How companies are bought and sold today - Arthur Petropoulos

In today’s episode, I chat with Arthur Petropoulos, Founder & Managing Partner at Hill View Partners, a Providence-based investment firm that specializes in mergers & acquisitions, business sales/exits, and capital advisory services for middle-market and lower middle-market companies.

Arthur founded Hill View Partners in 2016 after a successful tenure on Wall Street as an Investment Banker, Private Equity Investor, and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Development for a high growth Operating Company.

The first half of this 2023 saw M&A activity in the U.S. experience a significant decline in dollar value, falling by 41 percent compared to the same period last year. However, the number of deals decreased by only five percent, according to a recent report from Korn Ferry.

What are the common traps that many business owners fall into during the process of selling or exiting their businesses?

How has the availability of artificial intelligence impacted his strategy? 

How does he see this sector evolving over the next 5-10 years?

Arthur was kind enough to stop by and let me pick his brain. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did recording it.

Arthur Petropoulos

Arthur Petropoulos founded Hill View Partners in 2016 after a successful tenure on Wall Street as an Investment Banker, Private Equity Investor, and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Development for a high growth Operating Company. Of note, Arthur served as the Co-Head of the Internal Private Equity group at Cantor Fitzgerald / BGC Partners, and was the Director of Corporate Development for a diversified Business Services Company.

Arthur works hand in hand with all clients, and has led numerous successful transactions in our sole focus area of Selling/Exiting and Securing Capital/Financing for Privately Held Family, Entrepreneur, and Small Investment Group owned Businesses generating $400k to $4 Million of EBITDA spanning from Software to Diversified Business Services to Distribution/Manufacturing, and all industries in between. 

Arthur is a Rhode Island native, having earned his undergraduate Business Degree from Providence College and his Juris Doctorate with a focus of Corporate Transactions and Finance from Roger Williams University School of Law.

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Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

Arthur P.: That's what we're seeing is the reversion to the fundamentals in many ways. And that kind of, uh, I think, driving the allocation of capital. Because at the end of the day, private equity, large strategic companies, they all have capital that needs to be deployed. That's not going to stop, they're not going to stop deploying capital. But what they are going to do is stop deploying capital into things, things that are not fundamentally sound and or can get them fired if it goes the wrong way.

Matt Burns: Constraints drive innovation. Hey, everyone, it's Matt, here for another episode of Thinking Inside The Box, a show where we discuss the innovative ways organizations and their leaders overcome complex issues at work. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us at our starting new website, insidetheboxpodcast.com and on all of your favorite podcast platforms by searching Thinking Inside The Box. And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Arthur Petropolis, founder and managing partner at Hillview Partners, a Providencebased investment firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, business sales and exits, and capital advisory services for middle market and lower middle market companies. Arthur founded Hillview Partners in 2016 after a, uh, successful tenure on Wall Street, first as an investment banker, then later as a private equity investor and head of mergers and acquisitions and corporate development for a high growth operating company. So his experience was particularly useful as we discussed the first half of 2023 and the M and A activity in the US. Which saw a 41% decline in dollar value compared to the same time the previous year. However, the number of deals only decreased by 5%, according to a recent report from Corn Ferry. So what factors explain the difference? Is it artificial intelligence? And how does Arthur see the sector evolving over the next five to ten years? He was kind enough to stop by and let me pick his brain about all things mergers, acquisitions, buying and selling companies, private equity, venture capital. It was a fun conversation that I hope you enjoy as much as I do recording it. And now I bring you Arthur Petropolis.

Matt Burns: Hello, Arthur.

Arthur P.: How are you doing today, Matt? Doing well. Happy to be here. Appreciate it.

Matt Burns: Well, it's going to be a good conversation. Um, before we get into it, let's hear a bit about your background, your experiences, and what's led you today.

