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- [00:00]
Will Smith
In today's episode, we address head on a feature of search that is so important and so neglected what the journey to buy a business means for the searcher's romantic partner, if they have one. First we hear from Cliff Nelson, who bought a business with over 15 million in revenue and about 125 people. The business provides mental health services to nursing homes and facilities. Cliff and I get into all the usual good detail about his search and the business he bought. You will get a window into acquiring, leading and growing a business that is people intensive, a common feature in healthcare businesses. But you'll also get a window into Cliff's home life as he went through this journey. His wife was pregnant, contemporaneous with his search, and gave birth to their first child within a week of Cliff closing on the business. This was a trial for the family, to say the least. And then we'll hear about that trial in more depth from Christine, Cliff's wife. Christine and I have our own separate conversation in order to give you another perspective on this journey. You will hear how intertwined the search is with Christine and Cliff's personal lives, with their marriage, with the birth of their first child. And it is a keen reminder that while the searcher is so often the protagonist in these stories, the spouse or romantic partner is very much on this journey themselves. Cliff's words. There has been lots of ink spilled, lots of podcasts about the grit it takes from a searcher or entrepreneur, but a lot less said about the grit that you're basically asking your partner to go through. Like all those ups and downs are shared, all of the risk is shared. So really they're entrepreneurs too in this, and I think that's important for prospective searchers to know. Well said. Here is first Cliff Nelson, CEO of Psycho Geriatric Services and husband to Christine, and then Christine Nelson, senior product development scientist at McCormick and wife to Cliff. Announcements. You may have heard my recent interview with Carlo Santelli, whose incredible story involved using a sale leaseback to fund his acquisition of a $3 million EBITDA business. It enabled him to own the business with no investors and no personal guarantee. Well, the vendor that provided him the sale leaseback Stream Capital is coming to do a webinar on that very topic. What sale leasebacks are how to identify opportunities to use them, Example cases As you learned from Carlo's interview, sale leasebacks can be a very powerful instrument in your deal, so come learn how they work for SBA and non SBA buyers alike. That's this Thursday, February 20th at noon Eastern register at the link in today's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiring Minds co also, and this one is particularly exciting, we are launching a new podcast this week. My partners in Minds Capital, Nicholas James and Max Lummis and I are releasing Meeting of the Minds on Wednesday. Meeting of the Minds is a weekly podcast devoted to the stories of independent sponsors. Now you've heard mention of independent sponsors here on Acquiring Minds. I've had a few guests who identify as such. Carlos Antelli and Sam Rosati are recent examples. But we decided that the world of independent sponsors is very large and growing, but without a central voice of the kind that Acquiring Minds aspires to be. For searchers in the independent sponsor format of buying businesses is quite different than that of search larger businesses, much more outside capital, stricter expectation of an exit by investors. You can think of it as an entrepreneur doing private equity, but deal by deal without raising a fund. And for many searchers, it's where their business buying careers might take them. Being an independent sponsor is actually doing more of what they like, deals and strategy and less of what they want to move beyond operations people, management, the hand to hand combat of being an owner operator. So we've got about 10 interviews recorded already, which we'll be dropping every Wednesday from now on. Here's a taste. Mike Sutton, who bought a small chain of restaurants doing 5 million in EBITDA and grew them to 25 million of EBITDA before exiting. A czar Quaider who bought an 800 unit distressed hair salon chain during COVID and turned it around. Alex defeifer and Ross Porter, who started as searchers and bought a business doing 45 million in revenue and grew it to 140 million before exiting. So I invite you to subscribe to Meeting of the Minds. We are everywhere. Spotify, Apple, YouTube links to those in the show notes and come learn about another model of business buying and the stories behind the entrepreneurs doing it. Meeting of the Minds every Wednesday. Please join us welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses.
- [05:53]
Cliff Nelson
My name is Will Smith.
- [05:54]
Will Smith
Acquiring an existing business is an awesome.
- [05:57]
Cliff Nelson
Opportunity for many entrepreneurs and on this.
