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From Ironman To Everest To Business Exit: Lessons Contractors Need with Steven Pivnik · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

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Welcome to another great episode of the Contractor Business
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Builder podcast. Today we have Stephen Pivnick.
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Most owners build to keep going. Stephen Pivnick teaches owners
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how to build. The finish is the CEO of AIP
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Advisory. How you doing today?
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Steven, I'm doing great. Derek, thank you so much for
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having me on the. Show wonderful.
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So you tell us what AIP advisory stands for and then a bit about
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your your background and how you got to where you are today.
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You're a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that AIP
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stands for Anything is Possible. I'm very addicted to endurance
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sports, specifically Ironman distance triathlons and and
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Anything is possible is the tagline for Iron Man.
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So I decided to use those officials for my advisory work
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because I truly believe that anything is possible when it
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comes to entrepreneurship, which is a good segue to what I do or
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what I did. My little bit of my background,
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I consider myself a recovering entrepreneur.
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My last company I grew to just over 200 employees across 12
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countries. It was a software company.
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We sold that to a $4 billion competitor of ours and really,
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really enjoyed the entire journey.
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I made a did a lot of things right, did a lot of things
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wrong. And right now, it's really
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rewarding to pay it forward from an advisory perspective to help
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other founders go through some similar, you know, final stages
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of growth and then exit journey, which is my core competency.
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Wonderful. No, that's, that's, you know,
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obviously seeing the whole trajectory of a business from
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from start to finish, which is a unique perspective scaling of
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business to, to exiting 866 successfully.
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And can you maybe speak a little bit to how leadership plays into
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growing a business and some of the, you know, the biggest
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challenges you had through going from startup to to completion?
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Leadership is obviously incredibly important, right,
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Both from the founders perspective, but as importantly
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from the from the rest of the executive team and what I found
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in my own business and you know, on advising with others.
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Most founders, myself included, are incredibly loyal to staff
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that have been there, you know, from the get go.
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And almost always, especially when you get to a company
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that's, you know, that's reached a $10 million, you know, per
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year level or higher, the the company outgrows the individual
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that was there from the beginning.
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You know, sometimes, sometimes I found themselves right.
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So I think they're very, very tough decisions for founders to
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make, especially from with folks that have that have been so
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loyal and so integral to the growth of the company.
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But unfortunately, it's just a necessary evil that you know,
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needs to take place and otherwise, you know, the
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leadership structure and capability just isn't going to
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be what the company needs to continue to grow and to see a
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successful exit. So easier said than done.
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Super tough but huge part of leadership.
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Yeah, extremely understandable. Where you want to be loyal, you
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have people that have been working with you or for you for
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a long time and and essentially the business changes and and
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sometimes that that means personnel needs to change as
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well. How do you know it's maybe the
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right time or how do you approach those decisions,
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especially if it's going to be multiple people inside your
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organization? Yeah, you, you kind of see it
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start creeping up from an analysis paralysis perspective
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on certain issues, like, you know, folks that are tasked with
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making big decisions in an environment that they've never
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been in before. For example, if you have a head
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of finance that's, you know, running your finance and
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accounting function and he or she has never run, let's say a
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$20 million company and you, you're now, you know, exceeding
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that that level. It's really not his or her
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fault, but they just don't have the experience of running an
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organization at that level. So you, you see things creep up,
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you know, bad decisions, delayed decisions, over analyzing things
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and asking for a lot of input from various other stakeholders.
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Those are just some of the telltale signs that opposed the
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person is struggling a little bit or making it up as he or she
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is going along versus somebody that you can bring in that's run
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a $30 million organization or a $40 million organization.
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From a finance and accounting perspective.
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He or she is going to be making decisions, you know, based on
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his or her playbook and based on previous their their previous
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experience. And it's going to be a lot of a
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lot easier and smoother for the organization and for the company
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as a whole. Yeah, great, great distinction
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there. I think a lot of people think
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when they scale, they're just sort of adding more people.
