E232: Nate Ginsburg's Insights on Managing E-Commerce, Logistics, and Building Global Teams

Ronald Skelton: Hello and welcome How2Exit Podcast. Today, I'm here with Nate Ginsburg and, this is a, a revisit. We've had you on the show once before, way back in episode 70. We're on two 220 something to almost 230 now. So, uh,great to meet, meet up with you again. You and I chatted a little bit last week and, we just decided this would be a cool thing to do. You had a couple companies before and it looks like you've added at least one more. Now you got your, a small hold co. So thank you for being here today. And, let's just kind of give people a brief overview of what your companies are and who you are, and then we'll jump into the fun stuff.

Nate Ginsburg: Sure. Well, yeah, thanks for having me back. The first interview was right after I acquired, I guess, company number two, which is, Centurica. It provides a due diligence and a quality of earnings services. So, working with, with buyers on their acquisitions. So, I think that was the, the focus.

You know, of kind of DDE Q of E for that first show. And, uh, fast forward, well, I guess we'll first rewind. When I acquired company number two, had company number one, which was, I started in, I guess end of 2017, beginning of 2018. And is a, uh, like a full service Amazon agency.

And so we work with individuals and brands helping them sell more on Amazon. Manage their supply chain. That company has really been slow and steady. At the time of the acquisition, I thought that, the new company was really gonna be the, the focus moving forward. And, you know, it's certainly been a big focus.

But yeah, the, I guess like this year kinda zooming out a little bit and, the first, I mean, half year, year of a, of a new acquisition is there's a lot of transitioning and it's kind of hectic and, you know, things have sort of, uh, calmed down or operationally have been smoothed out.

I mean, I have a much better grip on running that business. Now two years in, or, you know, one year in versus, right around the transition. And yeah, then, so some of my focus has shifted back towards that first company, which kind of in the background. I mean, I've had a great team running that one for a long time and still do.

But yeah, there's some exciting stuff going on there that I'm, getting kind of back more involved in. And then, yeah, the third company was launched with my co founder, vertically integrating with the Amazon agency. And that is, um, a freight forwarding business. So NTMK logistics and yeah, so that's, going on two years old.

I guess that's the, the newest. And a lot of, yeah, a lot of lessons in the first two years. Feel good about the second half of this year and the direction things are going. But yeah, as in everything, all the businesses, ups and downs, lots of learnings as well as challenges and, we can kind of chat more about this. But, you know, it's interesting having three different companies to kind of learn different lessons through and from, that you can then apply to the other businesses is one of the things that's kind of where, where my headspace has been lately.

Ronald Skelton: It's interesting. You've got three different businesses and, I think you said earlier, quite a few employees. And I'm sitting here thinking it takes two to three employees just to keep me on schedule where I'm supposed to be in the medians. I'm supposed to be, I have a personal assistant, a person that edits the videos and then a marketing manager that markets everything. We just brought her on this week. I couldn't imagine, and I've had bigger companies. I've worked for many companies where I had over a hundred employees. To have them in a diverse locations and stuff like that, how does that look? You've got, are all three businesses, I think you're in Austin, right? If I ever have another excuse to go back to Austin, I'll be there in a heartbeat.

I love Austin. But, uh, that said, are they all, or all of your physical or the physical parts of your business is located there? 

Nate Ginsburg: I'm the only part of the business that's, uh, in Austin. And, um, with all the companies, I mean, we have, uh, global teams. Big teams in, Philippines, in Pakistan, South America, Eastern Europe, got people in Western Europe. Uh, I guess, I mean, we work with some contractors that are around the U S but, but yeah, overwhelmingly have global talent supporting all the businesses.

Ronald Skelton: Interesting. When I thought logistics, I'm thinking you had physical trucks picking up physical products and moving physical items. So what is the logistics company doing?

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. So the logistics industry is massive. Stuff that I've learned a lot about since, since, co founding this business. But I think the logistics industry I read is like $7. 8 trillion globally.

Ronald Skelton: right? Yeah.

Nate Ginsburg: It's, it's huge. And kind of to, to your comment, it encompasses a lot of things.

So, there's, there is the, you know, the trucking side and people physically with trucks moving things from, A to B. It's shipping containers and container companies or, you know, shipping companies that are, that are moving the freight.

