Scaling Consumer Brands: Jared Stein’s Approach to Growth and Loyalty

[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real-time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, BluWave's founder and CEO. In this episode, we have a fantastic conversation with Jared Stein. Co-founder and partner with Monogram Capital Partners. Enjoy.

[00:00:33] I'm super excited to be here today with Jared Stein. Jared, thank you for joining.

[00:00:38] Jared Stein: Thanks for having me. Thrilled to be here as well.

[00:00:41] Sean Mooney: This is gonna be, I think, another really good one. Jared's got an extremely interesting background, and also I think a really unique perspective that's terribly important in this time.

[00:00:52] As it relates to business builders and how you create value. So I've been looking forward to this and maybe to jump right in, Jared, I always love to start our conversations here with just getting more of the story of you. So can you tell us a little bit about how you kind of grew up, formative experiences, college, what you did right outta college, and how you ultimately got into this world of private equity and investing?

[00:01:15] Jared Stein: Absolutely. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Interestingly, and this you'll see will be a through line of sort of where my career then followed and where monogram has followed. But I grew up really around the small business. So my dad and mom had started initially an auto parts store together, and that became sort of this smaller chain that they grew all the way up actually through my teenage years.

[00:01:43] And then I remember pulling my first all-nighter, well before my banking days, helping them count inventory as they sold that business to CarQuest, which ultimately took us out to the West coast. So we moved to San Diego in high school and I was just one of those kids who in addition to always growing up with that being sort of the, the central topic around our dinner table was always looking for a commercial opportunity.

[00:02:12] So one of my earliest memories is I'd gotten a pile of my brother's hand-me-downs, including this sort of rusty old bike. And he still brings this up every once in a while to this day. But I ended up listing his bicycle and the classifieds back when that was a thing and sort of reselling it on, making money on his hand, me down.

[00:02:35] And so from that to lemonade stands to you name it. My senior year of high school, I started a college advisory business after I had just gotten into school with, honestly, obviously no credibility at that point to be able to do that 'cause I hadn't even gone to college myself. But always loved that sort of entrepreneurial spark of taking an idea and then seeing if I could bring it through to fruition.

[00:03:03] Sean Mooney: Did you ever work in the family business? Of course the inventory, but, uh,

[00:03:07] Jared Stein: not to get my dad in trouble, but I certainly did well before you were technically allowed to. I spent most of my summers there, and that in and of itself was an invaluable experience because you're coming in as the son of the owner, and so trying to prove, especially in a manual labor business as a scrawny little kid, that you belong there and that you could add value.

[00:03:33] The beginning of that journey and a little bit of that chip on the shoulder to say, all right, I'm gonna get in there alongside you and I'm gonna show you how hard I can work.

[00:03:41] Sean Mooney: Was your family business, were you selling auto parts to consumers or to master distributing To the dealers and the repair shops?

[00:03:49] It

[00:03:49] Jared Stein: was largely B two, B2C, so they did both credit to my dad. I mean, they were early on that trend. His stores I think, were. Amongst the top of all of CarQuest stores nationwide when we sold 'em. And that even in and of itself was an interesting lesson because we followed sort of the performance post sale and it really did atrophy a little bit.

[00:04:15] And so for me, that was one of those interesting moments where it's like I saw him working on the treadmill effectively as a single owner trying with scotch tape to keep everything together. And you'd assume that there would be. Huge unlock when a well polished machine like a CarQuest buys that business and instead it went the other direction.

[00:04:35] And so that to me was an early lesson of there is value to the entrepreneur, that vision, that ability to drive results. And if you can pair that with the best of large company, best practice, that's really powerful. But oftentimes there's some peril in it too that you gotta really manage.

[00:04:55] Sean Mooney: I mean, what a great lesson for the business you ultimately got into.

[00:04:59] Did you have any kind of like special, like bad jobs that they often gave you as like, as the, the young grunt?

[00:05:05] Jared Stein: Every one of them. I remember going home with callous fingers, which I sadly now the keyboard doesn't provide because I was rolling quarters for hours in a day, so it was every little job.