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But really there needs to be some potential, you know,
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shuffling reorganization as well as you know, the business
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outgrows capacity of certain roles or people within the
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organization. Now, how do you approach high
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like do you do you promote leaders within inside the
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company? Like how does that look as the
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company grows? Or what do you look for when you
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bring outside leadership, experience, skills, culture?
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How do you grow that that? Team, I'm a huge fan of
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promoting from within and obviously, you know, people have
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to earn the right to be promoted and many of them, you know, do
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deserve it. And I'm all for giving those
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individuals the opportunity to operate at the next level.
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But as long as clear expectations are set within
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individual saying, hey, let's let's just pick on their head
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head of sales because that's numbers, right?
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Hey, we're really getting to this, you know, high level.
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Now we're about to approach $25 million in sales.
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You've been doing a phenomenal job to this point.
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But if I see any hiccups in the road or, you know, any bumps,
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then I reserve the right as the owner to, you know, bring in
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somebody who's operated at this level.
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So I'm backing you, I'm going to support you and let's see how it
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goes. But let's just be aware that a
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different decision may be made in the future.
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And again, easier said than done.
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I've, I've done some of these, some of these types of moves
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correctly and with the great, what a good outcome.
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And I've done some of these moves, you know, with mistakes.
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So there's going to be some, you know, trial and error required
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when you're going, which is good news, right?
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If you, if you, if you have to make these decisions, that means
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you're growing. That's fantastic.
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But be prepared for the, you know, trial and error with the
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continuous shaping and molding of the leadership team.
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Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And how, how, how do you
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approach communication with inside the team so that they
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like you explicitly, you know, stating as you did that what
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your expectations are and that there's, there's room there.
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But if they can't, you know, perform, then you may have to
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bring someone else in and things like that.
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But as far as like team communication, make sure
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everyone's aligned, everyone's on the same page, that they kind
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of know what to expect as as you scale up, what are some of the
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specific like meetings you have or ways that you communicate
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with inside your team? Yeah, Towards the tail end of my
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journey with the company I just mentioned it was called Binary
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Tree, I became a massive fan of KPI's and reports.
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Not that that we, we didn't have reports in earlier stages of the
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company, we did, but it was I'm, I'm not embarrassed to say it
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was amateur hour compared to what we evolved into.
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I eventually got to the point where I met with every single
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department head and we jointly came up with a set of reports
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and KPI's that they were going to produce and present at a
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newly instituted operational review meeting.
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The intention there was A to have meetings based on numbers
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and based on data and more importantly based on trends,
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right? A number for the sake of a
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numbers is OK, but it's better in the context of a trend.
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And everybody was expected to show trends heading in the right
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direction, right to the right and up.
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And if everybody and so there was a little bit of an internal
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competition that ensued. Nobody wanted to show up to a
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meeting with their numbers going in the wrong direction.
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But it did happen, right? It it happens all the time.
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It can be sailing 100% of the time.
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But if those numbers were going in the wrong direction, they
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were expected to present a remediation plan on how they
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were going to fix it. And I, I love Jack Welch's
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approach from GE. If a president of a division
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didn't perform well for multiple quarters, he would have a
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president of a different division that was performing
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well, you know, swooping and help him or her out.
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So that's not always doable in smaller companies.
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But you know that he's he's he's a guru and his book is still
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remains a classic the GE way. Yeah, definitely that that
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brings up my reminder for me about prioritizing your time or
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your team's time to helping those that are struggling over
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maybe helping the ones that are doing well exceed what?
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What's your thought on on that? Yeah, I mean it, it all depends
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on the type of culture that you want to have.
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Like for instance, you know, I have a client right now that's
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on one end of the extreme in terms of helping and taking an
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incredibly long time to mentor, tutor, assist, get advisors for
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folks that, you know, really aren't cutting it, Which,
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because again, that's the culture in, in the organization.
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We stand by our people. We're gonna, you know, give them
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the necessary training, etcetera, etcetera.
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I believe in that a lot. But to us, to a certain point, I
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mean, I, I wouldn't let that process, you know, last a year.
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If, if there's, you know, certain areas for improvement,
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you need to have the, you know, that heart to heart conversation
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with the individual, you know, put together a game plan for
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improvement. Give it some time, give it, you
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know, give it, you know, check in definitely no later than, you
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know, a month to see how it's improving.