And then, you know, I guess like our business is more like brokering and coordinating. So all these things. And so, we are focused on a lot of moving containers from Asia to America and vice versa. And, you know, and in doing so, and we have clients and that, and, we'll move freight that will, you know, get on trucks and get on, rail, but we work with, you know, other, like, you know, there'll be other trucking companies that actually are, physically have the trucks, driving the goods.

But you know, we will be booking them for clients. And so, so yeah, that's kinda where we are.

Ronald Skelton: I used to go to a lot of the entrepreneurial things where you have meet, meetups and people would pitch just to get the inspiration of the ideas. And I met a guy who was doing a couple million dollars a year on Amazon. And he was pretty much selling everything from flashlights to, heavy duty charger cables and that type of stuff. And we were talking, I've just, I guess the reason I run a podcast now is I'm insanely curious. That's just my nature. So we probably talked for two hours. I went and took him to lunch just to learn the insides and out of his business. And one thing I didn't understand is for him to buy something overseas, he had to do one or two things.

He either had to find something, sounds like something you guys would be doing. You had to find a freight broker that would allow him to use a quarter of a shipping container, or he had to buy a complete shipping container of whatever he bought. Right. He had to, these things that don't ship typically empty. And he's like, I either order it by the shipping container for it. So if you think of things like, cell phone cases and, charger cables, that's a lot. Or he would just use, sometimes he say, I just got a freight brokers and say, Hey, I need a quarter of a container. Do you got anything that's not quite full? And that's how he got his stuff around. And I didn't even know there were, that world existed, right? That somebody's out there trying to mix and match the jigsaw, the tetris of like getting containers, logistically full then from one location to the other. Plus he was in Oklahoma. So not only did he have to get one full and over here, he had to get something that was going to be delivered similar to some port he would want to have it picked up from.

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. The logistics industry is incredibly interconnected. And that's something that's been, been, I've been learning, just kind of getting more experience and exposure with this company is,yeah, within the logistics industry, there's tons of, uh, collaboration between, different forwarders. And it's like, oh, well, like, I've got half a container, you've got half a container.

We can consolidate and we're all going to save money. Or it's like, I have, you know, this infrastructure of getting the goods from A to B and you have this infrastructure of getting them from B to C. So, we'll collaborate and we'll use you for that part that you're strong and you'll use us for the part that we're strong.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's such a, I mean, it's such a massive global industry. And there's so many pieces to the different, all these very complex puzzles of getting whatever from where it is to where it needs to be. And so, yeah, that's one thing that's been really interesting is just seeing how, how much like collaboration is, you know, happening behind the scenes with the different companies, to service whatever the end customer.

Ronald Skelton: I'm fascinated by the whole process that, that, you know, multi-trillion dollar industry, millions of moving parts. Everything from, the last minute or last mile. The UPS drivers that actually pick it up at a warehouse somewhere and bring it to you. All the way up to, you know, that originally, originated in a shipping container from some warehouse in China or Japan or wherever it was made. And you don't really think about, when I think I ordered something off of Amazon, I just did it right before, right before the call. I burned up my cross shredder. I killed it. So I just jumped on and I got one that could eat 24 sheets at a time. So I won't kill it. And, it's it's supposed to be there tomorrow. And you think about the logistics that, I don't know where it's set when I click the button, but somebody ran and grabbed that thing and put it on a truck or a trailer. It, ended up in an airplane or whatever, and it's going to show up at our place, less than 24 hours, probably from when I click the button. That's not something I grew up with, something that's around now, but I'm a little older than you. I remember, you know, you order something in a magazine or you order something out and you could wait 25, 30 days for somebody to bring it by. 

Nate Ginsburg: A lot of improvements in global logistics and more coming.

Ronald Skelton: It's interesting. And so you do all three of your businesses then are not your traditional brick and mortar. You don't have a warehouse, a 10, 000 square foot warehouse where you're storing stuff and you're doing, storing shipping. You're doing the software side of it, the negotiation side of it, the selling side of it, that type of stuff.

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah, all of them. I'd say my career started in 2012, 13. And it was very inspired by just like, online business. It was kind of like, there's a kind of community that I joined of people that like read the four hour work week and, uh, became inspired and, we're traveling all around the world.