[00:05:20] Refilling coffee stocking shelves, you name it. I had done, and a lot of that was before the era of the computer, so it was all a lot of kind of pen paperwork too, which is where my fledgling math skills got shaped on the job.

[00:05:36] Sean Mooney: I've shared this on, on this show before, but a similar background. I grew up in a family business.

[00:05:41] It was a manufacturing company, and so my summers were spent working in the back of the plant. I've never got anyone to admit this, but I'm pretty sure there's a plant level bonus for whomever messed with me the most. So like hoisting me into dumpsters to make more room hand mixing like cement and pouring pads that have never been used in like 50 years doing the silliest things.

[00:06:04] And my sisters would actually would work in the office and this is in the Texas heat, and they would call me and they thought they were really like getting one up on me. And so they would call me into the office over the loudspeaker in the back of the plant, Sean Mooney, please come to the front. And they'd have me move like one box, like three feet over.

[00:06:23] And they thought it was such a great prank, but little did they know, it was like the best gift to me. 'cause they got me out of a 110 degree plant to, to, to just like be in the air conditioning. Like, I'll move these boxes all day if you'll let me.

[00:06:37] Jared Stein: Family hazing is of a certain variety. It's a special, special kind of love.

[00:06:42] Yeah.

[00:06:43] Sean Mooney: But it, it's a great background. It teaches you to do a, to value that the hard work at the foundations of these companies are, are equally valuable and contributory to the success of everything. And it certainly also made me study hard, but it's something that I always looked at when I was in your seat in private equity, I would look like, did someone have one of these formative, kind of like hard jobs.

[00:07:04] So I don't know if that's made like a mark on you.

[00:07:06] Jared Stein: It certainly has. I mean, in my currency. When we think about sort of the future of monogram, what we're trying to build, ultimately everything is a war on talent, right? And finding the right type of talent for your organization. And so one of the critical areas that we vet very deeply is does someone have a growth mindset?

[00:07:27] And really what's the kernel of passion or knowledge or ambition that's really pushing them and has, has shown up throughout every step of their life. We spend a lot of time, to your exact point, Sean, saying, all right, how'd you grow up? Who are your heroes? What drove you? Why'd you make this decision in your career progression?

[00:07:47] And what we're looking for is, are you iteratively trying to get 1% better constantly? And if you have that mindset, man, it doesn't even matter. It's kind of like in the NBA, you see these folks that are unbelievably talented, but don't put in the work. A great equalizer is, do you want it? And that's an intangible that we constantly filter for.

[00:08:11] Sean Mooney: I love that topic because we were actually just talking about that with our company the other day. It's just like you said it to us, it's just like a little bit better every day. 1%, 1%, and then you compound that over a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. It's just unbelievable.

[00:08:26] Jared Stein: Couldn't agree more

[00:08:27] Sean Mooney: With that in mind, and as we're kind of getting to know you, I'll ask my other kind of standard question that I love to kind of dig into people on this.

[00:08:35] What's one of the things we'd know you better if Jared, we knew this about you.

[00:08:39] Jared Stein: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, my life is pretty simple in terms of where those buckets of energy go. And it's really two things. It's work and family, and obviously there's friends, there's exercise and running alongside that as passions, but like ultimately I try and pour myself into a couple buckets.

[00:09:02] And so I think if you see me. In our office with our team who I have so much immense pride in, and then you see me at home, I think you kind of see everything you need to see to understand me, which is just an immense passion for collaborating with others, for nurturing and getting nurtured by others, and kind of rowing in the same direction to build something.

[00:09:28] I was listening recently to an interview that Michael Ovitz did, and you can kind of hear his passion for creators and creativity, and I've always had that same sort of awestruck nature of looking at people that build things and just saying, man, like I just want to be a part of that. I want to be around it.

[00:09:48] I want that infectious spark and that can be watching my son and daughter grow up, or that can be. Our latest investment in kind of figuring out how we're going to cement market leadership and really build on a strong foundation in the next chapter of the business. But both those things I absolutely love.