Arthur P.: That sounds good. Uh, so my name is Arthur Petropolis. I'm the managing partner here at Hillview Partners. We're an M and A and capital advisory firm. Effectively, what we do is we help companies sell themselves, we help companies secure capital. I've been doing this for 15 plus years now. Seven years as Hillview, uh, partners. And we really focus on kind of what we Call the middle market and lower middle market of the business world to privately held companies, typically generating one to 10 million in profit. Usually owned by families, entrepreneurs, small groups of investors, where private equity or institutional capital is not part of the picture right now. But, uh, that's what we do. And that's who I am. And happy, uh, to be here on the show. I love the content, listen to some of the old episodes, and happy, uh, to, uh, add to the archives what we can. I appreciate that.

Matt Burns: I think it's an interesting conversation. I think it's a really interesting time to be in your line of work because the world's a very different place than it was three years ago. And I do want to have that conversation because a lot of our audience does span cross functionally in large organizations and they're thinking about the implications of mergers and acquisitions in a number of different contexts. And just the way in which the broader business landscape is changing I think is worth something. Just double clicking on.

Arthur P.: Yeah, I think you're right.

Matt Burns: Before we get to that, I'd love to double click a bit on your background because you have a unique one that's led you to this point. You spent ten years on Wall Street and then lived in that world, which I can imagine is a very interesting and unique space. And now you're in this world. So I would love to hear a bit about that transition and then we'll go back to kind of the implications for today's businesses and all that good stuff.

Arthur P.: Sure. No, I appreciate that and huh look, I think that the optimal approach to a lot of businesses is kind of a pastiche of your experiences, right? So there's good stuff to take from every step along the journey. And so, candidly, growing up I went to law school, the only people I knew who did corporate transactions were attorneys. I figured you had to be that to do that. And so when I was in law school, then I kind of figured out how the Wall Street world works, and investment banking, private equity, kind of how that ecosystem pieces together. And so when I was coming out of, or as I was in law school, doing a lot of networking to get into that position, so I did end up getting a job on Wall Street. This is going to like 2009, 2010. So it wasn't the prettiest of times we, um, was able to do a lot of this kind of work for it was kind of the same kind of clients, though, middle market companies. And it was interesting. Uh, then worked on the side of buying these companies and then I worked for Led strategy and what they call corporate development for a larger company. But during that tenure on Wall Street, I think you see what works and you see what does not work. You see where there are efficiencies in kind of the provision of services to companies, you see where there are gaps. And we always kind of said over that time span that it's a bit of a barbell situation where a very small company think pizza places, bagel shops, small thing, main street businesses, which are fine businesses, have representation via business brokers. And then we would see kind of transactions, call them 100, $200 million and bigger had kind of the traditional Wall Street middle market investment banks, and not the Morgan Stanley's JPMorgans, but the guys like, uh, Hulahan Loki, Stefan Jeffries, Harris Williams, William Blair, things like that. But there's this gap in between because there's a tremendous amount of businesses that say are in that one to 10 million of profit range that we kind of consider transaction size, like one to $200 million. There's lots of them out there. And I think when they ultimately seek to do one of these things, there's not a great deal of representation, uh, or access to people that can help guide HM them in that process. And so that was kind of the takeaway from that tenure on Wall Street. And then, so we started the company saying we're going to specifically focus on this kind of unmet need and thus is where we are today. And we always paint these pictures of these kind of like smooth linear paths upward and everything worked out perfect. We've done a lot of when we first started the company, not only did we do the transactional work, we did the consulting work. Lots of funny stories in that business and it was successful. But I think we hit a point where we said we can either keep consulting or focus purely on transactions. And that's where we've evolved to. So that's kind of where we came from and where we are today. But everything's always been kind of led from like someone told me once, you want to start a good business, walk around and see what aggravates you all day and then fix those things, right? So I always said in our business was from the time I was spent working for other people, what were the things that were not done well? Where were their gaps in kind of service? And when we figured out all of that, it made a good blueprint of what we should focus on.