I, I moved to Asia. I was living in Vietnam and Thailand and all over. And, this whole community, the thread was really like location, independent, uh, business or just online business. And so, so yeah, that really was my, or is my background. And I'll say with, with Centurica and the quality of earnings, we're more exposed.

I mean, we work on these days, it's maybe close to 50, 50 of like online businesses versus, brick and mortar, SMB, type businesses. And, so I'm learning a lot and kind of getting exposed to more of the, you know, in person. And, obviously there's opportunities with both. Part of me feels a pull to, I mean, at least at some point, get into more SMB kind of physical location type stuff.

Also, I know that it's different. A lot of the skills that I've built that have served me well in my online business career, some are transferable, but, some aren't and specifically like I'm, I've really built a core competency around, around recruiting. And, uh, especially like global recruiting and being able to, find attract and, retain really amazing people from, from anywhere in the world.

And, uh, you know, while some of that experience is going to be relevant to recruiting in person, a lot of it isn't. And so, so yeah, and that's not to say that can't figure things out and whatnot and there's different benefits, but yeah, I guess like anything, there's different advantages and disadvantages.

Ronald Skelton: When the last time we spoke, you were doing primarily e commerce, right? You guys were mostly online. What's the lessons you've learned now that you're going and helping do due diligence on, non brick and mortar. I mean, sorry, you're at it, you added in brick and mortar. So what's the, was there any ahas or anything that said, Oh, wow, this is way different. 

Nate Ginsburg: I mean, the general scope has, changes a bit. I mean, I think like we've, I guess when I took over a big initiative was, really building out our core team. And so I don't remember exactly the state of the operations when we had our interview. But as a part of the acquisition, I had to rebuild slash build the ops team because one of the co owners was like the lead analyst. And, so yeah, I ended up, I mean, I found this amazing woman, Paula, very professional background, Deloitte accountant, HSBC, Cargill, very experienced and professional and qualified. And, the scope around the online businesses was primarily, and I guess for most projects still is around, really financial verification and so, rebuilding and verifying the, the PNL, the profit and loss statement.

So, you know, verifying revenues, expenses, adbacks, is the, the core of that deliverable. And, with these online businesses that don't have very much like assets, that's usually what is needed for, that's like as, as good as you would, would want. But then, you know, when it comes to some more of these, I don't know, kind of more traditional SMBs that have more, more assets, that's really where like a Q of E is going to be more relevant and important.

And so, yeah, with Paula, she was somebody who, you know, in her career before coming to Centurica, she was working on, 100 million, multi hundred million, different type, you know, projects and this. And so, her coming down to work on these, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 million dollar deals is, quite, a lot less complicated.

With her experience, we were able to add more traditional Q of E, which is what a lot of the searchers want and need. And, you know, that is going to be a lot more relevant for, businesses with more assets. So a Q of E covers also a balance sheet rebuild, and then kind of goes into different ratios and analysis involving both the balance sheet and the P& L. As well as, some, there's other kind of scope included in that. Q of E's I've learned is very, it's not like a one size fits all.

I mean, there is some standard deliverables in that, but it's, it's not like a, there isn't like a very clearly defined Q of E scope from. everyone. Anyway, but in Q of E, it does include more balance sheet, and kind of like, more like holistically looking at the company, which was something that we've, by bringing on Paula, she was able to help us expand our deliverables into the Q of E.

The Q of E is, the kind of the core piece that these searchers want and need for their SMB deals. And so, so yeah, that's kind of what enabled us to expand into that area. And then also just, you know, from my owner's seat, just by volume, there's so many more traditional acquisitions going on versus online.

And so, the addressable market for, you know, non online acquisitions is, is just so much larger. And so, that's been, and I mean that as well as there's been definitely like a decline in e comm acquisitions the last few years. And so, yeah, all of that's kind of combined with us focusing more on, yeah, I mean, we're still happy to do e comm deals and we're very good at e comm deals and we're happy and, you know, very capable of doing, really any type of business.

Ronald Skelton: Interesting. You know, the, two, three years ago when I got into this space, it wasn't as popular. I think there's been a lot of shift in the market to where being a trade, buying a trades related company, has become not only more popular, but it's kind of the end thing to do. I don't hang out on Tik Tok and stuff a lot, but, the wife was like, Hey, do you realize how much, cause like, we just started getting actively about putting these shorts on there. We tried it a long time ago and there wasn't that many people interested. So we just, we kind of backed off. And then my wife was saying, you realize how many people are like talking about what you're doing on there. 