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You know, I would all in maybe give it three months and before
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you have to take some action. Makes sense.
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And just going back before, what are a few like key KPI's that
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you always look for that you guys developed as a side like
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some of the top KPI that you would look at with your
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divisions? And obviously cash flow, right,
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we worry bootstrap company, we did not have any outside
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funding. So you know, cash flow was
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incredibly important. We did have a credit line and I
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advise a lot of companies that don't have credit lines because
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they feel that they're always flush with cash.
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Please get a credit line because you never know when you're going
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to need it and the need for cash is going to come up at the worst
9:51
possible time and it's going to be impossible for you to get it
9:54
when you need it. So get a very, very fat line of
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credit, even if you don't need it and just have it available to
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you. So cash flow was huge, obviously
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profitability and we wanted to, you know, we, we measured gross
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margin and margins on our various lines of business.
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We did a great job of measuring sales and sales activity.
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So not only looking at pipeline, which we definitely looked at,
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you know, which deals are committed, you know, which ones
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are qualified, which ones are, you know, working their way up
10:20
the ladder. We also did a really good job of
10:22
looking at the activity of the sales force because that's a
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leading indicator as to how great the pipeline is going to
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be. If they're not enough calls, if
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they're not enough meetings and if they're not enough
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presentations or demonstrations to the customer, then you know,
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that's going to show up eventually in a slope smaller
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than expected pipeline. So, and then we, we also
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measured, you know, in internal employee satisfaction, which we
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took super seriously and we did so via something called the Q12
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survey. And then we also measured
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external customer unsatisfaction we the NPS scores.
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Great. Yeah, got the like as you
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mentioned leading indicators, super important and then
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obviously like financials and client, you know, client
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expectations being met and feedback surveys and stuff like
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that. Super, super important.
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Now managing 200 employees, growing this scale in this
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business, I'm sure you are stretched and stressed and and
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had a lot of a lot of stuff. Could you how, how do you manage
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your own time and you know, delegate, create accountability
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within ornate organization, make sure that you're not getting
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overwhelmed or, or the bottleneck that's that's slowing
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down or or causing issues for for the business.
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Yeah, that's a great question. That's really hard for a lot of
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founders to do because founder dependency is one of the biggest
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valuation killers when you when it comes time to exit and a it's
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a huge risk for the for the company.
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If there's, you know, so much riding on a single individual,
11:44
the founder, you know, be it's incredibly stressful and not
11:47
healthy for the founder, even though, you know, he or she
11:50
thinks that they're Superman. It it's, it's taking a toll
11:53
internally. And obviously that's, you know,
11:55
scientifically proven with, you know, reduced sleep is, is not a
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good thing. So it's, it's all about
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surrounding yourself with the right people and having the
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right measurements and communications in place.
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And if you can do so with people that you like and trust that can
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produce, then it allows you to sleep A work less hours B sleep
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better at night, and most importantly, go and recharge and
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take vacations without anything falling apart.
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Yeah, for sure. I have to remember that, you
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know, we're all human at the end of the day and you need a break
12:27
and running a business or your life in it, you know, being
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stressed out or sleep deprived is not a good place to be for,
12:34
for decision making and and just, you know, enjoying your
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life at the end of the day. Now you mentioned getting ready
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for for accident. Now were you planning along with
12:45
your company that the the strategy was to to so to maybe
12:49
competitor or exit the company? How long was that process?
12:52
What was the thought for you as far as you know getting ready to
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to solve that? We definitely didn't think about
12:58
it from the beginning and we were fortunate that we had like
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4, three mini exits on during our journey via, you know, some
13:06
significant licensing deals, 1 to IBM on the one with Microsoft
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that wiped out a very large portion of our revenue stream.
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But we managed to, you know, pivot and reinvent ourselves a
13:16
little bit and continue to grow the business.
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We also had an asset sale of one of our divisions midway, you
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know, through our or think about about 8 years into our corporate
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life, maybe a little bit less so.
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But for the, for the big one, I really started taking it
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seriously about three years prior to it actually happening.
