The Most Unlikely Career Transition: From Opera Singer to Business Investor

Speaker 1 (00:00:03) - G'day fellow dealmakers. We got seven minutes on the clock. We're going to have a conversation with a guy who went from opera singer to mergers, acquisitions and, some really interesting things of how they invest in businesses. Kevin, welcome to the show. Thanks. Good to be here. Yeah, man. All right. So we got a quick time. Talk to us about your journey from opera singer to M&A. Yeah, I, so I thought I was going to be an opera singer when I was, you know, 13, 14 years old. I fell in love with it. Not the typical thing that, you know, a 13, 14 year old guy falls in love with. But I really enjoyed, like, the creative expression, in music. And that was kind of the that was the chosen instrument. So I ended up getting, I ended up going to college for music on a full ride, and then I got a full ride for my graduate degree. And so that's kind of the path that I thought I was on.

Speaker 1 (00:00:51) - I realized, though maybe a little bit later than some other people. hey, it's really hard to make a living at this. And, and money is kind of sporadic coming in. And when it does come in, guess what? It's not that much money. and you got to live in some really expensive parts of the country to do it and this and that. And so, eventually I realized that I needed to get a real job in order to, to afford the lifestyle that I wanted, which, you know, wasn't anything luxurious, but it was like, you know, having health insurance and, you know, being able to pay my rent. so I went and got a job in healthcare. I worked in, pharma sales for, for a little bit, and, for one, for a large, pharmaceutical company and kind of use that to pivot into doing technology. So what I did was I, I use that pharma, industry to pivot into selling software and consulting on software and taught myself all about, you know, SQL databases and Linux operating systems and all of that, and started doing, some consulting with, with different pharmacies.

Speaker 1 (00:01:54) - So we were basically an enterprise software solution for pharmacies. then I use that to pivot into, working for a health system because the pharmacy industry, if anybody knows, it's like it's very low margin. It's not a it's not an awesome industry, to be in, just look at what CVS and Walgreens are doing, right now. And you can kind of see the difficulties there. so I wanted to be in, in broader health care. So I went into a health system, eventually worked my way up to be, you know, in charge of the technology division for strategy and operations. So I was like, I was like one step below the CIO. who was who was, you know, running the division, but I was I was like the number two, helping him run the division. and then Covid hit. So, Covid hit. And, if you're following along at home, I was in public health. I was at a, I was in a county hospital, public health and in Covid, which means technology was at a premium.

Speaker 1 (00:02:51) - So, that was a really interesting time. And I, got very burned out. I also got sick. So I got Covid. Really impacted my heart. I was supposed to have a heart transplant. was able to recover from all of that, like, you know, really long story short, you know, was able to get on some oral medications and, you know, in and out of the hospital all year. But the reason I bring it up is because that's how I kind of got to mergers and acquisitions is like I had been obsessed with buying a company since 2018, when I read the Harvard Business Review Guide to Buying Small Businesses, and I read about this guy who bought a porta potty business, I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever heard. You know, I grew up in a in a neighborhood with, with small business owners, but I didn't realize those businesses could be traded, bought and sold. I thought you either, you know, you either started the business or you inherited the business from your dad.

Speaker 1 (00:03:43) - Yeah. You know, I didn't realize you could buy one. And so once I figured out that, hey, hey, you know, you can buy one of these things, like, that's what I want to do. I don't want to be a, you know, a tech entrepreneur. I don't want to do, you know, I don't want to do any of that. I want to go ahead and buy a company with immediate product, market fit, immediate cash flow with leverage so that I could grow it over time and sort of build equity by paying off the debt. So I got a deal under contract in 2018. Thought it was awesome. I had a certain amount of equity that I was putting in, went to underwriting, came back, and they're like, I, we're going to need you to double your equity investment. And I said, can't do it. That's all the money I had. Didn't know I could raise capital, didn't know any of that stuff. and so then I let the deal die.

Speaker 1 (00:04:29) - After my health crisis in 22, I kicked off a new search because I was obsessed with making this happen and then bought a company within a year. So started in January 22nd, bought in January 23rd. and at that point, I knew that you could raise capital. And so I went out and did it. I raised $800,000 in five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the first time, raising capital $50,000 minimum investment. So you can kind of do the math real quick and realize that my cap table is very large, which was a grind. It was a significant grind to. Do, especially when you consider like there's so many firsts in buying your deal, your first business, your first time probably going through an SBA loan, your first time working with attorneys, your first time doing any real due diligence like there's so much that you have to go through and then to layer a capital raise on top of it is incredibly stressful. So one of the I was in the fortunate position to be oversubscribed in my raise.

Speaker 1 (00:05:24) - One of the part one of the investors came back to me and they said, hey, do you have any searchers who are looking for capital? We're looking to start a fund. And the kind of light bulb went off and I'm like, I want to talk to you guys about this fund thing because it would have solved so many of my problems in the res, just to be able to go to one person who can write a large enough check to take out the majority of my raise, and that's where Fruition Capital comes from. So we started first and capital almost immediately after, immediately after I closed my deal. And then we've raised $5 million in our first fund. we write checks into B2B businesses, into entrepreneurs who are buying these B2B businesses 6 to $800,000 check size businesses that are doing between 1 million and $2 million in EBITDA. Like I said, B2B, ten plus years in business, you know, consistent earnings, all of that kind of stuff. So, it's been a it's been a wild ride.

Speaker 1 (00:06:18) - We're kicking off our second fund in August and that'll be a $20 million fund. so we're we're going to make about 20 or 30 investments out of that fund. And, you know, if you want to learn more about this, this is something we'd love to talk to you about, either as an investor, you know, you want to put capital to work passively in these lower middle market businesses. or if you want to if you're an entrepreneur, if you want to be a sponsor and you found a deal, or you just want to talk about, you know, what? What finding and deal. Looks like you can find me at my last name. Bible Housing.com. I'm pretty easy to find. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. or you can go to my website, or you can visit us at fruition. Cap cap. Com.

Speaker 2 (00:07:00) - Cool, guys, I hope you are enjoying the seven minute, series. Let me stop this timer real quick. What I love doing is sharing someone's journey, especially pivoting from, you know, corporate into dealmaker.

Speaker 2 (00:07:11) - So I hope you are enjoying these series. And we want to give everybody a dealmaker, a place to do that. If you have a story that you'd like to share in seven minutes or less or a specific deal, head on over to the deal scout.com, fill out a quick form, maybe get you on the show next. Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. See everybody.