But, that said, I started looking through there, put the app back on my phone and started messing with it and realizing that there is a push right now. There's a huge thing with the youth where people are really thinking it's kind of cool to be in the trades and to own a trades. And then they're adding product and they're adding swagger, swag to their trades, right.

So, uh, I think the landscape changes over time. It, when I was, you know, in my thirties and stuff, and, even like I'm old enough to tell you that when I came out of the military, the end thing was e commerce, right? Figure out e commerce. Amazon was starting to, I got to ride the, the Amazon wave and see that, see it grow. But in the last year and a half, two years, I think there's been a big push to, revitalize the trades and, make, bring them back.

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah, I mean, I think, like you said, well, a few things to kind of touch on there. One is, you know, kind of cycles and especially when it comes to, like biz ops and what people are teaching or, or, promoting different types of opportunities. I think those go in cycles and, e comm had a huge boom during COVID.

Yeah, kind of during COVID. And then there was definitely a, a pullback. And so, so yeah, I think like, people were looking for, other opportunities and other opportunities, you know, and the people that like promote opportunities, we're looking for different opportunities. And, you know, as well as then this kind of rise of the whole search funder model. And, people like Cody, people like Walker, Walker Deibel with Buy Then Build, one of the, one of the earlier books.

Just kind of popularizing the, acquisition entrepreneurship. And, then, then people saw opportunity teaching people how to do this. And then that's popped up more and more and more people talking about acquiring brick and mortar type stuff. And, there's definitely opportunity there and, we've worked with clients that have done some very successful brick and mortar acquisitions. 

And also, you know, like everything it's, it's not easy. They're still complicated. The most successful, people with any acquisitions, whether it's online or brick and mortar that I've spoken to, often they've, uh, they've had to get their hands dirty at some point and it wasn't just like they jumped into this opportunity and, oh, it just took off and everything was smooth.

It was like, oh, well they came in, it was a mess. They, had this huge learning curve that they weren't expecting. They were working, 80 hour weeks for the first quarter or six months. And then they did get ahold of it and then they were able to, hire out, bring on additional support.

They were able to eventually hire themselves out of the business. So it's not to say that there isn't opportunity. Of course there is, but as with a lot of things, whether it's e com or, brick and mortar, the most successful ones, I think often like did put in the work. And, yeah, it's like a little bit, there, there's more of a learning curve than maybe the people that are promoting these opportunities are sometimes that they make it sound a little bit easier than it might be in reality.

That's not to say that you can't have a ton of success with it. But yeah, also either online or brick and mortar is gonna gonna take some work.

Ronald Skelton: Yeah, that's been the case for as long as I've been alive and probably since the beginning of time is it's never as easy as they make it sound, right.

Just, I've been working on a book since I've started, you know, a real estate. So, and I've got it partially written and one of these days I'll knock the dust off of it and see if I want to finish it. But I have the book title reserved. I have the website reserved. I have the cover designed already and it's called Get Rich quick, My Ass. And it's just covering the, the different, it was mostly before real estate because a lot of people that were, you know, I was so frustrated with all the real estate gurus saying, Oh yeah, just buy real estate and you'll be wealthy. 

No, like there's a lot of work in the real estate industry. It's a very vast industry, but I don't know of any super, super easy ways, right? Unless you've already got money and you're lending it to somebody, and then you still gotta be able to get money out and get it back to you, right? You gotta be very selective of where it goes.

So I don't think any of it is easy. I would tell you that that would be the easiest route, but I just talked to a friend of mine who has some $100, 000 out, he don't know if he'll ever get back, right?

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. I mean, I love, I look forward to, uh, reading the book. And I think that that's a lot of advice that is it's really sorely needed. It's hard because everybody wants a magic bullet. Everybody wants the easy way. Everyone wants to get rich quick. Everyone wants passive income.

So, so that's what gets clicks and attention, but the reality is it rarely is as easy or smooth as the people promoting the opportunity kind of make it out to be. And again, that's not to say that there isn't opportunity in all these things. It's just probably going to be harder and longer than you might hope.