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And I, you know, came across on a phenomenal advisor who I work
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with now, this firm, now that we've been working together
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jointly, we have 38 exits under our belt totaling $1.2 billion
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and found their wealth created. And you really opened my eyes
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and told me many of the things that need to be put into place
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in order for the outcome to be as, as, as maximized as it, as
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it can be. So we jointly, you know, work
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worked on it for multiple years and before having the exit.
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And that's something I advise on a lot of founders who do now
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because you can't, there's, there's just a whole bunch of
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things that need to be, you know, tidied up, you know,
14:17
prettied up and structured better inside of an
14:19
organization, which, um, if not done properly, it's, it's not
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gonna, doesn't mean a company can't be sold.
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It just means the final evaluation is not going to be
14:29
what it could be. Definitely.
14:30
Can you elaborate a bit on those specific areas that that you
14:34
worked on or that are are are quite critical to?
14:37
Preparing for exit. So first of all, you definitely
14:40
want to show growth, right? When you're preparing your
14:42
company for exit, you want to show, you know, trailing, you
14:45
know, two to three years of growth because there are a flat
14:48
organization is going to be less attractive.
14:51
Come to one that has, you know, two or three years of, you know,
14:54
10 plus percent growth on an annual basis.
14:57
And you want, you want to make sure your, your internal
15:01
processes of, you know, closing your books is as as as
15:05
sophisticated as possible so that, you know, books are closed
15:08
and reports are generated and produced on that are a very
15:12
accurate and B, come out very timely.
15:14
No less than seven days after the month closes is ideal.
15:18
And that is very possible. Don't let anybody tell you that
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it's going to take at least, you know, 10 days to two weeks to
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close the books. That's that's just not true.
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It's possible to close them quicker.
15:27
And you also want to make sure that you that you can clearly
15:31
articulate your differentiators in in the marketplace, right?
15:35
Because you want to show an acquirer that your your
15:39
technology or your service offering or your product is
15:42
going to be hard to replicate for customers.
15:44
And lastly, you want to be able to clearly prove that there's
15:49
continued growth available in the business, right?
15:51
So if you, you nobody wants to buy a business that is
15:54
completely flatlined, even if it's been growing for the last
15:57
two years or three years straight, buyers want to see
16:00
that it can continue to grow, right.
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So you need to you know, clearly articulate, you know how much
16:05
juice is left in in the business on a go forward basis.
16:09
As far as the negotiations and actually selling the business,
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how was that process for you? Did you, did you work with like
16:17
brokers or lawyers or you know, merger acquisition personnel or
16:20
was it more you and this advisor that you had?
16:24
What was that like? We, we definitely brought on an
16:26
investment banker and we went through a very structured
16:29
process of inviting three different investment bankers to,
16:32
you know, interview us to learn more about our business.
16:35
And then they, you know, they went away for a month each and
16:39
they came back with a strategy and presentation on how they
16:42
were, how they would represent us.
16:44
So there, there's a lot of investment bankers available and
16:47
you know, many of them have certain expertise in, in certain
16:50
industries. So it, it definitely behooves
16:52
anybody that's looking to go to market, even even with an
16:56
advisor by their side, even though I had an advisor by my
16:59
side and I advised other companies.
17:00
Now if the investment bankers on there that the pros at bringing
17:04
buyers to the table and creating an auction.
17:07
I mean, your best case scenario is when you have multiple
17:10
bidders that are looking to buy your company, you know, that's
17:13
the best way to maximize valuation.
17:16
So obviously the lawyers and accountants and those are
17:19
prerequisites young, you definitely need those.
17:22
You'd be really, really well served with a, you know, founder
17:25
advisor. Not to put myself on the back.
17:27
There's many more like me in the world.
17:29
Put somebody next to you that's the whose success is based on
17:33
your success and then to jointly, you know, hire an
17:37
investment banker and have them execute the transaction.
17:41
Yeah, detailed layout there. Perfect.
17:43
Let's dive into your your advisory share a bit about some
17:47
of the, you know, clients that you work with what what's a good
17:50
fit for you? What areas of advisory do you do
17:53
you help with? What?
