Thomas Ince @thomasince Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Thomas Ince

@thomasince

12,946

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1,614

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Compounding w/ @lpfirstcapital • Follow me to learn how to buy a business, & to be a better Entrepreneur/Operator/Investor. Former Entrepreneur turned Investor

Austin TX

https://t.co/raxolAXqG5

Joined June 2011

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Buying a business is the easy part (37 closed, 2 this year, through 7 platforms). Integrating and growing a business is much tougher. Knowing what KPIs to track, how to track it, and when to track it is tough. We use the Crawl, Walk, Run Framework 10 Takeaways from it 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

A couple of people have asked me recently how we buy so many businesses. We closed 20 last year and plan on closing on 9 this quarter and 40 this year. Here are 🔟 thoughts on how we pull this off, which has principles that you can apply to buying your first business 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Whether you are buying a business or growing a business, you need to know what to focus on. A tool I use is called "Price's Law" & it helps me know what to focus on. It has helped me go on to buy many businesses & scale a company I founded. Here are 12 examples on it 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

For those that live anywhere JSX flys, it’s an absolute delight. $300 round trip No security Arrive 15 min before flight Makes it super easy to get to dallas from austin Just used it to get to dallas for that SMB meetup … Give JSX some business and help them grow💪

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Do you want to know one of the best feelings in business? Its when you hire someone & they come out of the gate like a rockstar (A Player) Just hired someone 2 weeks ago as a "Business Development Associate" Here are 3️⃣ way you can tell if you hired a A player 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Advice We just lost a 4.3M EBITDA exterior home services type of platform yesterday b/c I was not flexible with NWC. Seller did not understand it or trust it, and we held our ground. Seller went with an offer that had a more simple structure...keep the cash / AR / pay

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

We are living in a golden age of being able to create wealth for those that are in the SMB space This chart highlights the opportunity well 4 thoughts on why this is the golden age for certain buyers/builders over the next decade & how you can make an 8 figure net worth 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

5 months

If you are buying or starting a business, try to do it in the teal areas.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

3 months

Cold Outreach to Buy Business Stats👇: We have purchased over 50 businesses (w/investors), so we are always looking for new ways to get more leads and close more businesses for our roll-ups. Last year we experimented with a business development role, where they only

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

Small Sign of EQ 🧠 I always think it's a positive when someone suggests a time for a meeting & they throw out the time in your time zone. Does not count if there is a ton of people on the invite. For example, they are East Coast and they throw out a Central time. Small

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Value Creation = EBITDA growth + Debt Paydown + Multiple Expansion (arbitrage) EBITDA growth = Revenue Growth X Margin Expansion Debt Paydown = FCF Levers used to paydown Multiple Expansion = Buy Right + Scale + Shake your tail feathers Will explain in a future post

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

One of the top questions of 2023 for me is... What will Brad Jacobs do next? He is one of the most prolific dealmakers out there...would classify him as the most successful independent sponsor. He has built 6 different billion+ dollar (revenue) businesses Has raised over

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

7 months

Spoke at the MW conference list on a panel about how to find and win deals in 2023 (won't see me in a suit too often). We have purchased 17 businesses this year (52 overall) through our roll-up platforms and here are some things I said, or would have said if we talked longer.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Wanted to share a killer infographic of Finance KPIs that @BoucherNicolas shared on Linkedin. Good stuff Its a good assortment of possible KPIs to track. h/t to Nicolas

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

1. First off, what is Price's Law? It states that 1/2 of the output of any domain is attributed to the square root of the participants. If you have heard of the Pareto Principle, this is a derivation of that. You can isolate the 50% of the 80%.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Is anyone interested in a 1M EBITDA dry cleaning business in central FL? 98 employees 14 locations It could be a good business for someone looking to buy their first business or rolling up dry cleaning. DM me and I"ll connect you, I'm not the advisor ...just trying to

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

9 months

Term Sheet Tips for Independent Sponsors Just gave this advice to an Independent Sponsor partnering with one Institutional Investor. These tips are for when you are at the investor term sheet phase and in regards to what to ask for in your term sheet: Closing Fee: 2-3%