[00:10:09] Sean Mooney: I love that. And as Jared, as you were kind of sharing that, I was, I was thinking about how that ties into, at least how I view the, the world of business and life. And one of the things that I think everyone gets to is you can't do everything right. You start spreading the peanut butter too thin and like how do you focus on the fewer things that matter more?

[00:10:27] And as you were talking, that had me thinking and taking me through this kind of thought process of like, just like with one of your portfolios coming, you can't do everything right, but just like in your own life, you can't spread your personal life then so where are you gonna pour that into? And it's building and helping build other companies, but also your family.

[00:10:44] Jared Stein: Absolutely.

[00:10:45] Sean Mooney: And that resonates immensely with me.

[00:10:48] Jared Stein: No, appreciate that. I mean. We spend a lot of time, and it touches all parts of our process really at monogram, which is to say, all right, what are the two or three things you're betting on, right? So in underwriting a new deal, if you're kind of diffusely taking on a bunch of different risks, there's an amalgam of risks there that you're saying, well, this could happen, or, or this scenario could happen.

[00:11:13] They both inflect the outcome that's really difficult to get your arms around, where if you can really distill it down to the one key driver, and obviously there's gonna be secondary and tertiary components to it, but where you say our bet fundamentally is on this dimension. So much easier. Right. And that clarifies then everything thereafter.

[00:11:34] So if you are able to get the deal done, what is the value creation plan? Well, it should all centrally be focused on that primary vector that's gonna drive the outcome. It's a funny sort of analog, but I feel like it's the same thing with family or at the early stage of raising our kids. But I kind of start intuitively from the North star of like.

[00:11:57] Who do we want them to be in the world as adults? And then what do we have to do working backwards to kind of get to that outcome and really help make sure we're scaffolding to help them get there.

[00:12:10] Sean Mooney: Hey, as a quick interlude, this is Sean here. Wanted to address one quick question that we regularly get.

[00:12:15] We often get people who show up at our website, call our account executives and say, Hey, I'm not private equity. Can I still use BluWave to get connected with resources? And the short answer is yes. Even though we're mostly and largely used by hundreds of private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio company leaders, every day we get calls from everyday top proactive business leaders at public companies, independent companies, family companies.

[00:12:40] So absolutely you can use this as well. If you want to use the exact same resources that are trusted in being deployed and perfectly calibrated for your business needs, give us a call. Visit our website@BluWave.net. Thanks. Back to the episode,

[00:12:58] Jared. I'm curious, you look at hundreds of companies probably a year, right? And probably thousands over your career, and no doubt that gives you kind of a pattern recognition of like what are the elements and drivers of value. And so as you think about when you're looking at businesses about whether they are excellent or probably more importantly in this market, can and will be more excellent.

[00:13:20] What are some of the key traits that you look for in a company?

[00:13:23] Jared Stein: Yeah, it's a great question. I've been fortunate in my career to be in institutions where I was around great businesses for now, well over 20 years. So I started at Goldman, and then I was at Bain Capital, and then ultimately two spin up funds from there, including Golden Gate.

[00:13:40] And so I saw at scale these market leading consumer businesses and what it took to kind of sustain excellence at that level. And then now in our monogram platform, we're really focused on building the next echelon of those businesses. In some cases, it goes back to that thematic of working backwards.

[00:14:00] Once you know what good looks like and the the central sort of tenants we tend to see. One is great leadership at the top right, and within that is all of the things we just talked around around ruthless prioritization and kind of knowing what the strap plan looks like and what it's gonna take to achieve it.

[00:14:20] I'd say the second piece of that is, is there a north star in terms of the product or service and what role it fulfills within its customer. So we view customer excellence as sort of the central. Tenant of everything that the business needs to do, right? So that's kind of the next drill down layer. And then the third is fundamentally, I think good business goes with sort of good customer experience, meaning the unity economics have to work because you need to be able to provide value to your customer and sort of a price value there that's really appealing.

[00:14:56] And then obviously still have the margin to make. Things work on your end. And so we spend a tremendous amount of time early saying, what are the unique economics here? How do we leverage what generally tends to be a very healthy kind of foundation that's very efficient, that maybe we can improve, but is largely efficient today to kind of amplify the growth cadence?

