The Art & Science of Acquiring Micro-SaaS Startups - Kjael Skaalerud, President of Skaling Ventures

All right, I'm here with Kale from Scaling Ventures. Kale, how you doing today?

I'm good, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, we were chatting, you know, before we, we started recording and we were, we're talking about some interesting things. But before we dive into those, do you want to give an introduction of yourself to people who might not know you?

Yeah, for sure. So name is Kale and I'm the president or CEO or founder, insert whatever title you'd like of Scaling Vent. And we're. We acquire and operate small software firms and I made that transition about six months ago. Historically, I was an operating partner for private equity funds. So my last, I guess role I was a chief revenue officer, typically kind of in the 5 to 10 million ARR tranche, all vertical software. And my job was to go in and usually build some kind of sales organization or professionalize a sales organization, grow ARR and then lead and exit. Before that I worked pretty closely with the venture community. I was kind of a consultant or a mercenary for hire for, for series A groups where they would install me to help kind of support the transition from founder led sales, get a tech stack going, stuff like that. So I kind of had the opportunity following my last gig to jump out on my own and, and thanks to acquire. And I won't let the micro slip out of my mouth aside from talking about the Scaling Ventures bit. And honestly, because of everything that you had done to, you know, create a vibrant and a super transparent marketplace of all these companies, you know, I'd been for a long time, but it was really kind of the catalyst for me to jump in and acquire firm which I found on acquire.com and start operating and doing the thing. So you were the, you were the catalyst man. Can't thank you enough. Yeah, that's, that's my background.

I appreciate that. And then I guess, you know, my next question would be is, so you, you kind of shifted from traditional private equity, you started your own firm. What type of businesses are you looking to acquire these days?

Yeah, for sure. So for, I mean I've known Vertical SaaS and I dabbled. Vertical SaaS has always kind of been my thing and across, I guess before that a lot of HCM and HR related tech, some ML and I guess this was before it was such a buzzword, but a few ML plays historically for me as well. And then I kind of most recently was an alternative investments tech. So vertical SaaS, I guess one flavor or another has been probably like the throughput or the connective thread across my career. So that's what I kind of stepped in prioritizing because I knew it the. And I'm probably the 300th person who has said this on your podcast, but vertical SaaS all kind of tastes like chicken. So I think my thesis has kind of evolved where we're starting to look more closely at horizontal SaaS plays and then thinking more about the vertical component from a go to market perspective to avoid kind of the pitfall of market to everybody, you market it to nobody. But also to avoid kind of the trade off of vertical SaaS, which is smaller kind of niche markets. So how can we take a horizontal play that has a bigger addressable market? Hopefully the venture players aren't going after it because then it becomes a lot more competitive. But then how do we think about verticalizing it and go to market so that we can sequence growth really thoughtfully? So simply put, vertical, but that's changing maybe B2B, of course. And then right now we're playing in like the, you know, call it 10-40K MRR and we have a pretty structured quantitative scorecard that addresses some other things. So we fixate a lot of course on net revenue retention, little girl retention, some stuff like that. But vertical SaaS probably lower, lower, lower middle market.

I like that, I like that. So, so micro SaaS, I know, right? It all comes back to micro. So as you're, as you're looking at companies, I guess, you know, here's maybe a curveball question. Describe to me like a, like a perfect acquisition for you in terms of, you know, size. You can make up the company what it does. Like if it landed on, you know, acquire, you would go crazy for it. What would that look like?