17:54
What's the? Yeah, yeah, I mean, my, my ideal
17:57
customer is someone that's been in business for 10 plus years is
18:01
doing at least $10 million US in in revenue.
18:05
Also, I'd like to work with folks that are, that have like
18:08
the majority of their wealth, you know, tied up in their
18:11
business like like I did, I had like 95% of my net worth, you
18:16
know, tied up in this illiquid asset called my company.
18:19
And it was, it's really, really important to me to have, you
18:22
know, the, the, the best outcome possible.
18:24
So that's my ideal ICP from an advisory perspective.
18:28
The first thing I always start out with is an exit readiness
18:31
assessment. This is a series of
18:33
questionnaires and doesn't, it's nowhere near as complicated as
18:37
it sounds. It takes about 25 minutes to
18:39
complete and it gives the customer a really good
18:42
understanding from three different lenses of on their
18:45
personal readiness, their financial readiness and the and
18:48
the companies readiness to go for an exit.
18:51
It's a really eye opening, you know, set of reports that allows
18:55
us to identify gaps and then to jointly put together a road map
18:59
to address those gaps in order for us to get to a maximum
19:03
valuation. And how long are you typically
19:06
working with clients to like are you specifically advising them
19:10
to help them towards this exit or what's what's sort of the
19:14
time frames and and expected, you know, outcomes that?
19:18
They're on the average. The average time frame is around
19:20
2 years. Projects sometimes go 3 to 4,
19:23
which is totally fine because some like the things that I
19:26
mentioned earlier, you know, they can be fixed overnight, you
19:28
know, they need to be addressed and these aren't like overnight
19:31
fixes to to put everything that I just mentioned prior into
19:35
play. So average 2:00-ish.
19:37
Some projects go 3 or 4 project can be done in is if every, if
19:41
somebody has their ducks in a row that I mentioned earlier and
19:44
they they really need to get to an exit sooner, then that's
19:47
definitely possible. Again, as long as everybody
19:49
understands that there's there there, there's often some risks
19:53
associated with going quicker, but definitely doable under the
19:56
right circumstances. Yeah, always some trade-offs
19:59
there. I'm sure if, if you know you
20:01
want to go quickly, maybe the evaluation isn't going to be as
20:05
as much, you know, as potentially extending the time
20:08
frame and things like that. OK.
20:10
And what do you feel is the biggest challenges, problems
20:13
that you encounter for these businesses that's maybe the
20:16
owners coming to you and saying, you know, I want to sell my
20:18
business in the next couple of years.
20:20
What what are the hiccups or friction that could happen as
20:23
they prepare or or move through the process?
20:26
Yeah, there's so many and no, no, who are the same.
20:29
There's sometimes, you know, problems with the cap table,
20:32
right? Some, some companies have a very
20:34
clean cap table like for instance, I, I was the sole
20:36
owner of my business and I had 10% of my stock in stock
20:40
options. Very, very clean.
20:42
Others have a myriad of, you know, ex partners and family
20:46
members and espouses that all own a piece of the pie and that
20:51
makes for a very just, it complicates the transaction
20:54
unless, unless you know, those delineations are clear cut and
20:58
the people aren't disruptive to the process.
21:01
That's case cause some of them can be disruptive to the
21:03
process. Having your, your duction role
21:06
from an accounting perspective, right?
21:08
And having the, the, the corporate governance that I
21:11
mentioned earlier of having everything, you know, super
21:13
organized, very methodical and the ability to close every
21:17
single month on, on a, on a, on a timely and accurate basis
21:22
because the, a sales process will take multiple months.
21:25
You know, it can take anywhere from, you know, 6 to 12 months.
21:28
Some some well, a lot quicker. We were so incredibly organized
21:32
that, you know, we closed in 30 days because like we architected
21:35
it to be closed very, very quickly because like we were set
21:38
up for this other companies just, you know, aren't, you
21:41
know, that well organized. So, you know, cap table
21:45
financial processes internally, executive team also can play a
21:49
role, right? Depend also, specifically if
21:52
you're looking to sell potentially to a financial
21:54
buyer, you know, they're they're buying the team as much as
21:57
they're buying the company and the product, right?