- [05:59]
Will Smith
Podcast I talk to the people who do it. What do the following Acquiring Minds guests all have in common? Doug Johns, Morley Desai, Tim Erickson, Chirag Shah, Shane Ursam. They all went through the Acquisition Lab, the accelerator and community for people serious about buying a business. But they represent just a sliver of the Lab's success stories. The number of deals across the Lab's cohorts now stands at over 120 with over $300 million in aggregate transaction value. The Acquisition Lab was founded by Walker Deibel, author of Buy Then Build, the book that introduced so many of you to the very idea of buying a business. The lab offers a month long, intensive, almost daily Q and A sessions with advisors, live deal reviews with Walker, Deal team introductions and an active community of serious searchers. Check out acquisitionlab.com link in the notes or email the Lab's co founder, Chelsea Wood. Chelsea buy then build.com Cliff Nelson, welcome to Acquiring Minds.
- [07:11]
Cliff Nelson
Thanks for having me, Will.
- [07:12]
Will Smith
Cliff, you went through the two babies at once experience. You closed on a business, baby number one, within days of your actual child being born. Baby number two, this timing took a toll on you and your wife, which is where we're going to spend time today. And we're also going to hear directly from your wife Christine about this whole experience for her perspective as a searcher's partner. To get you and me started. Cliff, why did you decide that you wanted to acquire a business in the first place?
- [07:48]
Cliff Nelson
It's a, it's a long answer. I'll try to keep it short. We actually have up in the other room, you know, pegboard with letters that we put up during COVID and it's a quote from Jack Welch that says if you don't control your own destiny, someone else will. And there's lots of individual reasons why I like running a business, but that's really what it was about for me is controlling my destiny.
- [08:11]
Will Smith
And how old were you and kind of where were you in your career and what was the kind of final catalyst or, or the initial catalyst? I mean, what was the, the moment that you really decided to go do it?
- [08:24]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, so I, in my career, I'd spent almost a decade working for entrepreneurs. So I was a consultant in a entrepreneurial practice that had been acquired. I worked for a serial entrepreneur founder in a PE and VC backed business. And then I had also been in a entrepreneurial investment firm doing private equity investing. And I got sick of looking from the sidelines and cheering on and sick of doing all this work and accruing equity value elsewhere. So it's kind of that mix of, I'd say young enough to still take some risks. I think I was 28 when I took the leap, but experience enough that I felt like I could actually do it.
- [09:07]
Will Smith
One other thing I remember from the pre call, Cliff, that I wanted you to just touch on was you had been, you knew about the search fund concept, buying a business concept, but it Took you a while to feel ready.
- [09:22]
Cliff Nelson
Yes.
- [09:22]
Will Smith
When you finally did it, that was, part of it was that you felt ready. Say more about that. Even though to some people's ears it's, it might be a little discouraging. Well, I'll elaborate. Go ahead first.
- [09:33]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah. So I first learned about search funds. I think it was 2014. I had just started business school at University of Chicago. I was an evening weekend student and I was only two years out of school. So I had two years of full time consulting work, but that's it. And I remember the light bulb like that. That's the thing I really want to do. It's like the ultimate capstone to being in business school. Control your destiny, all those things. But I thought through each of the steps of what it takes. And you know, I had never raised money from anybody or really I'd never sold anything, period. I'd never gone and looked for or scouted opportunities. I'd never been involved in a transaction. I'd never managed somebody. So I really felt like if I had tried to do it then I would've been set up for failure. And if I did fail, you know, unlike people who do it with a bit more experience, I'm falling back on two years of entry level consulting experience.
- [10:32]
Will Smith
Well, the reason why that might be discouraging to some people is because they still don't have those, you know, they still haven't done deal sourcing or have a lot of the experiences that you just, that you just talked about gaining for yourself over the subsequent years. And yet they want to do this path or they already have. So, so it's one of these where I just, I guess I wanted to have you reflect now that you've done the entire thing, you haven't sold the business, you're in the business. Do you look at people who don't have much experience who are trying to embark on this path and scratch your head, or are you just somebody who really wants to know that they're prepared or kind of reconcile this for me.
- [11:15]
Cliff Nelson
If you're going to pick one or the other, like pre close or post close experience managing people or being in operations, way more valuable. Like you need enough on the sourcing and deal side to get a deal done. But the hard part comes after.
- [11:30]
Will Smith
I guess we're gonna, we'll hear about that. Yes, it was hard for me throughout.
- [11:35]
Cliff Nelson
I, I haven't caught a break, but okay. Still loving it.
- [11:40]
Will Smith
If you ask owners in the ETA and search community which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes and and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs. One name comes up again and again. Oberle. Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two time successful searcher, August Felker. Which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. And if you've got a business under loi, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy, no risk way to get to know August and the team at Oberle to take advantage. Check out oberle-risk.com that's o b e r l e-risk.com link in the notes. And so what year was it that you decided to do your search and what did the shape of your search look like?