Yeah. All right, well, I better get into standing up mode here so I can bring the right energy. Wow, what a great question. You know, it's interesting, no one's asked me that before. Well, I can tell you what I've learned a lot about from my first trans and only transaction. And our game plan is kind of to treat this first one as a proof of concept and then pivot towards more of like a pooled capital model. But I can tell you seller DNA, and I've said this before, but like we all, or at least me, I aspire to be like the DALIO where it's all quantitative. It's like this algorithm and it's like, hey, we put these inputs in and we look, we're looking at this acquisition target and it's, you know, scored in the top quartile and you make it all kind of science and less art, less gut, less instinct because it's hard to repeat gut and instinct or describe it or define it or document it. But like a few things that have definitely become very aware or I guess emphasized to me, one for sure is the seller. Like seller DNA is absolutely mission critical and like the actual transition process, no matter what kind of time period it takes. But I guess to answer your question very strictly, I would say, you know, kind of the first thing that I bet now post like a first screening would be, you know, who is the seller. And then we, I often joke that it's kind of like a reverse marriage. It's like, all right, we're going to marry this person and then we're going to move into like engaged and then we're going to date and then we're going to break up. And so how do I feel about that with the person that's across the table for me? Because a business is, you know, living dynamic thing and if you don't have somebody as kind of a guide to carry you around, your likelihood of success out of the gate is much trickier. But I would say perfect scenario. We'll keep, we'll just say vertical SaaS, we'll say they're doing between 10 to 15k in MRR so that we have the cash flows to finance the debt service. We use debt in our acquisitions and to finance some of the transformation. Pulling in my team, which is all kind of fractional folks, so call it 10 to 15K and MRR. There's one channel established which is like typically very organic. Like it's a word of mouth loop or it's a direct traffic thing where it's basically a product that really solves the problem and it's got a little bit of a halo effect. But the founder is very technical. So it's either an engineer or a product manager or some profile like that. And they don't necessarily understand go to market. So they've kind of hit a plateau, if you will, of growth and that's usually a function of the number of channels that they have stood up. So we've got 10 to 15 KMR. There's some cash in here to kind of to get in and make things interesting. It's at a little bit of a plateau from a retention perspective. That's the name of the game for us because I mean essentially we're buying product market fit. So I know you, I know you, you're, you're one of the masters of the dark art of product market fit because you seem to have found it twice, which is very challenging. But I'm not that, I'm not the zero to one guy. But I'll pause there.

That's great. Let's, let's, let's keep this going, let's keep this imaginary acquisition because there's something you said that I really agree with which is just goodwill like amongst buyers and sellers. I haven't really seen an acquisition happen without goodwill between a buyer and a seller. And what I mean by that is, you know, if, if you can't get along with the seller as a buyer, it just, something's going to explode. You know, something's gonna. Because you need that transition period. You need, you know, there might be customers on different pricing plans and you need their support six months later. So I really like how you emphasize, you know, you know, working with a seller that's you know, looking to sell to you and isn't, you know, doing this weird dance of I'm kind of open to some. And I really like you have that goodwill in place. So let's say you, you, you, you've come across this company that you just described. How does your due diligence process look? Like, how do you, you know, say hey, this is the com. Maybe we can use the company that you did acquire as an example. Yeah, like what made that like a good, you know, first pick?

