Most people assume that if you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to have a breakthrough idea. I took a different path. The businesses I’ve been most proud of weren’t ideas I invented — they were ideas already working, already serving customers, already alive. They just needed someone to carry them forward.
Founders are creative and make something out of nothing. Acquisition entrepreneurs are creative and take that something into the future.
Both matter, but founders usually get the press while acquisition entrepreneurs are in the shadows.
I’ve spent thirty years in the shadows — buying businesses worth believing in, growing them, and eventually selling them to someone who’d do the same. I’ve done it seven times — learning something new in each business and each transaction.
Now I’m bringing it into the light.