- [12:46]
Cliff Nelson
Yes, so the final decision was right around December 2019 and it was that year end inventory I think I had revisited and I probably could dig up the journal somewhere. Like the five year plan, everyone had search as the number two option if the default plan doesn't work. And finally that assessment, you know, end of 2019 I was like, well it seems a lot more feasible. I still like it. In fact, I like it more than my current path. Maybe I should do this. Had the conversation with Christine obviously before doing it. We can get into some of the quirks there. Pulled the ripcord and quit my job February 2020, which people now will know was, you know, hilariously bad timing. The world fell apart weeks after I made that decision. Searched for over two years before finally closing. And it was a traditional search. I don't think I said that.
- [13:47]
Will Smith
And why did you choose traditional?
- [13:49]
Cliff Nelson
That's purely the, the risk aversion side. I, I still felt like even with, you know, some experience at each stage, I would really benefit from the, the mentorship and the closeness of that kind community. And then also just from a personal finance standpoint, I didn't want to go burn down everything that I'd built up at that point through both the search and putting all my eggs in one basket with an acquisition.
- [14:14]
Will Smith
In other words, you didn't want, you, you didn't want to forego a salary while you searched plus all the costs of a search. That's right. And you didn't want to have to take a personal guarantee once you found the business?
- [14:27]
Cliff Nelson
All of the above, yep.
- [14:29]
Will Smith
Okay. These quirks related to talking to Christine. What do you mean?
- [14:34]
Cliff Nelson
I, I think when I first told her about this path, she thought I made it up. You Know, because it, it sounds ridiculous if you're not coming from this world, like, yeah, I'm going to go raise, like, half a million dollars from people who, you know, don't know me yet. They'll. They'll get to know me, and they're going to let me go basically job hunt for two years, maybe more, and then they're going to give me millions of dollars after that to go be CEO when the biggest team I've ever managed was, like, three and a half people. That. That sounds silly.
- [15:06]
Christine Nelson
Yeah.
- [15:07]
Cliff Nelson
And so to get her there with it, you know, by that point at Booth, I was out of school, but, you know, they had a class, they had a club. I actually had friends who had graduated around my cohort who had gone and bought businesses and were operating. So I could at least point and be like, see, look, you know, you've met him, he's done it. I can do it, too.
- [15:30]
Will Smith
It's one thing for a partner to feel like this doesn't sound. Sound real or sound silly, but. Sure. Was that her perspective? Sure. Just go ahead and do it. Or was this really something where you needed to sell her and convince her?
- [15:43]
Cliff Nelson
I think. I don't feel like I had to sell her and convince her. She might say something different, but I, you know, I mentioned that it had been on my mind, you know, for five years, and, you know, she. She wasn't in the picture back in 2014 when I first learned about it, but for as long as she and I knew each other, this was something I was thinking about. We had also just gotten married, you know, in October of that year. And so it was the. The pitch for me was, you know, we. We don't have a family yet. We're still flexible where we end up, you know, we have low spend. We, like, we can manage through this. It's only going to get harder as we get older.
- [16:26]
Will Smith
The we don't have a family yet piece of this, of course, will. Will play a big role. But as we know, traditional search, often investors expect you to be willing to move anywhere. We also know that, in fact, most traditional searchers don't move across the country. Most of them end up buying something more. More regional than that, closer to where they currently live. But still, it's. It's a possibility and actually a likely possibility that you'll move somewhere. Was that a factor in. In your conversations with her?
- [17:02]
Cliff Nelson
It was. I think it was a smaller factor then than it probably should have been. You know, her family lives up in central Wisconsin, so they were about A three hour drive away. So we were used to not having her family right there. My family was generally around the Chicago area but I've got siblings now that have spread out. So it wasn't, we weren't as worried about that. There was the concern of well, what if we end up in some podunk place where we're not going to be happy? And for that my, my pitch, which it's what I truly believed I maybe would change my mind now. But I basically said, you know, that the chances of finding a business that I is, you know, 1 to 5 million of EBITDA that I can double or triple in a reasonable time frame in the middle of nowhere that's a lot lower than finding it near. Maybe not a first tier city, but certainly a second tier market we could get comfortable with.