Yeah. So, and actually let me just pull up my, my scorecard so I can kind of talk through it. Because our scorecard is really kind of like a function of tiers of in of access to information. So you can think like early days. It's like a public listing. Right. And it's like, okay, what are. And then you know, you kind of move towards an NDA which is so streamlined on acquire.com now. God bless you. And then you can kind of move into some non public information. But it's kind of as the aperture opens for information like the inputs for the scorecard get bigger and bigger. So I mean out of the gate and obviously the number one thing that I always encourage, and I've written about this in the past too, is like eat the dog food as soon as humanly possible. You talk to a lot of folks that are playing the game. It's like, well, have you bought the product? Have you used the product? And I guess there are, there can be constraints there. Like if we're talking enterprise SaaS, it's like, yeah, you know, I need to pay four grand a month or I need to pay an annual contract of 20 grand. You know, it's not so easy to just step in and start to use the product product. But to answer your question, deal comes along, it's looking good. And I guess just to finish the thought on that, I mean, I think the other pieces are we look very closely out of the gate around retention because back to the thing of like product market fit, right? We want to make sure that there's product utility here and that we feel good and that we look at the customer cohorts and those are moving in a positive direction or at least they're stable. And then the last thing is we would touch on maybe the tech stack and just understand a little bit on the product side. Like, I think our assumption is that, you know, call it on average 20 to 40% of the product needs to be enhanced or rewritten in some way way. But beyond that, you start to play a game around technical debt and it kind of changes your ability to move fast and either catch up with the market, move past the market. It can be limiting in terms of how you push into different market segments as well. So it can hinder growth. But those are some elements that we looked at as first blush once we get under the hood, gosh, this ideal scenario here, acquisition target, we'll just call it Acme maybe. So it's simple. I think we're looking at obviously out of the gate around multiple. And that's. And it's weird because on the scorecard too, like there are things that are punitive, right? If you have like, hey, we want to see like for instance an AR multiple, we want to see like on average a 3x. So if we see a 2x, that's rewarded. If we see a 5x, that's punitive, but it's, it's not a deal breaker like early. We want to kind of keep that aperture open so that we don't choke off all the deals that are, that are feasible. Like, we want to kind of keep an open mind. We obviously don't want to look at all the noise. But some things around that growth is another one where too much growth is kind of punitive for us because it's like, you know, what are we supposed to do do if the business is already ripping? Like that's what we do. So. And then it's also. That raises some flags from a seller motive too. It's like, why do you sell the thing that's just shredding, you know. And there are scenarios where it does make sense, but that's something that you want to lean into.

Yeah, let's. Let's pause on that because that's also an interesting topic. And tip that I hear a lot from buyers in terms of what they prefer. And that's, you know, when you bring your business onto the marketplace, I always say, like, bring it with, you know, bruises, bumps, and everything, because those are potential growth opportunities that you would hear. You know, maybe I don't have a sales team. Maybe, I don't know, marketing, you know, instead of trying to hide that. Or maybe, you know, there's some part of the business that's not optimized or hasn't been explored or maxed out. You know, I think a lot of founders would feel that is something not to share with the buyer. But when you hear those things, it sounds like your ears perk up and you do see opportunity.

Yeah, totally. For sure. And, you know, I think or like, the other one, too, is profit margin. So you have to be super careful, because I think your assumption is that there. There are ways to optimize margin so you can kind of fix how revenue makes its way to the bottom line and ultimately manifest as, like, profit or earnings. And then you can change top line.

Right?

Like, simply put, those are kind of the two levers that are available to you. And so, I mean, this is kind of weird, but it' like, hey, if you're the seller, it's like, you know, our team is bloated, or we got a bunch of people, and I'm not sure what they do or, you know, no, that's very rare in our context because it's usually, you know, really kind of lean teams. But to your point, you know, you want to be honest, and I think you don't. I guess the more you can kind of hint or foreshadow what a transformation play would look like and then rationalize why you're not the one to execute it. It'll speed up your ability to transact. So it's like, hey, I got it here. This is why we got it to this place. This is my aptitude. This is my team. We got it here. We see the, like, we have line of sight to the next thing, but that's not really our expertise. Here are kind of some working notes on how you'd get there. And this is where all the skeletons are buried, and this is where all the weird stuff is. And then, you know, what do you think? Right? And because you're basically, it's just a matchmaking process, and the better you can find your match and articulate hey, what do you do when you acquire firms? Cool. What are you about? You know, obviously a lot of the sentiment is like, you know, you better not gut my baby. You know, like, for a lot of entrepreneurs and sellers, this is maybe one of a few projects and they've gotten it to this place and it's been just like a bare fist, you know, knuckle fight to get it here. Yeah.

So anyway, so I like that. Okay, so you, you've spoken with the seller, you're interested. It's, you know, within, you know, kind of the thesis of your. Your firm's acquisition criteria.

Yeah.

Now. Now you start heading into due diligence. What's. What's, maybe like some things that you would advise founders, if they wanted to sell to your firm, how can they prepare in advance? What are things like, you know, you've seen, you know, carry you away from a deal?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I think. And I think the beauty of a coin not to just shamelessly plug you the whole damn time, but I keep going.