But also that's fine. Like, look, like I've, you know, been, I guess I'm maybe 11, 12 years into my career. And, at the beginning, I was like, Oh, I just want to make 10 K a month and then that's enough money. And, I don't know, it was 25 or 24. That's like, Oh, 10 K a month then, that's enough.

Then I'm good. And then look, then you hit that and then you realize that like probably one, that's probably not enough money. But then also it's, life goes on. Like it's not, nothing changes. And just because you, hit whatever marks today, this year, the future's not guaranteed. Things can happen. Things change.

And so, yeah. I mean, it's cliche, but there's, there is no, making it. It's the journey and continuing on the journey. And so, yeah, you get rich quick and then what? You're still you, you're still living. Nothing wrong with, getting rich the slow and steady way.

Ronald Skelton: Yeah, right. So you, you mentioned hard versus easy and you've created businesses and you've bought them. So you've been the, boots on the ground founder. You're you and another, you and your team's idea implementation to, you know, to revenue. And then you bought something that's up and running. 

What would you say, and I know it's a statistics show. But from the entrepreneurial perspective, which is your preference? What do you think would be, I wouldn't say, I don't think either one of them is easy. I wouldn't degrade either process for saying which one's the easiest. But which one do you favor now that you've started to and bought one?

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting. And I, yeah, I think about this because, so for example, I'm in preliminary talks about acquiring a competitor agency that a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, runs and it's, it's related services to my Amazon business. 

So with that business, it's not a U S, it's not a U S based, so I wouldn't be able to use SBA financing. You know, and he's, he's still, he's open to different kind of structure. It doesn't have to be all cash upfront. But yeah, but kind of thinking about like, okay, let's say for a business like that, I need to fork out, a quarter million dollars, let's just say. And then it's also, it's like, okay, well, what if I invested that quarter million dollars just into my own business?

And it's like, where, what would push the needle more? And, I don't know. I mean, I think like these things are, it's not always so, so black and white and clear. I mean, if I was able to acquire that business with like, a lot of leverage. I mean, leverage makes acquisitions a lot more attractive than, even if it's seller finance, but you still gotta pay that back out of the cash flow.

And then that could be a pretty big strain on the cash flow. And so anyway, I think it's like any time you're making a big investment, it's worth looking at. And I guess also to be clear, I guess I am thinking of new businesses that I could start or test that would cost maybe 15 grand out of pocket to try.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, this isn't a great answer to your question, but it's just like, the answer of what's better? Starting? Acquiring? Adding on services to existing businesses? It's kind of like a, yes, both neat, you know, it's a both and kind of thing. And yeah, there's just stuff that I've learned is just what, maybe something that'd be useful for listeners and we've touched on this.

But when it comes to acquisitions, it's like, you know, it's a very complex puzzle. Especially, you know, there's debt, you have interest rates and repayments and this and whether there's seller financing or not and, what happens to those businesses?

Are they up? Down? Flat? How does that affect things? Or starting off, you know, something new and taking that money and investing it in something, another idea or investing in an existing business. Like, I don't think there's, there's not like a hard, clear, fast way to decide what's best.

But I'd say the more, the more opportunities you have, like the less clear the answer is. And it's like, Oh, do I buy a business and bolt it on? Do I buy a business strategically that could cross out to my other company, but then there's also supply constraints. And, oh, well, like we couldn't just double because it's a service and we need team.

And so maybe our current growth rate is actually ideal. So I should invest in something different and, not to dance around the answer, but just to paint the picture that it's not straightforward.

Ronald Skelton: And you just gave everybody a beautiful view inside of an entrepreneur's mind because that's what you go through. That's the thought out loud and thought the question out loud. And that's what everybody goes through when you're like, do I buy versus build? 

And I think you, me and a lot of other seasoned entrepreneurs where you have, we were taught that you're supposed to go out and build companies. Before we ever got taught that, Hey, you could go buy them too. The acquisition entrepreneurship, I mean, at least for me, it wasn't, I did my master's degree. My MBA was in 2007. 

That said, I don't remember the term ever coming up. As a matter of fact, I didn't know what ETA was until I started looking around thinking, I want to buy a business next time. And then I started looking into one of those, what's out there and all these new phrases come up that I didn't even know existed. 