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

For those wanting to know about non-recourse loans (NO PG) , this newsletter by SPP is a good monthly overview of what is market of what is market in the LMM This is useful for SMBTwit to understand as eventually you need to bring on some debt to grow with no PG Few ideas 👇🧵

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

The best thing about raising money is getting done raising money. Great feeling. Just got done raising a 8.7M initial round to buy a company all equity. Now on to the fun stuff. The real work begins after the wire is sent

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

Some say the Silver Tsunami is not real. I don't see how it is not real. Millennials own only 7% of all small businesses, less than previous generations when they were that age. ...tweet continued 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

6 months

We need to go nuclear. It's the only viable option. No need for batteries. It has the smallest amount of waste, and is the "greenest" option. Yes, more than Solar and Wind. It is also the most stable "Highest Capacity Factor" which means its producing max power 92.5% of

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

This is the cost of a QoE we are going to do on a 27M deal, has 10 locations. Some may ask, why is it so much? We have found that when the EV is over 20M, you need to use a big firm to do it, if you have 8 figure equity checks. Helps out with the money raise. This is from a

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

8 months

Level Shifts: Thoughts on scaling a SMB👇 When you are growing, oftentimes new people will join the team and there is not clarity around a role, clarity around company best practices/principles, and clarity around core values/vision. You see this more when a company goes

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Does anyone know someone in Residential Roofing? Owners...consultants...former owners....gms...executives? We are thinking that Roofing+Solar+Gutter+Window+ Door+Siding could be a good platform. Going to launch it this summer. We will lead with Roofing. We have a great

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

When you buy multiple companies and make decisions on the fly. It helps to be able to quickly model out in your head what the MOIC and IRR is for investments. Here is a printout that I have memorized a few so I can quickly model things in my head. 3 Takeaways 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Last thing is: I believe buying businesses under 1-5M of EBITDA and growing them to 10M-20M of EBITDA is the best investment strategy out there. There is risk in everything but this strategy is a fusion of entrepreneurship and finance. DM me if you are interested in helping

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Some businesses capture demand. Some businesses have to create demand. Part of due diligence is understanding if you are in the capturing demand business or in the creating demand business.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Anyone interested in a Plumbing business that is doing 1.7M in EBITDA (proforma and according to broker)? Its in FL and is residential It does have some construction exposure and we passed b/c of this. DM and I'll give you the details

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

8 months

8️⃣ Things I Mentioned at the Holdco Conference on stage and to some people I met. Had a great time at the Holdco Conference. Thanks for @WilsonCompanies & @kelceylehrich for the invite to come speak. You threw a great conference. Here is a quick recap for my notes👇 1.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Bud Light has had a rough couple of weeks. Much deserved, in my opinion. Many don't know who the main owner of Anheuser-Busch is, and that's Jorge Paulo Lemann co-founder of 3G Capital. He is one of the most interesting billionaires in the world. Here is his story 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

7 months

We are looking to bring on two roles: 1. Leadership Path Program 2. Private Equity Associate What is the leadership path program? We are looking for dynamic leaders who want to enter leadership roles in our portfolio companies. This role, could transition to a CEO one day,

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

One of the businesses we purchased was answering the phone less than 50% of the time, from the hours of 8-5 EST. We started to track it and now its at 85%. Goal is to get it 98%+ I'm very high level here and don't have the details, but the moral of the story is to track it

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Any recommendations for a pragmatic website developer. Looking to spend less than 3k. Ideally Wordpress It will be for a consulting firm website and a marketing company...helping out a friend.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

11 months

@thegoldennuber @AndrewPetcash I-35

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

The one common theme I've noticed with people I have talked with that are having trouble buying their first business is ..SPEED We have purchased 42 businesses, and one thing that helps out in some cases is what we call the "SPEED TO LEAD" process. Here is how it works I'm

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Curious about what a cold calling funnel looks like for a BD guy trying to buy a business in a buy-in build? Here are the results of the first 2 months of activity. 876calls +235emails (he does a good bit of research before outreach to personalize) ⬇️ 32 Owner meetings ⬇️ 16

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Wanted to give a big shout-out to the team at United Land Services, which is a portfolio company of @lpfirstcapital . United was just ranked the 3rd fastest-growing landscape company in the country for the 2nd straight year. Revenue went up from 88.7M to 153.1M, and is now

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

What activities Asking former owners for referrals Asking Gatekeepers (accountants / consultants ) for referrals Telling many people what we are going Cold calling Sending out letters Going to tradeshows Basically very hard work Nothing from BizBuySell works here

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Just had a great dinner getting to know @jd_foote . Such a nice and smart guy. He is starting to invest more in the USA and traveling to show the USA to his daughter. He is going to be buying some 🇺🇸businesses over the next few years, so he would be a good guy to get to..

