources, capital, time, ownership, responsibility. and I think the owners really take a lot of comfort with the thought and the rigor that goes into that, that they have somebody that really kind of understands their industry, their company. And I was saying earlier, that's really done on a collaborative consensus basis and then bringing that to bear post-close. So once again, and then you kind of refine it right after close and as you kind of get into the business and work through that transition, But that's a really important part for us.

27:36And the resources and the skills and the experience we bring to bear is not being a generalist, not being one-size-fits-all, really looking at that particular business within that industry of where we need to focus. What I really appreciated in your approach, as you described it to me, is one, you're bringing specialized expertise that is tuned for the businesses that you're investing in. Like you said, it's not kind of one size fits all. Two, you're doing it before you've even closed. I think so often where things go wrong is we're going to have a strong perspective. We're going to form our hypothesis.

28:16We're going to close the deal. And then we're going to meet with the company one week later and say, here's your plan. And what you're sharing with us here is like, before even closing your meeting, you're saying maybe sharing your hypotheses, but then getting with your specialized operating executives who know those industries and the team and creating a greater whole. So there's not this whole kind of zigzag afterwards where you're trying to take time and calibrate things. It's particularly in this age in private equity, it's so much about not just certainty and value creation, it's about speed.

28:49And so you're able to get alignment before anything starts. If I were to personalize this in the older age of private equity, we would form our hypotheses. You'd kind of ask them. And then the week after we closed, we would go, so that plan, it was in the SIM. That was your plan, right? That the investment bankers told about it. And we all knew it wasn't their plan. You discover that pretty quickly. The easy way and the hard way. We'd almost make them squirm for a couple months just to watch them miss their numbers. And I was like, no. It was like, why do that? You're both kind of flipping your cards up and saying, we're going to be in this together.

29:25Let's position us to win right out of the gate. You're getting everyone running before they say start. And so I think it's a great way to do it. Creating that alignment and really kind of creating that common purpose. Now you've got the companies that you've invested in. you now have a portfolio of companies. What are some of the top value creation opportunities that you and your team members at Acquire are thematically thinking about with your portfolio companies that really other business leaders should also be thinking about? Yeah, you know, really kind of working across the board. But if I had to put a spotlight and highlight kind of one area, it's really looking to optimize, enhance, and improve sales and business development.

30:08And really, as I was saying earlier, how do you drive revenue? And there are just a lot of difficulties and challenges and tribal experience, the art of hiring salespeople, understanding the go-to-market, what's effective, things that work, things that don't, training, onboarding, compensation, retention. A lot goes into that, and it's very bespoke kind of by business. So that's one thing that we really try to say are there a series of best practices that we could take across the portfolio, but then there's a lot of differences based on product, based on market, how to utilize the CRM, just all those things that goes into driving kind of the top line.

30:56And it's a day-to-day effort to really focus on getting efficient, getting strong, effective salespeople. That's one thing that we do spend quite a bit of time on to understand pre-close and then how can we optimize and improve post-close. I think you're bringing on a very important point. People from outside the industry, maybe their perspective is probably derived from 1980s movies with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. And it's like, cut costs. And the two things I've heard most from you here today are work with great people and grow the company that's what the industry is about it's great to hear that's what sequoia is about because that's the name of the game that's how you drive value creations by people and turning those great teams into an engine that can drive growth and so as you look into these companies and you talk about like driving growth are there any kind of like common themes where you say like you know what particularly for maybe founder-owned businesses like here's one thing of, and there's many things you're going to do.

31:57Here's one thing that like a lot of companies could probably benefit from ultimately in terms of their own revenue operations. It's really having the follow-up and the focus on the kind of commercial activity, having good organization, a good structure, understanding what the stage gates are, how you're going to manage progress through the sales process, the conversion, the onboarding, You're just having a real common understanding there about who's going to do what. And it's really streamlined and it's really clear. And that's one area that I think you could really focus on and just make sure you have the right attention.

32:40At the end of the day, that's such a critical part of creating value. I think it's a very good point. Not only as I reflect back on so many of these kind of lower middle market businesses, the companies were, and I've used this line before, but they were kind of successful in spite of themselves. And I've shared this before. I thought that was a really clever name for things until people started calling me successful in spite of himself. That's a different story. Full circle. Different story. But it's like, there's something about putting structure to things and then driving accountability that is so important.

33:15And very often, these companies that are doing otherwise really quite well, they have a whole new gear if you just put some systems and process around things. And so I think that's a great piece of advice for anyone running their own business who hasn't maybe professionalized yet, just by organizing your funnel, your product or service moves through it. Looking at the data is probably something that unleashes a tremendous amount of value to these companies that have otherwise been really good over their time. Yeah, that's always easier said than done, but the critical thing is identifying, as I said, what made the company successful, but then, you know, how do you scale that?

33:55How do you grow that? How do you expand that and really getting the right priorities, then having what the KPIs are, how you're going to measure it, who's going to be responsible, removing ambiguity. And just once again, just having alignment around, you know, what is a strike? What are we looking for? And then having a, you know, a mentality of where, you know, that is going to be the primary focus of how we're going to measure and how we're going to set up our business development efforts. That's another, I think, spot on great point. It's just like you kind of mentioned also, it's like choose the things to focus on.