[00:15:20] And that for us typically spans across both organic and inorganic avenues.

[00:15:27] Sean Mooney: I think that's so spot on. Jared, you kind of summed up as I'm reflecting like decades of business lessons learned the hard way in my mind into like a really elegant synopsis, right? It's this whole idea of like, do you have great people?

[00:15:40] Do you have a really good product that people want and can you make money on it? I mean, ultimately, what else is there? Right? So that's what matters, right? It's the, those are the pillars.

[00:15:52] Jared Stein: We often start from that second pillar, which is. Is there just outsized consumer evangelism here in today's environment?

[00:16:01] Right? There's so much noise, there's so much saturation, so many options, which is a great thing. But ultimately, if the consumer doesn't care and doesn't know you exist, you will get lost in that d and so. If you look at brands and companies in our portfolio, whether it's something that is in the beverage space, like an op for us in the pet space, like a chewy, or even take a probably more sleepy category like our garage repair, franchisee business precision.

[00:16:32] The central sort of through line through all of that is the fact that. Relative to peers, each of those businesses, you can see these signs of consumer engagement that are totally outsized, and then you see it in performance on shelf or the customer reviews. That type of evangelism leads to word of mouth, which leads to reduced marketing, which leads to enhanced profitability, which allows you to pour that profitability back into the top of the funnel and continue to scale at rapid pace.

[00:17:03] Sean Mooney: I think there's a really interesting points there. You had me thinking, 'cause most of my career in today, I spend in the B2B market and you're, I think, spending a lot of time in kind of B2C. How do you think about market in that perspective? We have massive markets, a lot of players, a lot of fragmentation.

[00:17:23] Even within these segments, and yet you have these brands that just rapidly rise up and they either create a category or they take share from the incumbent. How does that factor into your thinking?

[00:17:33] Jared Stein: Yeah, it's the right question. It's multimodal, honestly. So the first piece is we often try and make sure we've got category right.

[00:17:41] So where is there a thematic tailwind? That isn't sort of faddish in any nature. So there's long duration of history. So if you look at our food portfolio, for example, it's yogurt, soda jerky. These aren't kind of frontier type spaces. So they've been around, but there's a discernible share shift that is happening.

[00:18:04] And then the second layer of that is. Do the brands or the businesses have sort of a sustainable moat around them and what they do we typically wanna see is actually really hard. And so there's gotta be IP there or knowhow that is extremely difficult to replicate. If it's purely a sales and marketing arms race, we'll kind of say, look, it could work.

[00:18:26] This is really interesting to track and monitor. But that doesn't clear the bar for us. And then the last piece I think is. Going back to what we were just talking about, which is does the consumer, are they fanatical about the service or the product? And so we spend a lot of time just looking at engagement statistics.

[00:18:46] We've spent a lot of time talking to buyers on the ground and their insights, doing really deep dives in consumer survey work, but all of that is going after. Why is this different? Why does this play a meaningful role in your life? One of the other interesting filters that we found is we're looking for areas of consumer that are either non-discretionary, entirely in nature, or are such high repeat purchase items that they are a part of that consumer's daily life.

[00:19:15] So where you won't see us play it, for example, is in. Large ticket purchases like furniture or apparel that are more episodic. We really wanna be a daily use item because the corpus of data there that says, Hey, I'm gonna be tremendously loyal to this business. It's just much, much larger and frankly more powerful through cycles.

[00:19:37] Sean Mooney: I mean, it's interesting. As I hear you speak, I was channeling a conversation I was having with two friends of mine, Lloyd Metz and Doug McCormick and other PE kinda leaders. We were talking about from the B2B comp construct here. And so this is really interesting to me 'cause I just don't understand these markets as much, but what you're saying was very, very consistent.

[00:19:57] What we were talking about is like ultimately you're looking for a company where the product and the offering flows like water naturally downhill. And as you talked about, like if you've got a pound it with sales and marketing and push that water straight back up and force it up, it's the second you would take that pressure away.

[00:20:12] It kind of like falls apart. As you're saying, you're looking for these signals of like, are your customers pulling it? Is it naturally flowing versus like forcing it?