That was a beautiful like insight into what would go through the thought process you would go through. And I think both of us might be at a disadvantage because we know fairly well how to start a business. So sometimes when you're out there like, you know, I should probably buy something that does X, Y, and Z. And you just can't find what you're looking for, you get frustrated and go, you know what, let's build a thing.

Nate Ginsburg: You know something else that I've been thinking. So I listened to, I was into this great book. Something the title, it's like, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. It's by this, this guy, Brad Jacobs, who is, you know, built public company, public company CEO. He was the founder. And, it's really, really good books.

And really good business advice as well as just like, life advice, personal development. Anyway, he talks about acquisitions and how, as a public company, how compelling the multiple arbitrage is. And he was just like, Oh, I think the, the best way to, you know, the fastest way to grow our valuation is, buy a company at a lower multiple.

And then absorb them into our public company that has a higher multiple and boom. You just, that's like a very clear benefit of doing acquisitions. And then, you know, and then when I think about that though, with my situation, it's like, you know, like if I'm buying another company, even if it's, if I buy one other company to kind of bolt on, it's probably not going to have a huge impact on my valuation. Maybe a little bit, but then it's like, you don't get that same benefit that a public company would.

And also, you know, it could be a distraction. That's a whole other, what about all the other projects that we have going on? It's just kind of like, I think there are very clear benefits to acquiring a company, but it's not this like blanket. Oh, this is always the right move.

It could be. There certainly are use cases where this is going to be like a great opportunity. Also when it comes to like starting one, I think it's different, you or me, if we have background starting businesses, we like know what that's like. But if you've never started a business before, then acquiring one, it's probably going to save you, well, you'll have different challenges, but like, the success rate starting any new business, is low. But if you've done it before, it's going to be a lot higher than if you haven't done it before. And so, again, it's just like a complex answer.

It depends on your, you know, background and your situation. But yeah, I think about that, that Brad Jacobs book. And it's just like, in that case, it's very clear. Like that's a very clear strategy. And also looking at myself, like I don't benefit from that strategy. 

Ronald Skelton: For the listeners out there, what he's talking about is the arbitrage between different tiers of businesses. So, in most cases, there's at least three I can think of off the top of my head. There's the, what I call waking up the little giants, right? It's the waking up the private equity firms where they're even interested in you. 

Private equity will typically pay more than your SMB searcher will, right? Your SMB searcher, depending on the industry, is going to pay anywhere from, on these brick and mortar pest control type of, heat and air businesses. If you're mediocre run, 1.5 x to three, maybe four x. maybe.

Through an SBA loan, if you're perfectly ran and you've got great, documentation and everything's good, you might get three x. The private equity guys will come in and they'll pay six or seven X for that same company. And, and when I'm talking about X, it's six or seven times the seller's discretionary earnings or, or EBITDA. But in order to wake them up in most industries, you've got to be above the $4 million in EBITDA.

So $4 million in, grossly defined as net profit. Horribly grossly defined as net profit. But that's probably the closest thing most people know to it. The next tier up is 10 million, right? The, what you're talking about they're publicly traded companies. They don't typically dip down to anything below that $10 million in seller's discretionary earnings. 

You can play the game. If you're riding along at say two and a half, 3 million, you know, that you might say exit in three or four years. And, PE is starting to dip down into your industry at four. The best thing you could do is find a way to get to four. Even if it's acquiring a competitor or something. But, he's kind of like got to look at the industries and figure out, you've got two kind of e commerce logistic type of companies, and then one that's still a legit, you know, a analytical logistics company. 

But, it kind of, you know, is in the financial realm. I guess that's what the Centurica would be, right? Kind of a financial company.

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. And you know, candidly, when I did the acquisition, I thought there was going to be a lot more synergies to be realized of like, we do diligence on an e commerce business. And then that turns into a lead for my agency. Which, it has happened, but like maybe once or twice of the, I don't know, we've probably done over a hundred e com deals.

And, um, my, like thesis, part of the thesis was that there would be more synergies between the diligence and the service companies. Hasn't worked out as much that way. That's not to say that, we could totally be just like not doing it right. Or, you know, like, not selling the right way. But yeah, you're right, it is kind of now, like there's the, I mean, and even that being said, the two, do share some clients. 