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Here are 7 recent deals I found last night that could be a fit for the right business buyer. We will buy 40 businesses this year, so we can't buy them all 🧵👇 1. Here is a recurring water delivery service in West Texas with 3M in SDE.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

Missionary vs. Mercenary When hiring, I like to go with missionaries over Mercenaries. Missionaries: People who are passionate about the mission of the company. How they do it. Why they do it. The culture. The Why. The Game. Helping others win. Being the best.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

ChatGPT does a good job of giving you an overview of the activity in an industry. See how quick you can pull 30 comps on a platform idea we had on Retirement Planning...almost as good as pitchbook and better than google IMO

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

2. Need to be intentional about building a machine centered around M/A. That takes time to build, and it takes time for the flywheel to spin. Taking companies from 2M to 10M+ of EBTIDA is the best investment strategy I know to multiple capital and I set out to build that.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

9 months

Rereading 100 baggers. Great book The concept of building 100 baggers is very fascinating to me I think this chart is a good one to memorize as an investor. 14% will 100x in 35 years 16.6% will 100x in 30 years 20% will 100x in 25 years 26% will 100x in 20 years

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

If you're doing a buy-and-build strategy One of the first things you need to consolidate is accounting. Be ruthless in doing that fast. Move it away from the branches / op-cos ASAP Just a quick thought

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Jack Welch said this. I think these are three wise things to track if you only have 3 things to track. “If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow.” h/t the simple model blog

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Went over 5k followers this weekend & met many interesting people at the Dallas meetup Was a casual lurker since 2011, & started posting after Elon purchased My advice is if your on the sidelines, start to engage on SMBtwit, met many future partners/inspiration & net positive

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

The biggest opportunity is at the bottom of the pyramid.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

4 Simple Axioms to know after you purchased a business: 1. Give, Give, Get One of the biggest risks of buying a business is losing key team members. The first month or so after the purchase is the most critical. Everyone is hyper-aware...looking for some blues clues

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Went to @joshuamschultz 's Austin SMB meetup yesterday. Great event, and he makes a great french toast. Thanks for hosting Josh If you could not attend, here are 8️⃣Takeaways that you might want to know if you want to buy one or more businesses this year. 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

11 months

Worm Farm for sale 🪱 1.45M SDE for 1.79M This seems like a great opportunity (despite being in CA) for someone wanting to buy their first business. There are riches in niches I remember seeing this business on CNBC Happy 4th🇺🇸

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

I've noticed a correlation that is common with the best CEOs that we have worked with. I call it the "Strech Goal Mindset 📈🎯" Here is what it is, and why its something that can help you grow to your potential. 7 Takeaways below 🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

8 months

Great post👇 Read the journey from @MikeBotkin_ , must read. We decided to join forces yesterday and inked the deal 5 mins. before the wire cutoff. United Land Services is very lucky to get to partner with @MikeBotkin_ and @Adrian_Pinto2 . Now with them on board @ ULS, I

@MikeBotkin_

Mike Botkin

8 months

Almost 3 years ago to the day, while laying in bed, I opened the twitter app and tweeted out that I wanted to buy a landscaping business. I ended up doing it. 2 years ago to the date, we formed our holding company around buying landscaping companies and subsequently acquired 6

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Contrarian take: when your investing , the time you spend investing in the talent business is more important than what company you buy. Find and invest in the right people People > Capital

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

7 months

Driven people always want to keep on driving

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

7 months

If it's a 1% probability of success, just do it 100 times to get it done

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

The most important asset in buying a business is the people. The crown jewels are when you have a dynamic founder that wants to partner with you to build something bigger. Can't put a price on that.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

Beware of Hidden Labor Reverse EBITDA Add-Backs One thing to watch for if you are buying a business is Hidden Labor Reverse Add-backs. Here are a couple of examples. 5 Examples Continued🧵👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