[00:20:21] Jared Stein: It's extremely well said. I'd say one of the contrarian opinions we've had since starting the firm 12 years ago has been, there's a reticence around these direct to consumer brands, and in large part it's because of the dynamic that you've mentioned.

[00:20:36] Yes. It's exciting if you can get your razor shipped to your house instead of buying it in the store. Frankly, through COVID, we saw the proliferation of all of these categories that we would always think about as being in store purchases go direct to the consumer, and ultimately it's just what we've found is the desire for that consumer to continue to purchase over a long duration from those more faddish purchases shipped to the house.

[00:21:06] There tends to be a lot more churn and erosion of that loyalty. For us, that's a major area of consumer that we typically, with maybe Chewy being the one exception, which I can talk about as to why in PET that we've just never really gotten over that hurdle.

[00:21:23] Sean Mooney: Yeah. If you have to spend $50 to get a $20 lifetime value customer, that story ends really quickly.

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[00:22:39] With that in mind here, let's turn the page on our conversation. One of the things that I'm really curious about is you think about, you've seen these companies that have the traits and elements that are desirable now. You're partnering with them, you're investing them. How does your firm kind of approach that value creation phase of helping them kind of get to the next level?

[00:23:00] Jared Stein: Yeah, absolutely. As backdrop, a lot of our businesses are closely held or family held businesses where they are tremendous at the product or service that they put into market. But most of them, it's actually an interesting kind of precursor to the partnership. They are starting to hit resistance points in their business where they say, look, we've got a wait list of demand and we don't know how to scale up to service it.

[00:23:27] And so for us, it's a really welcome dialogue to say, we can be your hand and glove partner. You guys are extremely good at what you do. Let us pair that with the strength that we can deliver on sort of the strategic. Financial side, right? 'cause there is a resource aspect to it as well. And that partnership means that across our portfolio there's always a rollover element from that family member or founder.

[00:23:55] And that aligns incentives, but it also creates and necessitates an amount of trust that we're gonna build something together that also honors the values of where they started. And so I'd say if you look at the first. Three to six months of every investment we've ever made. There are three areas that we tend to typically touch.

[00:24:16] And it's not surprisingly everything around people, process and systems. And so most of the businesses that we come into, while again, there's a great CEO managing them, they're doing that very intuitively. And so part of the first stage of our effort is really putting in place the systems to get data capture.

[00:24:37] Then mining that data. 'cause a lot of these businesses, in many instances, will have the data but not know how to utilize it. Mining that data for insights to really understand who your customer is, how you're reaching them, what else they want from you, and then sort of porting that over into, okay, are there domain areas within the business where we think upleveling management is going to have.

[00:25:02] Fantastic ROI and really position us for the next five years. And so we do a lot of team building in that regard and recruiting to bring in hired hands that can partner very closely with that family owner and really elevate and uplevel the overall organization. In doing so,

[00:25:21] Sean Mooney: it's another great answer and, and I like many things about it.

[00:25:25] And one is this whole idea of you're partnering with founder owners. They know where they want to go. Like they probably have a pretty good strategy. They're just not sure how to get there. And so you maybe have a common end post that you're getting to. And what's really great about your business is I'm sure it's a very data rich environment that if you know how to use it certainly helps you probably show the way, but also track and trace how you're getting there and form the lefts and rights as you kind of try to reach Rome There

[00:25:54] Jared Stein: 100%.

[00:25:55] There are so many examples across the portfolio, but we're probably three months in. We sit back down with that original owner and we're showing them data that suggests that there are all these areas of their business that they've run for 20, 40 years in some instances, but not known exactly what was driving.

[00:26:17] They just knew that overall revenue kept going up into the right and EBITDA the same thing, but not the causal drivers underneath it. And what's interesting is when you can really get laser focused on what is actually driving that outsized customer loyalty or the growth in a market, it enables you to just go so much faster.

[00:26:37] And so one great example recently in a portfolio company. We bought this business that's the leading manufacturer for better For You meat sticks called Western Smokehouse, 40 year family held business. The son took it over two years prior to us, us buying it and partnering with him, and they were really operating on a one rooftop with, again, a huge wait list of demand.