Keep going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let it rip. Well, I guess so. If you. Contrast is a beautiful thing, right? So if you think about traditional OG Private equity, and it's like, hey, we have a data room. And this data room is stuffed full of like spreadsheets that have P. Ls and, you know, customer concentration and personnel and salespeople and quotas and headcount and HR and benefits and overhead and all this stuff. And it's like, oh, my God. When in reality, that stuff is all a byproduct of the systems of record. And if you think, and this is for anybody that plays the vertical SAS game or period, the SAS game, right. Like the three pillars of SaaS usually are, you got to manage your books, which is accounting, ERP, if you're more, I guess, kind of large, got to manage your books, which is CRM. I'm sorry, customers, which is like CRM stripe, you know, stuff like that. Like, how is revenue coming in? What do your customers look like? And then lastly, is HR tech or how you manage your employees? You got your books, your customers and your employees. Those systems of records are usually a CRM HR suite and accounting thing. And so any of the stuff that exists in a data room is usually exported from those tools. And what's beautiful about micro, and I guess, you know, marketplaces like Acquire is that you can kind of get direct access into those systems of records. So it's like, hey, I don't need a. I need to see what Google Analytics looks Like I need to see what Stripe looks like. Like, I need to see what a P and L looks like through QuickBooks. And you don't have to tell me anything, right? Like, we can pipe into your systems and then we can run some kind of analysis to kind of validate what's happening. So most of what a seller can do then is provide some kind of voiceover to either rationalize what that stuff looks like or provide more insight about the market. And so some of the things that we've leaned into a lot about like is if you don't know the, like the value prop. And it's honestly, and this is, I was going to joke about this, like I'm, I'm a huge fan of Bruce Lee. He's like my favorite philosopher. But his thing is always like, it's the, the, the signal of a master is the act of reduction or subtraction, not addition. Now I was going to plug that with, you know, from micro acquire to acquire. I was like, there you go. You're getting closer to the root. You're getting closer to the full. Ninja is like, can you just simply articulate, like, who is your customer? Who is your ideal customer profile? What is the value proposition that you provide or the job to be done? How do you reach customers? How do they, why do they convert and how do they convert and how do you retain them? And then what makes you different from your competitive or from your competitors and who are your main competitors? Like, it's just very and simple. But there's so often a situation where, and it's okay too, right, if the founder's like, you know, I don't really know, like we serve this kind of customer over here and this customer over here. And I'm not sure, but I have a hunch. But the more kind of articulate you are and can, can, you know, demonstrate just a simple understanding of the billet of the business and articulate that to a seller or a buyer rather, I think that really speeds stuff up. So simply put, make sure access to your systems is clean and that you can like let your systems of record and that they're in order because those are ultimately going to demonstra the business and the performance and the systems that you have in place and just foundational stuff because, and not to digress here, but that's another thing too. Like some businesses don't have their stuff together operationally and some buyers might look at that and be like, ooh, like this is red flag central. Other buyers are like, great transformation opportunity cool. Like we can streamline this stuff, at least articulate the metrics and the performance of the business and that creates value right away. So make sure your systems are in order, tighten that stuff up. Obviously Acquirer is going to help with that. And then on the other side, it's just a very clean understanding and simple, simple way to articulate who are your customers, why do they buy your product, what does it do for them and what makes you different than competitors.

I love that. I would totally agree with that too. And you know, a lot of founders struggle with that. That's actually the biggest problem that we see with a lot of startups that list on acquire is we'll. So when you list on acquire, we'll actually rewrite the headlines because we'll get stuff that's, you know, vertical SaaS that's revolutionizing this thing. And it is just like what problem are you solving and who is it for for that's kind of the main thing. So we'll rewrite it. We actually have a team in house that constantly is rewriting what the company does to make it easier to understand because the responses that we get are typically. But yeah, I agree. Being able to just simply articulate that is it just how are you positioning your business? And yeah, having a clear understanding of the main problem you solve, who do you solve it for, how do you do that? So I think that's just, you know, general just good advice for anyone building a startup. But let's keep moving. Okay. So you know, you just, you know, did due diligence on my company, Acme. You like it now? We're, we're getting along. We, we've agreed to evaluation. How are we thinking about transition? Like what's an ideal sort of transition period for your firm?