- [17:58]
Will Smith
Fascinating. In the interest of time, we're not going to hear about all of the twists and turns of the search except for one feature actually on this topic of moving a business you didn't buy was in Shreveport, Louisiana, right?
- [18:14]
Cliff Nelson
Yes, yes.
- [18:15]
Will Smith
Was there something there to share with the audience? You'd actually mentioned that to me in your email, but we never talked about it in the pre call.
- [18:21]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah. So for, for people who don't know where Shreveport is, it's like the northwest part of Louisiana. It is like Deep South. It's, it's right next to Arkansas, right by Texas. I wouldn't have even considered Louisiana except I'd gone to, to school in New Orleans. So I had a little bit of experience there. But you know, broad based, geographically agnostic search, that's where one happened to hit. And you know, it was a good business. It was a nice like security systems integration company growing really quickly. They had good core customers. I really gelled with the owner. But when we went down together to visit, we had a really nice dinner with the owner and his wife and I went to do the business thing during the day. And I remember coming back from that and saying it went really well and Christine broke down crying in the hotel room. Um, actually I think it might have happened two times at, @ the hotel and when we went out to dinner because she's like, you know, oh crap, I, I can't see myself living here. Plenty of things about living in the deep south that didn't jive with her, including the heat. She's not a, she's a Wisconsin girl So you know, 98 degrees and it, that did. It's not middle of nowhere really but it felt middle of nowhere compared to what we're used to. So that was tough to work through. And I guess fortunately, unfortunately, it didn't work out for business reasons. I think if that, you know, letter of intent I submitted had been accepted, we would have had some reckoning or some things to work through.
- [20:04]
Will Smith
Yeah. I didn't preface our conversation because it'll probably, I'll probably mention it in the intro, but I'll just say it here as well. You know, part of the reason we're talking, Cliff, part of your, you had reached out to me because you want the audience to hear just how intertwined, to use your word perfect word, the, the professional and the personal are when it comes to a search, at least in your story, not every story, but in many stories and many, and certainly many more stories where a partner or spouse is involved and in your case, in a huge way. So that's, that's the theme of this, of this conversation when we're going to keep returning to.
- [20:43]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, yeah, and I, I run a mental health business now. We haven't even gotten into the, the nuts and bolts of the business. But you know, two years in to being CEO of a mental health company, I've had to spend a lot of time reflecting on my own mental health journey through this whole search because it is, it's, it's challenging. There has been lots of ink spilled, lots of podcasts about the grit it takes from a searcher or entrepreneur, but a lot less said about the grit that you're basically asking your partner to go through. Like all those ups and downs are shared, all of the risk is shared. So really, I mean they're, they're entrepreneurs too in this and I think that's important for prospective searchers to know.
- [21:25]
Will Smith
It's, it's such an important point. And as I, as I shared with you in the pre call, Cliff, I get inbound a lot from people on this point point that they, that they, there's clearly an appetite for hearing the partner perspective of somebody doing a search. And, and, and to that point, Rick and Royce, who wrote the HBR Guide, do a zoom call for their students partners where they have a panel, they get two or three partners of people who have searched to answer the questions of the partners of other students or prospective searchers who are considering this path. So it's just all about the partners talking to each like what is this whole search thing about that my partner is considering doing? And you know, dozens of people come. So it's, it's a thing and it's not one that pays very much attention.
- [22:19]
Cliff Nelson
I wonder if they measure the outcomes. Because I'd love to know how many potential searches die because of that. But then also, you know, you would never be able to know, but how many marriages saved as a result. Because, I mean, I do. I know a couple examples personally, and I know a few through reputation where, you know, somebody bought a business and, you know, the. The business not going well and the marriage not going well happened in parallel. And not. Not to say you can avoid that in every case. Sometimes things don't work out, both in business and in life. But I wonder if, like, some look before leaping could save some of those situations.
- [22:56]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Cliff Nelson
So I think it's a great idea for them to do.
- [22:58]
Will Smith
In the interest of time, I want to. I want to basically focus on the key plot points related to your search and acquisition and Christine and the baby's role and all of that. And then, of course, I want to make sure we have time to hear about the business itself. Yeah. So let's do it in that order. Why don't you kind of guide me here? What. Where do you think is the most important plot point for us to. To pick up the story?