[00:27:02] And so we've gone on over originally a five year time series. And went from one to five buildings. We grew ebitda five x, and I think watching him see that business explode and that there weren't sort of the more gradual stair steps to get there that you could kind of accelerate once you built that data foundation, those insights you could accelerate.

[00:27:27] That whole trajectory was just an incredibly cool experience to see unlocked through his eyes

[00:27:34] Sean Mooney: and once again, right on target. As I'm hearing you talk about this, I'm thinking like Jim Collins should gonna come and do a case study on you all because it's just what I'm hearing is like get the right people on the bus, use data, use it to inform decisions, measure along the way, be disciplined, and then when you're on target, like go from the aiming rounds to the cannonballs and then just like hit it.

[00:27:58] So we talked about in this podcast a number of times about good to great, but you just kind of summed it up

[00:28:03] Jared Stein: so you're spot on. I think for us, part of that too is asset selection. So because we're such thesis driven investors, we start from generally solving around these fragmented categories where scale and centers of excellence drive outcomes.

[00:28:21] To your point around that acceleration, once you've gotten your business really dialed in, you've gotten the right people on the bus. Not only are you driving. Acceleration of organic growth, but you're consolidating a space and you're doing it with a playbook that everything you buy, you're hopefully adding a lot of value to above and beyond sort of just the scale advantages that you bring to bear.

[00:28:44] Sean Mooney: Once again, I, I think right on point here, and so as you think about this, as we kind of bring our conversation forward. We talked about the traits that you're looking at. We talked about kind of how you approach value creation, and now we're in this kind of world where there's, I call it the washing machine economy, where it's like good news, bad news, good news, bad news, and in some ways welcome to life, like, you know, and, but otherwise it is what it is.

[00:29:09] How are you kind of like speaking with the companies you're partnering and what's maybe some of the advice and the approaches that you're working together and sharing with them on how to manage this kind of world we're living in today?

[00:29:21] Jared Stein: To your point, Sean, we hear so much rhetoric around innovation cycles only accelerating, and I think that is a thousand percent true, especially as you look at the advent of AI in that era that we're entering into.

[00:29:35] What I don't think you hear as much about is the same is true in my mind around these disruption cycles, right? And so if you look at the last five years. You've toggled from COVID disruption and all of the changes in consumer behavior that ensued, and then also many of which normalize thereafter to supply chain disruption to most recently tariffs and a lot of very sort of quick to market regulatory changes.

[00:30:04] And so. Against that backdrop, our biggest piece of advice for our portfolio and where we've been maniacally focused is how do you create anti fragility in your business? And within that, it does actually go back to how well do you service the customer. So how tight is that relationship and therefore likeliness of disruption there.

[00:30:26] How strong are your unity economics? But it's also how do you get lean? How do you get better? From within because you don't know what that next shock to the system might be. And on the supply chain piece, we spend a lot of time making sure there is deep redundancy in every node of that production system because you just don't know what the next shoe is to drop in this market.

[00:30:51] Sean Mooney: It's a great approach. We're talking internally with some of the folks in our team here and they were asking 'cause they're relatively younger and saying like, they're Sean. You're like, 'cause I know I'm the gray haired guy in, in the office and like was there ever a time where it just wasn't crazy? Like every single month?

[00:31:08] And I'm like, not really. I mean maybe some period, like a short period in the nineties, but there's always been something. But to your point, it seems to be everything's happening faster and you know, I have to think about things metaphorically. 'cause I think about it as you're describing it. Like in the world of business, if you're this ship sailing across the water to.

[00:31:29] The destination you wanna get to. The answer is you don't just pull down the sails and wait it out, right? And just like, we're gonna wait in the harbor and someday it'll be nice. Like if you did that, no one would've ever crossed an ocean or a body of water. It's like, no, you gotta batten down the hatches.

[00:31:43] You gotta get tough. You gotta be smart. You gotta look out there. You're gonna leave the port and just head out there. Doesn't mean you're not tacking left and right, and, and forward and backwards, but you gotta go forward. And if you don't, you're just gonna miss out.