4 months

Grit > Pedigree If someone has a history of winning, likely they will continue to win.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

1 . First off, its worth saying that I could not do this alone. We have a 7 person team. Our 7 portfolio companies do almost 300M in revenue, and there are over 1000 employees. There is no way I could integrate that or even our 7 person team. Those 1000+ are the secret

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

An interesting mental model is to imagine your playing sim city, capitalism 2 , or civilization but in the real world. For those that played computer games in the 90's early 2000s Makes you think bigger

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Dream Big It costs the same to dream big and to dream small

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

7 of the top 10 fastest-growing metro areas are in Florida. Out of the 41 businesses we have purchased. 20 have been in Florida. My thought is to buy where the opportunities are. Here are some other highlights from a recent WSJ article I read about migration 💭👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

@FluentInFinance I would ONLY live in these states:)

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

🤣👇

@neilsaidwhat

Neil 🇺🇸

1 year

EBITDA vs Adjusted EBITDA

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

10 months

Advice to any Independent Sponsors out there choosing a capital partner. The most important thing to evaluate when selecting capital partners is a combo of: A. How are you going to work with them as a partner. B. The certainty of closing and the speed they will work at it.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

3 months

System for Cold Calling Businesses to Buy👇 The other day, I posted about the results of having a full-time BD person cold call business owners. He has helped big time, as he sourced 3 of the 15+ businesses we purchased over the past year. Many people DM'ed me asking for

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

8 months

🐊 Hunting The closest you get to a live dinosaur. Best hunting experience I’ve been on 10 Foot 2 inches

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

10. Always shoot your shot: Do you know of any of these looking for an offer? Landscaping companies Residential HVAC Commercial HVAC Collision Centers Vocational Training companies (non title 4 BS) or Dental Offices Ammo Components (up stream) Franchisors

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

8. People over systems Put people in charge and make them accountable. There is a secret that we call all learn from the likes of Mark leonard or Warren Buffett. We can't know all the details and have to put people in charge Make business a game and let people play it.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Many people have asked me how to get around people asking for proof of funds. My advice: "Avoid difficult sellers/advisors." Few thoughts 👇 1st: that could just be a screening standard question. You can put something down like N/A, and most of the time that works. So,

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

This image (ad) is a perfect example of good management. Make business a game, keep the score, give the team a stake in the outcome. If you measure it, you can manage it "Druker or someone said this" Seeing dashboards on the wall turns me on:)

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

A quick thought/tip to searchers or independent sponsors out there. Don't put the max EBITDA as a smaller number. Like if you said the max you would buy is 1.5M of EBITDA. The reason is, be open to 2M+ EBITDA deals as often those are better IMO. Even if you don't have the

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Happy to announce that Ana de Oliveira Fama, will be joining us as an operational leader at a division of one of our portfolio companies We met Ana via our Leadership Path Program We are excited to work with you Ana, and see you grow! More info on our LPP below👇

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

If you get a sales email...let them know you will add them to your CRM, but then shoot your shot...let them know what your looking for, if your looking for a business to buy. Here is a recent reply. I use the app "text expander" to quickly add this response. Will

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

11 months

One of the best questions in DD is "When was the last time you raised prices"? When you find a business that has not raised prices over the years...especially over the past few years. I LOVE to hear "we have not raised prices in 5-10 years".....assuming that there is

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

There are no rules in the world All the rules were created by people like you, therefore, you can create the world you want Live your life to make your 90-year-old self proud of you today

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

6. Evaluating a business If I meet a business owner with 50 employees. One of the first questions I ask is tell me about your top 6 employees. I assume 7 produce 1/2 of the results (minus the owner) & I want to know what the top 6 do.

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

Met some very interesting people as they traveled to Austin this week. @chrisxmunn , @NickButton10 , @HockJohannes and his partner Bennett If your ever traveling to Austin and want to pop into @lpfirstcapital / share notes , would love to meet you SMBtwit is amazing🙏

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@thomasince

Thomas Ince

1 year

If your are stuck right now , there is something that you are doing that is holding you back. You might have to give something up You might have a limiting skill, belief, or drive We all have invisible weights around our legs, and the goal is to find the constraint

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