Matt Burns: Well, it's an interesting approach and obviously having that front end or first land experience with being a consultant in the organizations, you get a deeper understanding of some of the recurring themes I'll call them. Because in that segment of business you're going to have recurring themes and I'm sure you see many different archetypes and of course, everything is unique and you can parcel different segments of that market. You think about those family run, they've been in the family for 30, 40, 50 years maybe. It's a trades organization and it used to be a one person plumbing business. And now it's 45 people working in Middle, Ohio or something. Like, there's that segment, there's the, um, individual who's bootstrapping some sort of technology platform, and they're at a stage of early adoption. They don't have the relationships, though, but they have a really good idea. Um, there's lots of different groups. I'm curious, with your expertise and your network and your background and experiences, where do you focus your attention? Because it's obviously a very large space.

Arthur P.: Yeah. When we kind of are looking for clients and having those conversations, we always kind of define it as profitable software, b to B and B to C services companies, distribution companies, specialty manufacturing. And then there's a lot of things in between that are within kind of the B, two B services. But we think of, like, real estate services, life science, and healthcare oriented companies. Uh, but I think what we find in the lower middle market is that complexion of ownership and size are a bit more of a dictator of what the issues are going to be or what the opportunity set is, than necessarily the industry. I think when a company is gigantic, the industry matters. I think when a company is micro, the product is super important, and those things remain important throughout the process. But when you're at that kind of one to 10 million in profit range, if you're privately held, if you are growing and seeking to do one of these things, uh, and if ownership is a family, as a small group of investors, you're likely dealing with a lot of the same issues. Right. And the constraints on growth can kind of go across the run. And sometimes it can be marketing, sometimes it can be operations, sometimes it can be having the available capital, and sometimes it can just be a desire to keep going to go from being the watchmaker to the guy running the shop that makes watches. Right? And so it's a bit of figuring out what the optimal what I guess, the missing or the constraint point is. And what we find is that the way we define it, you tend to kind of run over a lot of the same prongs over time.

Matt Burns: I'm curious about something because access to capital is more challenging than it was pre pandemic, when capital was much easier, interest rates were much lower, and therefore money was much more free flowing. Um, and people were willing to invest in earlier stages of businesses at that time. Now they're looking for much more secure investments, um, and rightfully so at the same time. What just entered the market in late 2022 is OpenAI's chat GPT. Artificial intelligence is everywhere. And you and I both know it's going to create companies overnight. It's going to accelerate some, it's going to shrink others. Like, it's a real disruptive force. I'm curious about your thoughts at the intersection of this technology entering into the market. And maybe some limitations around capital, and how do you kind of view those two things as they interplay with one another?

Arthur P.: Sure. So I think that during high times, the characterization of a business with kind of the most sexy new thing can be a way to attract capital. But when things are not as frothy, it really has to have a pragmatic implication in the business. So what I mean by that is, we would joke, like, five years ago that, hey, this company manufactures stuff and if they sprinkle 3D manufacturing on it right. All of a sudden it's worth more. All of a sudden people are interested the same thing with blockchain or virtual reality. And now AI, it's like everything's AI driven, right? It's like, oh, I just bought a cheeseburger that was made with AI technology. Right. I think the challenge is you have this kind of growing technology at the same time you have this kind of market that's I don't want to say it's shrinking, but it's right sizing in a way to kind of the fundamentals. And so you really have to say, how does it play into the business? And so if the incorporation of AI allows, uh, an insurance underwriting company to make their underwriters three times more productive, and that's definable via metrics of how many policies they can get through in a day, well, that can be a means of attracting capital. Right. And so if you're an AI services company, or if you're just a traditional business that is incorporating AI, the fundamentals matter, it just can't be. We're going to just say this, but do everything the same way. And so I think that's the intersection right now relative to getting capital is, um, that innovation and pushing forward is important, but fundamentally sound businesses, profitability, unit economics, things like that have always mattered, matter yet again, no surprise. And so it's just a matter of how do you fuse all of those things with the right narrative. That way that you can accurately characterize that you are moving forward as a business and looking for every advantage that you can via the implementation of new tech, but at the same time, that you're not just selling $10. Bills for $8 or figuring out how to grow something in an unsustainable way, like, uh, the WeWork model, for lack of a better analogy.