But like, direction that the freight forwarding business is going is actually, towards a different clientele than the other agencies. So, like, there is some overlap, but it's not like, not like, you know, yeah, uh, total. And so, that's the other, I don't know, maybe the lesson is like a lot of the synergies, I don't know, synergies are, are tough and like reality might have a different plan.

Ronald Skelton: You would think, you know, your Sellerplex and your Centurica, you'd think that they would be a lot of, Oh, by the way, you just bought that. You probably want to use these guys over here to, you can, I'm going to like, branded as a Centurica recommends. And do an introduction, set up the introduction call. 

But, I imagine like anything else each of these business have a persona, a particular customer they're looking for that is the sweet spot for that company. Unless those really overlap. So I'll give you a quick example of my, in my world. I've, when I bought the pest control company, it's way too small and it's still small. 

And I looked at one that looked really interesting. They did mostly commercial. Residential and commercial pest control are two different beasts. The bids on them are insane. I don't even know how the commercial guys do it unless they're spraying water. So I could never buy, run out and buy a, a medium sized or small commercial pest control company, because the persona of our customers don't match. 

I'd have to learn their industry and then see what I could cross over. Maybe we, do it that way, but, and their profit margins are way smaller than the residential side of it. Residential pest control is a sweet business. I've been told at least one time I was seven X, my lowest, next lowest bidder in that job. The personas don't match over. I just did it by, you know, number of man hours it'd take to do it, and the cost of goods I would need to deploy to do the facility. 

Nate Ginsburg: I think again, the point is that, just these things are complicated, you know, and that it's like, it's not, I don't know, acquisitions are tough. And, like caution and prudence is often, underutilized when, when you're exploring an acquisition. It's easy to get excited and, Oh, like, this is commercial cleaning and we do residential.

And so great, it's going to open up and open up a whole new market. But the reality is like, Oh, it's actually quite a different deliverable. We need different systems. We need different team. Like some of these synergies that we thought were going to be there actually aren't. And I think that's probably more common in trying to piece together acquisitions, then the ladder of like, Oh, wow, this just, you know, every one plus one equals 10.

Ronald Skelton: But I, you know, going back to your businesses, from a 50, 000 foot view, you see, Oh man, there's gonna be, all these synergies. But, I can get where fairly quickly, you realize that each one of these companies has a very unique persona of a customer. A very unique sweet spot that you do your best work in. And, uh, it's hard to overlap those.

Nate Ginsburg: Yeah. And, you know, and also it's just like, business is hard. Things change and like the best that we can do for each company is like follow the best path we can imagine for that business. And so, we make plans and things change, markets change, situations change.

And so, with each of the companies, like they, they, it is best for each of the businesses to move forward in the direction that is going to be best for that business. And so, with Centurica and I mentioned expanding into more SMBs. Like that's, I think the best strategy for Centurica and you know what, that's actually not good for the synergies between my other businesses.

But like more important than the synergies is like, the individual business. And so, same with the forwarding. It's like, the good news is like, we are finding like a good strategy forward for that business. The bad news is like, it's not the most aligned with the strategy of the other business. And so, you gotta like take care of yourself first and in this complex, these complex, you know, systems.

I guess it's probably rare that the best strategy for the individual business is going to actually be the best strategy for the other business. And so, it just gets complicated.

Ronald Skelton: I think unless you buy a competitor or supplier, you're probably going to be dealing with this. Like, unless you already buy, if you bought one of your suppliers and you've done business with them for years, you know how it works, you know what the synergies look like. And you bought them just because they're, they were trying to retire and you want to keep the prices right.

And you want to, you like their business, right? That would be one way that, it would be a pretty quick fit. And the other one was, it's one of your competitors, you cross sell, you take customers from them, they take customers, you know their product in and, in and out because you've been trying to compete against it for a couple of years or more. And then they decide they want to retire or sell. That would be a logistic thing.

Now, the one thing that you get inside of, even inside of that, there's so many complexities, right? It's the, a lot of the customers that left you to go to them. Well, you didn't leave because the software was horrible. They left because they bumped heads with one of your tech guys or something like that. Or the other guy offered a better price than you, you're in a commodity war. 