34:35One of the things, and I'll even profess, in now running a company is trying to focus on fewer things. It's so easy to just start chasing things. That's great because I think really across the board of really understanding what are the key priorities, making sure it's not too many, where are we going to get the bang for the buck, get the return, and then really making sure that's appropriately communicated through the leadership team to the organization, that there's buy-in, that there's feedback, that basically people have a chance to feel that they've heard, they have an opportunity to air any differences of perspective.

35:15As I said, that's always easier said than done, but we've seen that really kind of makes a difference where you're not trying to do 12 things, it's three or four, and no matter who you talk to, you get a different variation of what they are. People understand their role, what constraints are you working through, what bottlenecks yeah I just think that's table stakes at the lower end of the middle mark and a lot of that's driven by leadership. He said it so well it's easier said than done and it's really hard to do the fewer things but the focus that you're bringing to the companies you're partnering with my sense is and certainly my experience back in the day and certainly experience here whenever I find the ability to kind of narrow the aperture of the lens is it has a profound impact.

35:55The devil's always in the details. So Carr one of the things that I always love to do because if the world were up to me, I'd be in a lot of trouble. I'm like a Frankenstein of other people's good ideas. I just kind of grab them and like, you sew them onto me kind of a thing. And one of the things that top business builders do is try to read as much as we can and pass books amongst each other, et cetera. And so one of the things I'd be really interested in is, you know, are there any books, either personal or business that have made an impact on you? Yeah, I think three, you know, come to mind.

36:29The first is a book called The Warmth of Other Sons by Isabel Wilkerson. And it's really about the migration of African-Americans, you know, out of the South and the late 1800s, early 1900s to the East, to the Midwest, and then to the West Coast. And just kind of what that entailed, what the challenges were, impact, well-written, great historical perspective. And then a lot of personal stories and things, frankly, that, you know, I heard growing up kind of with my own family, starting out in Texas, ascending up in California. The second is a book called Undomaged Courage, which is really the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

37:09Once again, well detailed, well researched, kind of what they went through going from the Midwest to the West Coast. And then lastly, the snowball effect, which is really the biography on kind of Warren Buffett. So it really talked about his life experiences, how he grew up, how he became who he is, and then obviously how he kind of built his business in Berkshire Hathaway. And it's a good mix because you get the biography, which is so important, and then you kind of get the business side as well. So I think all three of those books, I think, are excellent reading. I've got three books probably showing up in one day to two days, depending on Amazon.

37:50And Carl and I were talking about this previously, but I have a comical bedside table because it's got like 20 books on it. And so I have no shortage of good books to read. But these three, I think, go to the top of the list. What are maybe a takeaway or two from some of these books that you think really impacted the way that you view the world? I would say from the Warren Buffett book, it's just you just really learn about the incredible kind of discipline and focus and work ethic and detail around the investments and kind of building a team. And it was great to see how we started, how we kind of built that.

38:27So that was really a good perspective is that there's just no substitute for the hard work and the effort that kind of goes in. And then from the work of other sons, just the perseverance of people looking for a better life, a different life, and what they really had to go through leaving the south going into the west or the midwest and what they had to overcome and really just talks about that in a lot of great detail and undone to courage kind of speaks for itself it's just the courage to take on an expedition like that and all the things that they had to work through that you may not have a good feel for unless you kind of have a chance really to read it and kind of understand it it was the great unknown i can see how they translated into the way that akoya does things.

39:18There's kind of a striving that you're always going to kind of continue to improve. But there's also something that I see in your firm and others in the industry is so much in life, to me at least, and thank goodness, right? It comes down to tenacity, grit, resilience, and work ethic. And those are things that almost anyone can control if they have the audacity to just continue to strive and dust your pants off and try harder and harder and harder. Certainly, if my own career were up to my intellect alone, I would have been in a lot of trouble. No, that's why we like to think there are three legs to the kind of a Koya stool.

39:59The first is kind of thesis-driven investing, have a really good feel for what we're looking for having the people aspect and the leadership and the rest of the team, and then having the part as well on the partnership dynamic kind of with the leaders. And that's one of the thing that comes out of the Warren Buffett book, just having that investment thesis, having the diligence and the rigor and pressure testing. Once again, talking to other industry experts, just making sure you get a wholesale, well-rounded perspective as you try to execute an investment strategy. So really, there's no substitute for that.

40:421 ,000%. So, Carr, I have learned all sorts of things that I wish I knew before, and I'm really pleased and proud to know them now. You've been really generous with your time here, and so I want to thank you immensely because I know you're extremely busy. And so thanks for taking the time to come here and share some wisdom that will certainly make myself better as well as others who listen to this show. No, thanks to you, Sean, and the team at Blueway. Really kind of appreciated, really enjoyed the discussion and really glad you reached out. And as I said, it was a really good discussion.

41:28That's all we have for today. Special thanks to CAR for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Car Preston and Akoya Capital, please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. We truly appreciate your support. If you like what you hear, please follow, five-star rate, review, and share. This is a free way to support the show, and it really helps us when you do this, so thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you want to be connected with the world's best in class, private equity-grade professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives, AI advisors and tools that are deployed and trusted by the very best business builders in the world, including many hundreds of top PE firms and thousands of portfolio companies, and you can do the same whether or not you're in the PE world, give us a call or visit our website at bluewave.net.

42:17That's B-L-U-W-A-V-E, and we'll support your success. Onward. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the individuals presenting and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any other persons or entities, including those referenced herein. No representations, warranties, financial, legal, tax, or other advice are made herein. Consult your advisors regarding any topics discussed during this episode.