[00:31:57] Jared Stein: Couldn't agree more. And within that is a whole set of practices, right?

[00:32:01] It's sort of how you orient your org. It's where you're investing and where you're maybe streamlining at times, proactively to have a little bit more flex in the system. But yet another example. One of the areas that we really like to institute in our new investments is when we're setting the annual budget.

[00:32:20] We're also saying, all right, the management team need to have three to five things in your back pocket. That if top line gets rocky or things are unpredictable, where are you gonna sort of pull value back from? And so what is that contingency break the glass scenario? And then on the flip side, 'cause it's dual-sided, where are the areas that if you start seeing enhanced payback, you can hit the gas harder and we can pull forward effectively.

[00:32:49] And so I think a lot of that is truly at its gorgeous scenario planning, knowing that. There are these unknowns that are gonna pop up and at the end of the day, to your point, you still have to make that journey across water. So let's prepare for every potential scenario as much as we possibly can.

[00:33:09] Sean Mooney: I really like that thought, and it kind of gets me channeling.

[00:33:12] I was talking the other day and someone was saying kind of like, why bring in private equity? I don't need it. I can do these things. We can probably string it through. And one of the things that had me thinking is to stick with this metaphor, it's like, yeah, but. A opportunities could present where you need to hit the gas, where you need the fuel, or B, the wind might drop to zero and you're gonna need some fuel to get to plow through that and turn on the engine.

[00:33:36] And so what groups like yours can bring is not only the insights and knowledge, but like you're bringing fuel to make sure you cross and make it through that ocean. Where so many of the family businesses, they're like, I've got everything on my shoulders. And if the wind goes away, we run outta gas, we're sunk.

[00:33:51] Jared Stein: Agreed. I think one takeaway for me over the last couple years in particular has been the A quality assets have elevated and created more separation from the rest of the field than I've seen in certainly other, other decades. And the flip is also true, which is if you're sort of riding along in the middle, just on the basis, let's say, of Tailwind in your space, but you haven't really kind of cemented the reason to be for the business.

[00:34:20] Generally there's been a tail off there and so you really do see a tale of two cities in this market in terms of asset quality, management, quality, et cetera, that I think you want to go to your other point from strength to strength in this market, or you just risk falling behind.

[00:34:37] Sean Mooney: That is very well said and it's a conversation.

[00:34:39] I talk with other friends in pe they, they say it's a have and have not market. There's not a lot in the middle, so I think it's a really good point to drive home for people listening. So. Jared, if we maybe bring it full circle here. And I think you've shared a lot of really kind of sage insights and if we were to kind of bring it back to the way back machine and one of the things that I selfishly do is borrow everyone else's advice because if I'm left to my own devices, I'd be in a lot of trouble.

[00:35:07] And so, so, so if you were to go back to 22-year-old Jared and share a piece of advice that you wish you knew, then what might one of those things be?

[00:35:17] Jared Stein: That's a tough one in particular because that 22-year-old was pretty headstrong for me. I think going back then, I had so much aspiration and so much ambition as to what I wanted to do out in the world and the impact I wanted to have.

[00:35:31] I think a lot of the advice, as simple as it is, would be stop and enjoy that journey in a huge contradiction. All of the advice that we've been talking about for businesses where we're saying. Plan for everything and sort of look out into the future. I think there's real value personally to just being able to be present in the moment and celebrate the small victories.

[00:35:53] And admittedly, it's an area I still struggle in. We've got multiple closing dinners for new deals that are in the queue that have not happened. And so it's finding ways and time to kind of take stock of where you're at and just enjoy those ups and downs. 'cause they're perennially gonna be there and there's no other reason to do this than to enjoy it with teams or the the members of your family that you're on the ride with.

[00:36:20] Sean Mooney: It's very well said and I think it's something that resonates with a lot who listen to this, right? It's these business builders. You're in the C-suite of company, you're a private equity investor. I had very much the same thing. I was just like, go, go, go. Every day. I was behind. I always had blinders on. I was just looking how far I had to go versus how far I've come.