Matt Burns: That's a great analogy. You talk about owners in this one to $10 million segment. You mentioned earlier that they don't often have a lot of guidance, or if they do, maybe they are seeking additional guidance and don't have access to, um, guidance. Um, what are some of the mistakes that people in that segment make when they're either exiting their businesses or thinking about divesting their businesses, where the kind of services that people like yourself would provide that would be useful, valuable, um, potentially money saving in some cases.

Arthur P.: Sure. I think that a lot of companies we deal with do have pretty good representation, or, uh, allies, if you will, via their attorneys and accountants are usually pretty good, and they're usually really helpful as we facilitate these things. But what they lack is kind of that corporate development or who's thinking about mergers and acquisition strategy, capital. It's just not something that's usually on the radar as you grow. And I think people kind of pick their head up every decade or so of working and saying, maybe we should contemplate these things, but who can I talk to about it? And so I think when someone goes out there into the market on an unrepresented basis, if you will, the biggest mistake on the front end of the exercise that we find is they overshare information. I think that if you go to someone who wants to buy a company, if a private equity firm wants to buy a company, and you say to them, what do you need to kind of give me a value here? They're going to just give you a five page document with a tremendous amount of questions on it. And most business owners say, well, I guess this is kind of the doctor's checklist. I got to give them everything. And I think they can divulge some stuff that's a little too sensitive at first. They can give too much information to the point where it fatigues them or distracts them from the business. And so a lot of what we do on the front end, aside from kind of crystallizing the narrative, aside from doing the research relative to who the right counterparties would be, is spoon feeding that information out to the market and saying, this is the information that's necessary for someone to put forth an offer. All of this other stuff is not that would be informal diligence once we have, ah, a defined and agreed upon offer. But let's sequence this in a way such that we're not overburdening our client along the way and that we're not over sharing the information until we know how real somebody is. And so I think that's a big part on the front end.

Matt Burns: Welcome.

Matt Burns: Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's conversation. And before we continue, I want to update you on my latest creative project, this Week at Work. Every Friday at 07:00 a.m Pacific Standard Time. That's 10:00 a.m. Eastern and 03:00. P.m GMT. My good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders and I discuss the latest trending topics on the minds of executives globally, from organizational culture to technology and the future of work. We cover it all, and we invite some of our favorite colleagues to join us, from Dave Ulrich to Whitney Johnson and executives from iconic brands such as NASA, Krispy Kreme, and WebMD. What can I say? We like to keep things interesting. And if you've been following us for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun partnership chris and I have developed over years. Podcasting together. We're not afraid to be real, share our own challenges, and ask the tough questions. Joining? Well, that part's easy. Follow me on LinkedIn, click the bell icon on the top right of my profile, and you'll get notified when we go live. And now back to our discussion.

Arthur P.: The two things on the front end, I think, is one is oversharing information. And then two, I think it's not having the narrative kind of crystallized because the thing is, uh, somebody said the things that we do amazingly well, we just don't think we do amazingly well. Right. It's just not uncommon to us because, well, yeah, we get up and we do the thing every day and provide the service or make the product. So a lot of companies will kind of underestimate the value of what they do, right? By definition, if a company makes one to $10 million in profit a year, it's not a commodity product. It's not competing on cost of capital. So there must be something exceptional about it. Because if there's a gigantic companies out there that do similar things, but you can carve out that million to 10 million in profit, it means you're doing something special. There's something that's unique, proprietary about what you do. And so a lot of companies won't necessarily I don't know, I can say fixate on that, but emphasize it adequately in the process because they don't think of it that way. They just say, well, this is a thing we always did. We always made this widget. And so if we can then characterize it in a way of highlighting the proprietary element, then we can go to the companies and say, look, this is what you're missing, and this is why this is so valuable to you, because it unlocks all of this other stuff for you. So I think by virtue of our clients not being in our business all day, they're not going to necessarily know how to characterize and communicate their business optimally. And then I think they're not going to know how to kind of piecemeal or sequence information sharing. So two, uh, issues on the front end that we really try to mitigate are those things. And they're not things that are deficiencies of character or intellect. It's just by virtue of not doing what we do every single day.