Yeah, so I mean, I think there's some different approaches here, I think, I guess if I have.

I know it depends.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you hate that. Got everything.

I'll throw the cushion on that question. It depends on how a lot of things fit.

Yeah, right on. Well, I think an optimal scenario is kind of a sliding scale where ideally it's like you have at least 30 days and it depends obviously. Or. Yeah, there you go. But on like the scale of the business. Right. So if it's like, hey, I've got a product that's basically like a single point solution feature that's not super complex. The service burden is very straightforward. The customer base is super stable. It's kind of a no brainer situation and the business operates itself for the most part. Then that 30 might not be so critical, but I think kind of optimal is like the first 30 days. There's nothing jarring. You're transitioning stuff. The seller is still kind of front and center from a. And like you kind of haven't really disclosed anything to the users yet. But 30 days is like, hey, status quo, steady state. Our camp can just observe and see where the weirdness is and where the gotchas are. And so that might look like 60 hours from the seller in the first month, something like that. And then second month would basically chop in half to like 30 hours. And now it's like, hey, we're clear on the gotchas. We need kind of just advice on how to navigate this stuff. And a lot of that stuff boils down to like, what have you tried already and what was the learning there like? We don't want to reinvent the wheel and we don't want to make the same mistakes or I guess have the same kind of trial and error. So you try to extract whatever learning has occurred as it relates to the weirdness that you just uncovered. And then the last month is, you know, 10 hours just like, hey man, if something super weird goes wrong, or hey, hey gal, if something super weird goes along, I need you to answer the phone because we can't have a fire drill at this point. And so I think like a 90 day thing. And if we're talking kind of, you know, the 500 to a million ARR, which is like you know, 15 to 25 or whatever, 25 to 45 MRR, where there's that level of complexity, you're probably talking about 90 day ideal or 3 month seller transition which is 60 hours, 30 hours, 10 hours. And the assumption there is like mainly the sellers involved. There isn't an executive team, there's maybe one, two full time employees tops, or there's like a contract developer or something like that, so you're not inheriting a bunch of people that you have to manage. And then beyond that, I think this is where it gets really exciting where if I was a builder, like you almost start to think about a value chain or like the trajectory of a micro SaaS firm and it's like my job is to get 0 to 1 and then I need to go find some maniac who's going to take it from 1 to 10 and I need to make sure that I ride that wave right, that I. Or this is kind of a cliche, but another bite of the apple because that's you, you've earned it. I mean, arguably you've done the hardest part by a mile. That zero to one shit is insanely difficult, right? Or I mean, I guess it's all difficult. Zero to a hundred. But it's like, hey. So optimally, my view is like, you're selling the business, let's keep you on capital, stack like on the cat table for two, three, four, five, you know, whatever, for like five hours a month. And you're there to advise us on the thing. But ultimately it's, it's kind of like a, hey, we're in the interest of doing right by people, especially sellers. And like, hey, stay on. Why not? You know, like, unless you hate it and you're burnt to a crisp and then, then just move on.

But anyway, yeah, I, I like that as well because it de risks acquisition for everybody. You know, you acquire a company and find, you know, some different channels that haven't been been, you know, unlocked yet. And it really grows the business. The previous owner still, you know, wins in that upside. And then also for you, it de risks the business because you still have the original owner. Because there's always stuff that comes up. There's always a customer on some weird discount plan or some lifetime deal and you're like, who's this? You know, the, or just bugs. Like, hey, how does this work? And it's a five minute phone call with the, you know, original engineer.

Or, or, or you missed on something. Sorry.

Or it's 48 hours if you, you trying to figure it out, you know, totally.

