Private Equity | ex McKinsey & ex IB
Montreal
Joined October 2012
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Quilan Foster retweeted
Game theory shows that the long game isn't a strategy most people can execute. That's because it tends to require a negative short-term position in exchange for a real advantage later. Most people cannot commit to this because their threat-detection system reads current loss as an existential failure. And that's vicious short-sightedness. It leads them to optimize for visible progress and sacrifice their real position. The people who constantly win rarely have better information. Instead, they accept that losing now will pay off later. Never quit a game before it starts.
Quilan Foster retweeted
never ever look desperate in life, especially when everything around you is falling apart.
remain calm.
money's gone? stay calm.
heartbroken? stay calm.
all your plans collapsed? stay calm.
panic changes nothing, and desperation makes you do humiliating shit. beg for opportunities, chase people who have already left, accept disrespect, make terrible decisions, all because you're terrified of uncertainty and silence.
learn to contain yourself. you will be back up.
learn to accept that sometimes it's simply your turn to suffer. there isn't always a deeper explanation, a hidden lesson or some grand reason behind it. sometimes life just beats the shit out of you, and right now it's your turn.
stop asking "why me?"
well, why not you?
you asked for strength. did you expect strength to arrive wrapped in comfort?
anybody can look strong when life is easy. what's so impressive about that? the real test of character is whether you can remain composed when everything around you is burning. hard times have a way of revealing whether your strength was actually character or just a facade built on favourable circumstances.
you want to know the real flex? life's a complete shitshow and you move anyway. straighten your posture, get your head right and keep going.
lost money? make it again.
lost a person? keep moving.
lost the plan? build another one.
lost your footing? stand up again.
but never, ever lose yourself.
don't let a temporary season of suffering turn you into someone you wouldn't respect when life gets better.
and one day, the same season that nearly took you out will become a story you tell casually. not to prove how strong you were, not to seek sympathy, but because you're genuinely past it. because you've lived long enough to realise just how temporary all of this shit really is, and understand that staying composed doesn't mean pretending nothing hurts. you can grieve, you can be exhausted, you can admit that life is fucking terrible right now. just don't let your suffering make your decisions for you.
never be desperate. take the hit, keep your posture, protect your dignity and let life test how badly you actually want to become the person you've always envisioned.
you can lose almost everything and still rebuild.
just make sure you don't lose yourself in the process.
Quilan Foster retweeted
Half of becoming extremely successful is not going insane from constant pressure, loneliness, discipline, uncertainty and consistency as the temperature increases.
The reason people don't make it is because they get fed up with these and turn down the temperature.
At some point they want "normal" and tap out.
So few do it because so few can actually tolerate the mental toll and fall back to their lesser ways.
Embrace going crazy where other turn back.
EOI accepted, going to the next stage: management presentation.
Good experience to be moving forward in the deal process.
Let鈥檚 see where this leads us.
A deal came in a few weeks ago:
$17.4M revenue
$4.6M EBITDA
26% EBITDA margin
Company鈥檚 been around for 79 years and management team wants to stay in place.
Currently drafting the EOI (expression of interest), which is the first step in the acquisition process.
Since it鈥檚 a brokered deal, the process is very structured and they really want to qualify all potential buyers.
This creates way more competition - brokers are incentivized to boost the valuation cause they get a cut % of the transaction value.
Let鈥檚 see how it goes.
Two investor meetings and coffee with an M&A banker today.
WHO you know is sometimes more important than WHAT you know.
If you want to make things happen in business, M&A specifically, you need to grow your network and treat it like it鈥檚 part of your business model.
You need to build momentum if you want to find good investment opportunities.
When I started a few months back, I had ZERO deal flow.
I contacted brokers, accountants and investment bankers to get on their distribution list.
What started off slow has been compounding over time.
Went from receiving zero deals in a week to 4 in a day.
I鈥檓 still doing outreach and connecting with people, but the key takeaway is that your actions compound over time.
What you are doing TODAY will have a big impact on your results months from now.
A deal came in a few weeks ago:
$17.4M revenue
$4.6M EBITDA
26% EBITDA margin
Company鈥檚 been around for 79 years and management team wants to stay in place.
Currently drafting the EOI (expression of interest), which is the first step in the acquisition process.
Since it鈥檚 a brokered deal, the process is very structured and they really want to qualify all potential buyers.
This creates way more competition - brokers are incentivized to boost the valuation cause they get a cut % of the transaction value.
Let鈥檚 see how it goes.
Join my TG channel if you want to see the full journey of acquiring businesses
t.me/qfost
We live in an era of information overload.
It's easy to consume, but hard to create.
Very few people are capable of original thought.
Networking is one of the most asymmetric things you can do.
Pretty much zero downside except time, with HUGE upside potential.
Create your own luck by meeting more people.
Love this idea a lot, but let鈥檚 think about the market size of this product for a second with some quick maths:
Let鈥檚 assume that people won鈥檛 drop more than 50% of their wealth in this (less in reality), so we鈥檙e targeting people worth $10M+.
There鈥檚 ~3 million people worldwide with a $10M+ net worth.
Around 30% of them are already American, leaving us with ~2.1M that are from outside the country.
We can adjust for the current holders of EB-5 visas, but the number is small and won鈥檛 be that impactful.
So assuming that you can convert all of these people (~2.1M), you鈥檇 generate $10.5T in revenue.
But now, I doubt this will happen. Let鈥檚 say that we can get even 10% of that market, they鈥檇 be issuing 210K new golden visas, and generate $1T in revenue.
The usual range for a citizenship by investment is around $250K-$500K, and you can get it in countries where there鈥檚 no income taxes and lots of benefits.
Not sure how this one will compete against other options, but it鈥檚 an interesting proposition nonetheless.
Success in business can truly only be found once you鈥檝e mastered your mind.
People always talk about the tactical part of things, but not enough about the mental side of the equation.
As an entrepreneur, your outer world is defined by your inner world.
Your beliefs and thoughts influence your emotions.
Your emotions influence your actions.
And your actions determine your results.
Everything you want to achieve is therefore a consequence of your mindset: beliefs and thoughts.
For your business to grow, you need to grow as an individual.
Your success in entrepreneurship is tied to your self improvement.