Buyers and Builders

My guests today are Deiya and Dean Pernas, founders of Pernas Research, who have compounded capital at roughly 30% annually over the past nine years.

We explore their private equity-like approach to public markets: understanding businesses from the inside out, judging management teams and capital allocation, and finding inflection points before they show up in the financials.

We also discuss their “motor” investing framework, why trajectory matters more than absolute quality, lessons from poker and bankroll management, and how they think about position sizing, averaging down, and knowing when a thesis is broken.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The opportunity in public markets
2:49 From poker and engineering to investing
6:08 Private equity lessons for public investors
11:35 The Motor investing framework
14:40 Finding potential before the numbers
17:02 When to sell
19:20 How to judge great CEOs
23:39 Capital allocation: good and bad
29:59 Trajectory over quality
33:32 Finding inflection points
36:45 Incentives and shareholder alignment
41:48 Poker lessons for portfolio management
45:16 Position sizing, averaging down, and surviving mistakes

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Sam Allsopp, co-founder of Neal Roofing and Waterproofing, a home services company he started with Andrew Neal in 2020 and has since grown from zero to roughly $50 million in annual revenue—all organically.

What makes Sam’s story interesting is that he didn’t come from roofing. Before starting Neal Roofing and Waterproofing, he ran a marketing agency and worked with more than a dozen roofing companies, where he began to see firsthand why some contractors could turn leads into profitable growth while others struggled. That experience eventually became the foundation for Neal Roofing and Waterproofing: build a world-class customer acquisition and sales machine, then pair it with excellent execution and fulfillment.

In this conversation, Sam breaks down how the business changed at every stage—from the first few million in revenue to building management layers, professionalizing the sales organization and eventually creating the systems required to operate at $50 million of scale. We go deep on marketing spend, lead generation, speed-to-lead, booking rates, sales capacity, one-call closes, compensation plans, hiring ahead of growth and the KPIs he watches every day.

We also explore how Neal Roofing and Waterproofing has remained profitable while growing aggressively, why Sam prefers opening new markets from scratch over acquiring competitors, how he thinks about incentives and accountability across the organization and why he believes the underlying playbook can work far beyond roofing.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 From zero to a $50M roofing company
1:11 The real business: customer acquisition + sales
3:25 $1M → $2.5M → $6M → $14M → $25M → $36M → $50M
8:33 What changes at every stage of growth
15:01 The KPIs Sam tracks to run the business
17:52 Facebook, PPC, LSA & the marketing mix
19:15 Why they contact leads in under a minute
23:15 Building the sales machine & one-call close
27:24 The operating system behind $50M of roofs
33:07 Growing fast while staying profitable
38:48 Hiring, incentives & performance pay
40:34 Why they prefer organic growth over M&A
46:14 How Sam actually learned sales & marketing

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Felix Jander, co-founder of Arsipa, a buy-and-build company focused on occupational health and safety.

Felix and Stefan began exploring the idea during COVID, studying roughly 60 niche industries before choosing a fragmented market with significant room for consolidation.

Arsipa went on to complete more than 40 acquisitions, grow to over 1,100 employees across 60+ locations, and surpass $100 million in annual revenue. In 2024, the company partnered with Warburg Pincus, with Felix remaining invested in the business.

We discuss how they chose their market, built proprietary deal flow, and used highly personalized outreach to generate reply rates as high as 80%. Felix explains why the first acquisition matters so much, how Arsipa financed its early deals, and the operational playbook behind recruiting, finance, pricing, integration and culture.

He also shares the story of splitting with his original co-founder, finding his next partner, and transitioning from operator to investor.

This is a practical conversation about acquisitions, capital allocation and building an institution from a collection of small businesses.

Please enjoy my conversation with Felix Jander.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 From zero to 40+ acquisitions and $100M+ in revenue
3:33 Why boring businesses beat venture-backed hypergrowth
5:08 How they chose one market from 60 niche industries
7:40 The 1% conversion math behind proprietary deal flow
11:08 Raising the first pool of acquisition capital
18:00 Buying businesses without brokers
20:41 The first acquisition changes everything
23:04 Equity first, debt later
24:58 Turning acquisitions into an operating company
28:13 Losing a co-founder in the middle of fundraising
32:27 Selling to Warburg Pincus and rolling equity
40:08 The roll-up integration and value-creation playbook
44:32 The economics of scaling a roll-up
48:06 What changes after a major private equity investment
51:24 Felix’s advice for aspiring buy-and-build founders
54:18 From operator to investor
56:12 Final lessons from building Arsipa

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

My guest today is Justin Escajeda, an entrepreneur who owns 12 trade businesses around Pittsburgh, employing roughly 250 people and generating more than $50 million in annual revenue.

What makes Justin’s story interesting is that he never set out to become an acquisition entrepreneur. He started in masonry, construction and real estate before buying his first roofing company which did $600k in SDE in 2018 for $846k. That acquisition changed how he thought about building businesses.

Today, Justin owns companies across masonry, roofing, insurance, material supply, general contracting, property management and luxury remodeling. His approach is unusually simple: buy businesses that already work, preserve what made them successful, put great operators in charge and resist the temptation to change things simply because you can.

We also explore how he manages 12 businesses without micromanaging them, the four KPIs he watches every day and why he stopped taking cash from portfolio companies to fund new acquisitions.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Building a $50M portfolio of trade businesses
1:24 The first acquisition that changed everything
4:34 Buying a roofing company for under $1M with an SBA loan
6:21 Why Justin never wants to start another company
8:15 Why he avoids changing businesses after buying them
12:24 Inside a portfolio of 12 trade businesses
15:00 The acquisition Justin overpaid for
16:49 SBA loans, cash, and why he prefers seller financing
22:25 Solving key-person risk after an acquisition
27:14 Growing companies without micromanaging operators
31:05 Why Justin went an entire year without buying anything
34:38 The four numbers he watches every day
37:42 A $300K mistake, liquidity, and why ownership isn’t passive

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

In 2010, Robert Finkel wrote the book The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital: Management Lessons from the Pioneers of Private Investing

In this episode, I explore the ideas, decisions, successes, and failures of two people who helped define modern private equity: Joseph Rice, co-founder of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and Warren Hellman, co-founder of Hellman & Friedman.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The Masters of Private Equity
2:15 Private equity is more than buying and selling companies
5:42 What separates the best private equity investors
7:14 Joseph Rice: Building Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
10:13 Jack Welch’s advice during the 2008 crisis: “Hammer them”
15:23 The failed deal that changed how Rice invested forever
19:28 Lexmark: Turning an IBM division into an entrepreneurial company
22:06 Kinko’s, a total loss, and the danger of believing you can do anything
26:20 Joseph Rice’s five lessons from 40+ years in private equity
31:03 Warren Hellman: Building Hellman & Friedman
32:23 “This time is different” — the investing lesson Hellman never forgot
36:35 Every investment is guilty until proven innocent
39:51 Think like an owner, not an employee
42:38 Levi Strauss and the deal that put Hellman & Friedman on the map
45:34 Why a great security can still be a terrible investment
49:08 Warren Hellman’s five rules for investing

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.