Or like, oh shit, we missed this thing in the account transfer and our like some domain hosting is still under their name and they just got an email to their personal account and the billing failed. It's like, oh my God. But thank God that they're not just like, you know, the seller. It's like, hey, oh yeah, not really my problem anymore. It's like, yo, Kale. Hey, this just went wrong. Thank you. I'm so glad there's a relationship there. And I think the other piece too, and you hear about it more now, is kind of serial. You know, entrepreneurship entrepreneurs and builders who are like, hey. Or they maybe have like a small portfolio of micro SaaS projects. So you want to keep those relationships going because it's like, hey, let's do this again. Like build it up to this point. I'll come buy it, stay on the cat. And then it becomes kind of like it's a little bit. And it's not really inventing, reinventing the wheel, but it's a little Bit of like a venture play where it's like you have kind of the cohort that fixates on seed, and then you have the series A and the series B group. And this is just a different scenario where the actual builders are kind of in control and it isn't the capital provider that kind of determine who goes where and how that flows. So I think it's very exciting, but I think you hate to just be like, hey, I got it to here. I sold it. It was 30 days. I threw them the keys. Like, we're not buying houses, you know, we're buying living, organic, dynamic businesses. And you hate to just throw the keys and be on your merry way.

Nice. I like that walkthrough. All right, so we're done with the transition now. You got your second acquisition done.

Yeah. Oh, boy.

So where do you. Where do you see. You know, I know you. You. You just got done with your. Your first acquisition.

You're.

You're keeping that one anonymous, correct?

Yeah, yeah. Keeping the portfolio anonymous. But again, like most of what we're doing, we're. We're, you know, quote unquote, building, or I'm trying to build in public as much as I can and get other folks that are maybe in a place where I was not too long ago jazzed about this as a path, you know, to. To spend your days and to create a lifestyle that's interesting and to perhaps create some financial independence for you and your family and not go like the corporate grind or the feast or famine startup grind or the I'm the one at the firm doing all the work and the people that provide the capital keep all the returns. It's kind of like a blend of those three things that I think is pretty interesting. So anyway. Yeah. But keeping it anonymous for the context of our portfolio. Anonymous and, you know, just as we hope to move in silence as much as we can.

No, I can appreciate that. I guess, you know, maybe one of the. One of the last questions I have for you is what just, like, general advice do you have for. I'm looking to sell my business. You know, you mentioned some really good things in terms of, you know, preparation. If there's maybe like one or two other things that you'd advise, you know, founders to kind of really think through. What. What would those one or two things be?

Yeah. Oh, man. You know, I think something that has. Has become like a principle for me is base rates and comps. So everything is. And let's see if I can articulate this. I think everything is relative Right. Everything is relative. So the performance of your SaaS business, how much MRR it generates, how, what retention looks like is all relative to your peer group. And then there that, it kind of follows then that the valuation is relative to your peer group. The deal terms are relative to your peer group. So like something that's always been interesting for me and like when you first get into the game, it's like, ooh, I want to acquire this thing. Is this a good deal? And it's like, well, you can't just look at a deal in a vacuum. Right. It has to be relative to the other deals you've looked at. Do you like the performance of the business? Do you like the valuation? Yada yada. So for a seller, you know, I think if you're starting to think about I want to exit my business or I want to explore and exit, get clear on what you're doing, peer group looks and feels like and how dope are you relative to your peer group. And then you can of course understand and benchmark your performance. But then as an extension of that, you can start to think about valuation. Because something that I think is, and this is kind of a weird statement, but it's like the first signal that you don't really know what you're doing or that it's going to be a real uphill battle is just an absurd valuation. It's like, well, we're going to, you know, 30x. It's just like, oh man. For buyers. Because it's of kind, kind of like, oh, like you don't really know what you're talking about maybe. And then now it becomes a situation where we're going to work together and kind of coach you through this and expose you to comps and obviously you, you, you all do an amazing job with here, the benchmarks across this stuff. But if you're going to sell your house.