Matt Burns: Yeah, well, it's a function of what got you here won't get you there. And to be a successful entrepreneur, to grow a business from zero dollars to one million dollars is not an easy task that requires a significant amount of resilience and discipline and hard work, among all the other things you need to be as an entrepreneur. And you see people that have obviously poured their entire life savings and all their blood, sweat, and tears into their organizations, their businesses, their people, all those things. It can be quite an emotional journey. And to your point, it sometimes can be hard to distance yourself from that people have a hard enough time selling their homes. This is something that's a much more personal type thing. Um, and obviously you're interacting a lot with individuals in the broader market. And I'm curious what are some of the things that you're hearing lately in the broader market as capital becomes maybe more available? Or where is capital available, where are institutions or where are investors still making bets in today's market?

Arthur P.: There's always this concept of self preservation in the world and I think people look at that negatively. But in many ways, that's what the paranoid survive in many ways. And so what we see in the world of kind of institutional capital is, uh, that uh, people are getting away from binary bets. A lot of early stage stuff is does it work or does it not work? Does it get a customer base or does it not? And so you end up with a home run or a zero. I do think in times like today that capital kind of rotates into things where there's downside protection, where there's a margin of safety, where there's variations of how well it can do, but it's unlikely to lose your principle. And so goes back to that Buffett quote of rule number one don't lose money. Rule number two, don't forget rule number one. And so in the challenging times or in the choppy waters, everybody kind of reverts back to what's always worked, right? I, uh, don't know how to say we all kind of revert back to natural identities to some extent when things get difficult, right? Because when things are good, people start creating all new ideas. You'd be amazed at the metrics that people come out with in business and they're like, well, we're a company that sells sandwiches and we are valuing ourselves at 10,000 times every slice of bread we sell every 4 hours. I say that facetiously. But people make up all these new metrics when at the end of the day, it's like revenue, gross profit, operating expenses, profit and customer acquisition, cost of customer, long term value, lifetime value of customer, um, those types of things matter. And so that's what we're seeing is the reversion to the fundamentals in many ways. And that kind of uh, I think driving the allocation of capital. Because at the end of the day, private equity, large strategic companies, they all have capital that needs to be deployed. That's not going to stop, they're not going to stop deploying capital. But what they are going to do is stop deploying capital into things that are not fundamentally sound and or can get them fired if it goes the wrong way. And so you're going to know our business, we've always focused in this kind of Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Charlie Munger kind of businesses that are consistent, that make sense. And in the high times, people will know this is boring. In the bad times, they can say this is reliable. So it's funny how a rose is a rose by any other name, but this is the area we focus in. I think that's where kind of capital is now, kind of rotating. So you have the people that were already in our space and now you have more people getting into it too. So at least for the intervening time, the demand, if you will, for things that make sense that are kind of down the strike zone. And that, uh, fundamentally sound is actually more than it has been the last couple of years.

Matt Burns: It's an interesting time, and I've seen it secondhand. I've experienced it firsthand in a lot of cases. It's a, um, unique space. And you've talked about a number of different trends that I think are really impactful, um, whether it is the shift of capital to different areas, whether it's a bit more of a conservative approach in how people deploy their capital. I think these are all things we should consider. I also think it's something worth considering. And you said you listened to a number of previous podcasts. You'll know that we always try and bring a thread of culture, the employee experience into these. And having been part of a number of transactions on either the acquiring side or on the acquired side, I know that sometimes those don't always go great. That people come together and say this, we're going to make a deal. These two businesses make sense. There's a good financial imperative for it. Do you provide support or counsel or do you provide, uh, additional, um, resources to individuals looking at the cultural implications of a decision to divest or to acquire?