22:00
They want to make sure that the team that they're investing in
22:02
or acquiring is capable of getting it to the next level.
22:06
And if it isn't, they will not hesitate to put their own team
22:09
in place, either wholesale swap or just individual members.
22:15
Definitely, yeah. I mean they want to get, you
22:17
know, the best return on their investment and if that means
22:19
changing some people or some parts and they'll go ahead and
22:21
do that. Wonderful.
22:23
Looking back on your success with with your company, if you
22:28
were going to maybe sidestep some issues that came up or do
22:32
things a little differently, what's what are some things like
22:36
that come to mind with the maybe the starter growth your company?
22:39
Hindsight being 2020, we were a victim of our own success.
22:43
Our products were in such great demand and we continue to
22:47
continue to grow revenue that we didn't concentrate on recurring
22:50
revenue enough. And as as a result our valuation
22:54
suffered. You know, only 10% of our
22:57
revenue was contractually recurring and 90% of it, you
23:00
know, needed to be refilled every single year.
23:02
Now I had complete confidence that we were going to grow every
23:05
year because we grew every single year for 26 years
23:08
straight. But it's very, very hard for any
23:12
buyer to have that same level of confidence in the business that
23:15
doesn't have contractually obligated recurring revenue.
23:19
So that's probably the biggest wrinkle I had in my company that
23:23
if I were to, if I were to do it over concentrate on recurring
23:26
revenue versus one time project based revenue.
23:29
Definitely. That's great, perfect insight.
23:32
So for those out there looking to connect with you, learn more
23:36
about your advisory, what's what's the best way for them to
23:38
do that? Yeah, best way to reach me is
23:40
via my website, which is Stephen pivnick.com that has all of my
23:44
social media handles. I'm very active on LinkedIn and
23:47
Instagram as well. You know, both those handles are
23:49
at Stephen Pivnick as well. And then you on the website will
23:52
have links to my podcast, my book There is an adventures and
23:56
experiences that I'm planning for entrepreneurs.
23:59
So website is the best way to learn more about me.
24:01
Perfect. Yeah, we'll put a link in the
24:03
description of this wherever you're listening or watching, go
24:05
to the go to the website, check it out.
24:07
You know that great content. Connect with Steven here.
24:09
What is a, what does the future hold for you or what, what are
24:13
some of the, you know, you got lots of personal, you know,
24:15
stuff with you mentioned you're doing Ironmans and all that
24:18
everything. What's give us a little insight
24:20
of of what you see for yourself and maybe some of the personal
24:23
endeavors that you're working on now?
24:24
Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm, I'm continuing to
24:26
pursue my endurance sports addiction.
24:28
I just heard my 18th Iron Man and I'll probably, I'll
24:31
definitely do more. I climbed Mount Everest last
24:34
year. I didn't make it to the top
24:35
because I got very sick, not altitude sickness.
24:37
I just got a cold when it was as a very, very severe cold and I
24:41
couldn't continue. So I definitely want to go back
24:43
to Everest one either next year or the year after.
24:47
And I'm super excited about the combining my advisory work with
24:52
endurance training. So I'm actually hosting 2
24:55
separate events. One of them has triathlon
24:58
training as the endurance component and the other one has
25:02
beginner mountaineering training as the endurance component.
25:05
Both experiences are going to be bookended with advisory work,
25:09
specifically this exit readiness assessment that I just
25:12
mentioned. So the triathlon training 1 is
25:15
going to happen right here in my backyard in Atlantic Beach, NY
25:18
in a couple of weeks in July of this year, and the
25:22
mountaineering version is going to happen in Ecuador in January.
25:26
Wonderful. My website will have information
25:29
on both of those. Perfect, that's exciting and
25:33
great to see mixing that fitness with with business.
25:37
You know, fitness as well, mind and body.
25:39
So super important. Keep everything working together
25:43
and appreciate you coming on here, Steven, sharing your
25:45
insights and wisdom and yeah, just thank you so.
25:47
Much thank you, Derek. I appreciate it.