And now they've got this ego tied into going back. So there's just so many complexities inside of all this stuff. It's, they're moving targets. But, hands down in my view. And I'm 52 now. I don't think I want to start that many more businesses, right? The whole, if you start it, you got to find product market fit. You got to do all the different stuff. Make sure the customers, I like your model earlier where you said, well, there's some things I could do under 15, 000. Those are the kinds of things I play with. I can do it under 15 or 20 K and just see if the market wants it. 

There's a lot of businesses out there where you can test the market and, with the skill that you have in your history, the skill that you know, guys like me have, we're more apt and more likely to say, okay, this isn't working. We need to make a shift faster and see it faster than a lot of guys who are so in love with what they're trying to create. They're going to try to plow through it and figure it out. 

You, do you agree with that? You believe that, if you put 20k into something, started it, you would probably know in the first X number of months, maybe a year, year and a half. 

Nate Ginsburg: I mean, you know, yes, but the answer is a little more complicated because something I've learned is, you know, if I'm starting a new business now, like I have a lot of different perspective and expectations and, structure to that, then, if I was starting this 10 years ago. So, now, and let's say it's, I'm trying to invest 20 grand or this, it'd be like, in some of these opportunities that I'm thinking about, it's like, okay, well, like, can we validate a certain marketing channel?

So maybe that's just say 4k, 5k to kind of, throw out a marketing channels. Like, okay, well, like, let's try that. Then, and there actually are some ways to kind of monetize just by, you know, referrals, if that seems to work. I was like, okay, like if that seems to be validated, then, invest more in kind of building out. Okay, then like, what's the next hire that we would need in order to kind of capitalize that or build out? And so it's it's kind of like a sequential plan and I mean, man, I've, uh, thrown a lot of money at a lot of businesses over the years that didn't pan out and it's like, all right, we're going to, first we're going to hire the big team. Then we're going to actually see if this can actually make money.

And no, let's try to get to the validate earlier and, and then, um, I guess the point is like, if you're investing 20 K into new business, you can invest that money wisely. Or you can invest that money not so wisely. And I would hope, in my, you know, with the experience that I've had now that I would invest it more wisely than I would have if, if I was just starting.

And this isn't to say that I still can make very, very poor investments, which I certainly do. But hopefully more informed than, my, myself, you know, five, 10 years ago.

Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I kind of related. I used to play poker a little bit and I would stop in at, lunch. You know, I have a lunch and so I'm gonna play a little bit of poker over here at the casino there while, while I have lunch. And I've had more than one, five or $600 cheeseburger, right. Or you just went in there to do something.

There's been a few times in life where like, I'm going to try this business out. And you get hung up into it and you're, we were working on it. And, I've had a few four figures, a couple of five figures, or maybe at least two that I can think of, six figure. Hey, I'm going to see if the market wants this. And I did exactly what you're talking about on one of them. I went and hired the big team. I wrote all the code. I just knew the market needed something. 

And, uh, turn out, they didn't want it at all. And it was a really rough decision to, to learn after having, you know, 27 people on your staff working in all around the world, it was global. Spending high six figures, almost, almost crossed the seven figure mark.

Anyway, I appreciate your time today, man. I really like what you've got going on. If somebody is out there thinking about buying a business and they need some help doing a quality of earnings or, or if they're out there needing logistic services and stuff, they want to learn more about what you do or, they've got their Amazon store and they want to learn about that. Or hell, if they just want to, learn from you and meet you and you're, you're an incredibly interesting guy. We haven't even covered all the different things. You travel the world, uh, you, you're yoga, you're yoga, right?

You're a yoga master, whatever they call those guys. Very well, well rounded human being. If somebody wants to reach out to you, what would be that the, fastest way somebody can get ahold of you? 

Nate Ginsburg: Uh, I mean, you know, social media, at Nate Ginsburg, pretty much on, on everything. You know, publishing more lately on, yeah, all the platforms. Are kind of getting back into that. And then, yeah, for, I think like, uh, particularly this audience, if they're looking at buying businesses, then yeah. Centurica. com, you know, they need, uh, help on the quality of earnings.

Ronald Skelton: Cool. And tell him you heard about him on How2Exit. Cause I want him, I want him to know. I want him to know that this works. So, thank you today. Hang out for a few seconds and we'll call that a wrap.

Nate Ginsburg: Sounds good. Thanks for having me.