Arthur P.: Yeah, I think on the front end, you always want to gauge what are the important variables to a company and how they would like these things treated. Because it's not just kind of monetary transaction. I mean, there are companies you sell that some buyers are going to fire everybody, some buyers are going to keep everybody, and you can actually lead the conversation with what you want in those things. So we say, okay, yes, there is a dollar amount, but there's the structure of the deal and what comes at closing, what's over time. There's a transition period for ownership and executives there's, the stakeholders there's, the community, what happens to everybody there. And so we want to walk through these things as we're beginning to work with the client so that we can understand what their objectives are. And if those objectives are retention of employees for X amount of time, well, that becomes part of the negotiation as well. And I will say, in our space, they're not private equity owned companies, they're not publicly traded companies for the vast majority, people care about their employees and they do care what happens and everyone's taken care of. And so even in situations where you know that there's going to be layoffs, we've seen ownership kind of step in and make almost like, uh, payments out of the proceeds of the deal to their people, just to say as a sign of thank you for, uh, what they've contributed to the growth of the business. And so I'd say different people have different views on precisely how they want things dealt with relative to legacy, community, culture. But it's something that we address on the front end, and it's something that, as we're talking to people about numbers, it's right alongside that as an item, uh, for negotiation to be discussed.

Matt Burns: Yeah, I think it's just good business at the end of the day, to your point, you want to find alignment of cultures for a number of reasons. Um, it's already going to be a difficult decision anyway to divest of that organization there's, to your point, the implications to the employees. And when you're a company of a size that could be inquired in this segment, you likely personally know every employee in that organization. You may have hired every person in that organization yourself. Um, so it's a very different situation than if you are a CEO transitioning between two Fortune 500 companies where you likely haven't met every single person on the payroll. So, um, I think it speaks to relationship focus you guys have.

Arthur P.: Yeah. And I think that it's important to note, too, I think there's always this misnomer because we've watched all of the 80s leverage buyout movies, that when people come in and buy companies, they just slash and burn for companies that we're selling. I mean, oftentimes you're in that one to 100 employee range, sometimes 1015 employees. Those are the reasons why a lot of people are acquiring the businesses, too. So what I will say is that although we would go out there and kind of lead the conversation with we want to keep the employees retained. Most of the time the buyers are equally as engaged because they're saying, wow, this is great talent. This is great. Human capital at this business, and we want this because they've built this business, and now they can build this business. Unit So oftentimes the acquirers, to give them credit as well, are equally as excited about buying the company as they are the people that are coming along with it.

Matt Burns: Yeah, I can. Absolutely. Especially in today's economics, where we've talked at ad nauseam. I mean, one of our last podcasts with the chief people officer from McKinsey who talked about the labor demographics in the United States and how every day more people leave the workforce than actually enter it now because of demographics. So we have a shrinking labor pool, meaning the premium, the value of talent is going to increase. And especially as organizations in that one to $10 million range become more digital, you may actually see smaller workforces generating higher revenues, and therefore, that talent is even more important in a potential acquisition.

Arthur P.: I agree. And I think that ties back to the AI concept. Is that that is the way economies go forward. Right. It's that kind of division of labor and the increased productivity on a per capita basis. So you're absolutely right. You might be seeing we always look at a lot of the companies that we're working with on, um, kind of a revenue per individual. Because what you'll find is that smaller companies are actually more productive than larger companies on a per person basis. And so that's a good kind of point to emphasize. But you're right. I think as things evolve, the revenue that 50 people would have been required to make will be generated by 20 people. And therefore, it's that much more important because you will lose that much more revenue by not retaining them. So I tend to agree.

Matt Burns: Yeah, it's a very interesting time, and it's a real, um having sat in CHRO tables a lot of my career, there was always this general narrative of this finance HR kind of at each other's throats, which really never played out in practice, by the way. But there's always this healthy intention that had to exist between the human side of the business and the finances of the business of the era. And I think now we're increasingly realizing that those things are symbiotic, and that you need to have both working really in a really healthy way if you want to look after both entities. So I'm curious, Arthur, I mean, you have a very unique vantage point of the market. Um, what do you see in the next three to five years in this space?