Sorry, I was just going to say I gotta, I have to completely agree with you on that statement. So valuation is the number one reason you don't sell or get buyer traction on acquirer. Just because the gap between, you know, the seller's expectations and the buyer, it's just too far close. And a lot of startup founders, you know, I did it personally, you know, you kind of grow up thinking, well, my competitor was acquired for 200 times revenue, so we're this, you know, you can't, you can't do that.

Yeah. Or just be clear on the circumstances. Right. It was like, who was the acquirer? Was it a strategic. And your thing fit perfectly into their portfolio of SaaS and they're going to pay a huge premium. That's apples and oranges, you know.

Yeah, I mean, when you let. I want to double, double click on that because it's so true. It's on Apples to Apple's like in those like Slack as an example, I believe they were required for, you know, 26 times annual career revenue.

But they're growing like crazy forward 12 leader.

They, they're established, they're at scale, you know, so they obviously got, you know, premium on the acquisition. But, you know, just because your company is. Maybe Slack's not the best example, but we hear that a lot in terms of, you know, why. Because we also asked when you list on acquire, how do you justify your valuation? And what were our number one reject reason actually too, is too high of an asking price. So for everyone listening, just making it really, really clear, learn valuations because it'll get you more buyer interest and dramatically increase your chances of selling.

Yeah, and I like simple it down because I think everyone's like, oh my God, I need an investment banker and I have to do an, you know, a discounted cash flow, you know, model to figure out the valuation. It's like, or you, I mean, are you gonna, if you're selling your house, are you going to go through and, you know, assign a value to all your appliances and then figure out what you could charge for rent, yada? It's like, no, you go on Zillow and you see what other houses like yours are trading at and then just start there, right? And it's like. And just, you know, go 20% up, 20% down. It's like, hey, here's the spectrum of value that we're comfortable with. And then you have to totally attack your ego because it's your baby, right? And so it's like, but my kid's more athletic. My kids, you know, handsome or prettier, funnier. And it's like, well, you should probably kill that vibe in your soul. Just try to be as rational, as rational as you can because it'll probably get you to, you know, a good outcome better.

Yeah, I can appreciate that. So I guess just final question. If people wanted to, you know, learn more about your story or potentially, you know, speak with you about selling their, their startup to you, where's the best place to find you?

Yeah, no doubt. So I'm probably the Most active on LinkedIn. My Twitter game is atrocious. But kale, it's KJ A E L. And my last Name is Scholar, and I'm sure this will be in the show notes. My name's very tricky, but if you just search for KJ AEL on LinkedIn, I'll come up. And then Scaling Ventures is our firm, and it's spelled with the K, so it's S K, like this hat. S K A L I Ventures. If I. If I had any courage, I would have thrown two A's in there, like my last name. But I figured that was a little wild. And then, as you mentioned, we have a substack which I really invest a lot of time and energy and love into, and that's scalingventures.substack.com.

Nice. We'll have all that in the show notes. Well, Kale, I'm excited to see you grow, man, and I'm sure you'll be back on the podcast, but congrats on the first of hopefully many acquisitions.

No doubt. And congrats on all the moves you're making. It's inspiring to see what you're doing with acquired acquisitions. And you're. You're. You're the grease, man. You're the grease that keeps this whole game buzzing. So I, I sincerely thank you for everything that you guys are doing. You got. And gals.

Appreciate it. Appreciate that. That's. I gotta give a shout out to my team because I, I can't. I can't take credit for everything, but. All right, man, I'll see you. I'll see you probably on your. Your second or third or fourth or fifth acquisition.

No doubt.

All right, see you, man.

Cheers.

Congrats on the. The first of hopefully many acquisitions, no doubt.

Then congrats on all the moves you're making. It's. It's inspiring to see what you're doing with acquire.com. and you're. You're. You're the grease, man. You're the grease that keeps this whole game buzzing. So I, I sincerely thank you for everything that you guys are doing. You got. And gals.

Appreciate it. Appreciate that. That's. I gotta give a shout out to my team because I. I can't. Can't take credit for everything. But, I mean, I'll. I'll see. I'll see you probably on your. Your second or third or fourth or.

No doubt.

All right. See you, man.

Cheers.