[00:36:39] And one of the things as I've kind of earned more and more gray hair I've been trying to get better on is kind of embracing like the whole concept of polarity and polar thinking. Like thinking that two things can't be true. Like you can either go all in full gas, all throttle, no breaks. Or you can smell the roses and I'm gradually learning that you can do both at once.

[00:37:03] It doesn't have to be this or that.

[00:37:05] Jared Stein: Agreed. But if you figure out the way to sustain balance on those dimensions, please gimme a call. It's so difficult, right? To manage both at once. And I think there's a concern for a lot of folks in our seat that if you do stop to smell the roses, even occasionally, you're gonna fall behind.

[00:37:23] And you're exactly right. You gotta do both.

[00:37:26] Sean Mooney: It's interesting you talk about this, like I, that's something too, I always ask how do you do it? And it's kind of like at some point as you get this far along, like I just don't know how to do it any other way.

[00:37:36] Jared Stein: Agreed.

[00:37:37] Sean Mooney: Just kind of like, this is what it is. Just through BluWave.

[00:37:40] It's kind of interesting. We'll get a lot of folks who, they've sold their business and they're saying, I don't wanna do 90 hours a week anymore, but I wanna consult. And people cut from this similar cloth where they've built things, they're doers, they're makers. I always ask 'em kind of out of selfish curiosity.

[00:37:55] Okay. Let's say you sold your business. You're now on the beach, you're smelling the roses. How long did it take before you went? Utterly insane. There's only so much golf to play. There's only so much gym to do and I, 90% of the people give me the same answer three months. It's like, in some ways there's like a fear.

[00:38:15] It's like, okay, well I'm not jumping on this thing, but it's so important to your point, to like find those moments and it's hard, but you only live once. The thing I've always heard from people is like, no one ever looks back on their life and go, oh man, I wish I worked just a little harder.

[00:38:28] Jared Stein: No, that's right.

[00:38:29] We have an operating advisor who's tried to retire three times. Now it's the Michael Jordan era. He just constantly gets pulled back into the fray. If you love what you're doing, you can dictate the rules on which you do it, and so you might as well just enjoy that. One of the things for us, as small as it is, is our whole team, myself included, loves food, and so every city we go to.

[00:38:52] We're making sure that we're at least eating well and getting in a special meal. That generally, as part of the local culture, it's finding those little ways to show up and enjoy the process.

[00:39:03] Sean Mooney: I need to embrace that myself. It's like, do the things you love. Find those moments of joy. Build them into your life.

[00:39:09] Well, Jared, this has been an amazing conversation. I've learned truly all sorts of things that I wish I knew before. That really is a tremendous gift, and so thank you for sharing that with us today. It is truly appreciated.

[00:39:23] Jared Stein: Thank you, Sean. Hugely enjoyed it and inspired by what you do.

[00:39:37] Sean Mooney: That's all we have for today. Special thanks to Jared for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Jared Stein and Monogram Capital Partners. Please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business Podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcast. We truly appreciate your support.

[00:39:54] If you like what you hear, please follow five star rate, review and or share. This is a free way to support the show and it really helps us when you do this, so thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you want to be connected with the world's best in class private equity grade professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives.

[00:40:12] That are deployed and trusted by the best business builders in the world, including many hundreds of top PE firms and thousands of portfolio companies, and you can do the same whether or not you're in the PE world. Give us a call or visit our website@BluWave.net. That's B-L-U-W-A-V-E and we'll support your success.

[00:40:30] Onward. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the individuals presenting and do not necessarily reflect the user positions of any other persons or entities, including those referenced herein. No representations, warranties, financial, legal, tax, or other advisor made herein. Consult your advisors regarding any topics discussed during this episode.

Private equity insights for and with top business builders, including investors, operators, executives and industry thought leaders. The Karma School of Business Podcast goes behind the scenes of PE, talking about business best practices and real-time industry trends. You'll learn from leading professionals and visionary business executives who will help you take action and enhance your life, whether you’re at a PE firm, a portco or a private or public company.

BluWave Founder & CEO Sean Mooney hosts the Private Equity Karma School of Business Podcast. BluWave is the business builders’ network for private equity grade due diligence and value creation needs.