Arthur P.: Look, I think that you've got somewhat of counterbalancing forces. So yes. Are interest rates going up? Sure. Uh, is it really a bad thing, or is it just a reversion to kind of like the way that it's always been? I mean, the 30 year bond has always been at 6%, the home mortgage has always been at 7%. So the idea of kind of stabilizing the US. Dollar, I think, is a good thing on the long run. There's some pain that comes along with it, because you had all of this the everything bubble, uh, that kind of has to kind of deflate to some degree. I don't think a deflation means an implosion. Right. It doesn't mean that the economy explodes. But I do think that some of the irrational, uh, exuberance is going to just keep grinding itself down back to reality. Uh, but what I'd say is that there's a huge amount of transition from old line business owners in the sense of kind of the baby boomer generation that is retiring. And there's a lot of aggregation in those businesses. And at the same time, though, there's a huge amount of entrepreneurialism, I think, by virtue of all of the technology, the ability to kind of grow companies in, uh, an intelligent way, where if you wanted to start a company today. It takes you a couple of hours and you can have it up and running. And you can get employees or contractors that don't have to sit in an office and you don't need not everybody cares if you have the fancy office anymore or you're at all of the networking events. There's so many ways to do business and to get business that I think the opportunity sets never been better for the younger generation. I think there's a big transition of wealth and businesses from the older generation. Uh, and so, candidly, I think it's exciting. I think there's a tremendous amount of opportunity. I think that the economy, the US. Will always be, in my opinion, for the next hundred years. We've got all of our issues, but it's still the best place to do business in the world, uh, and to be kind of HQ'd for anything that you're doing. And you can do global business from anything. So I think the opportunity set is just growing. I think Capital is right sizing more than it's any cataclysmic stuff. Uh, and I think that yes. Will you be able to raise $100 million in a day for an app that makes cat noises? I don't know. Right. I don't know if those days come back. But if you run a good business that makes $2 million a year in profit, do you think you can sell that business for ten to 15 million? I bet you can. And I bet you we still will be able to. And I think you'll be able to grow it and do exciting stuff. So, I think the barriers to entry in business have never been lower. I think the opportunities set and available customers for whatever business have never been more accessible. Uh, and I think that although Capital is not going to be free, it is still readily available for those in the right situations looking to do, I think, the right thing. So I think to be in this business, you have to be an eternal optimist of some sort. And I am a realist optimist, but I think, on balance, the good and the opportunity is far better than I think, any of the negatives that we're presented with.

Matt Burns: Well, depending on the cat, I might want to get in on that investment for the app. It's an NFT cat or something. It might be worth it. Um, Arthur, folks who want to get in touch with you, where can they find you?

Arthur P.: Sure thing. So they, uh, can find us at our website, hillviewps.com. I'm on LinkedIn. Our company's on LinkedIn. We do a lot of conversation. We put out some videos there. And then also we port all of those same videos from LinkedIn to our YouTube channel. If someone just typed in Arthur Petropus on YouTube, you'd see all the same videos, just kind of tackling a lot of the frequently asked questions, thoughts, and, um, conversations that we have with clients and prospective clients. Um, but yeah, those are the general places. We're pretty responsive. We're always chatting with people, always love hearing ideas. I will say it doesn't need to be. I think sometimes people don't want to call us until they say, yes, I would like to sell, or I'm looking for capital, but always happy to talk to people. Where that's down the track as well, just to get a sense as to kind of directionally what things you should be thinking about, what things you should be optimizing, what issues you may be preemptively mitigating. So that's where to find us. And we're always happy to, uh, chat with people doing interesting stuff. That's great.

Matt Burns: We'll link all those details in the podcast, show notes so folks can find you.

Matt Burns: Arthur, great chat today.

Matt Burns: Thanks so much for your time.

Arthur P.: By your question, I appreciate it.

Matt Burns: Vento HR is a digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and people operations. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many forms, from strategic planning and alignment to technology procurement, implementation, and integration, along with organizational design, process reengineering, and change management. With our proven track record of working with complex, high growth organizations, we provide a uh lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience, and value. For more information, check us out@bentohr.com.