- [23:24]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, I think overall with the search, like, there were really, I'd say, three big tests, both personally and from the relationship side. I've alluded to Covid. Like, I still so vividly remember, like, both of us had just gotten comfortable committing. I quit my job. We were having dinner before I went to the airport to go to the Bay Area to pitch people, and, you know, ping, ping, ping on my phone. Everyone canceled. And they said, you know, nobody's buying a business for six months. You should. If you haven't quit your job already, you should probably go. You know, don't do that. Like, well, too late. I. I burned the boats like you told me to. So that's like, the first.
- [24:04]
Will Smith
This is what controlling my destiny looks like.
- [24:06]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, it sucks. The second one, I'll lump a lot together, but it's like the. The ups and downs of, you know, will I, won't I? On this particular business. And, you know, for me, the big down was like, end of 2021, you know, I'm well into the search. Like, I'm feeling like I should be closing something soon. And, you know, the Shreveport one fell through. I had one that I was really excited about, a much bigger deal where I got scooped by a private equity firm, and I had a third that actually went under Loi, but then the seller failed the background check. So it's like I went from full pipeline. I'M like, I'm going to close on one of these for sure to nothing right in time to go see everybody for the holidays. To ask what have you been doing for the last couple of years? And then the third one, which, which you've alluded to already is the actual closing. We in this whole thing of searching decided, you know, man, life short Covid's a thing. We can't control the timing of the search. So let's start a family now and worst thing that could happen is, you know, we happen to close a deal and have a baby at the same time, but the chances are astronomically small that'll never happen. And it did like the, the deal. You know, I got the business under LOI in spring of 2022, thinking I've got plenty of time before this baby comes in November. I did not. It dragged on. And you know, the, the timeline as we got into closing was November 1, due date, business closed November 4, baby was born November 9. And in between know there was a lot of stuff that happened. So it was, it was the worst case scenario that we thought could happen in terms of closing.
- [25:57]
Will Smith
Wow. So let's hear about that because that is really where things get quite tense. So maybe first tell us about the business that you bought.
- [26:09]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah. So it's called Psycho Geriatric Services. That's a mouth.
- [26:13]
Will Smith
Psycho Geriatric Services.
- [26:15]
Cliff Nelson
Yes. The go ahead tgs. Less of a mouthful. And what, what we do is we provide mental and behavioral health services to residents of nursing homes and other long term care facilities. We see about actually over 30,000 patients a year. And right now we've got about 120 clinicians between Maryland, DC, Virginia and Pennsylvania. It's really. I, I couldn't have found a better business from a mission standpoint because universally when I tell people what we do, they think of somebody they know because, you know, everybody has an experience with an aging relative who has cognitive decline or goes into a nursing home and feels isolated, maybe depressed. And you know, for the people that are taking care of medical issues in a nursing home, they don't have the time or expertise to take care of the mental side.
- [27:11]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [27:11]
Cliff Nelson
And then the family's not equipped to do it either. So it really is this critical service that is, is really underserved for this population.
- [27:19]
Will Smith
Yeah, yeah. I love it. I feel like I have personal window into that. Who's the payer?
- [27:26]
Cliff Nelson
So it's primarily Medicare and Medicaid and then private insurance. So it's an interesting dynamic because the facilities need it, but they don't pay. So it makes the pitch really nice. Of course we have competition we're fighting up against, but it's. It's nice to not have any pricing pressure from your customers. The downside is we can't raise prices even if we're doing a great job.
- [27:51]
Will Smith
And so the day today is. This is a. It's not a staffing business.
- [28:00]
Cliff Nelson
You know, this is a point of debate. And we change the view in the boardroom all the time. Like, in some ways, we are a staffing business because it's a core activity to find people to fill a position. But there's so much more that we have to do behind the scenes to support the people we found. You know, it's depending who you ask, you might say, oh, it's a staffing business with some extra services, or how I feel about it is it's a care delivery business where staffings are really important. More competency because. Because day to day, you can kind of picture very typical nursing home would be 100 beds or 100 people that. That live there. That's enough work for one psych nurse practitioner to go make rounds once a week managing people's medications, meaning if they have new behaviors or new symptoms, adding medications or adjusting to address that, if they're stable. We also want to reduce the medications they're on to the minimum effective level. That reduces side effects. It improves the overall health of the patients. So that's kind of. It's kind of one day a week. So you configure five facilities for one nurse practitioner. We also have psychotherapists. And it's kind of a similar model, although the ratio is a bit different.
- [29:18]
Will Smith
And so a lot of. So as you said, a lot of this is a new patient needs to be assigned a new mental therapist. And so you're. You're doing that. Of course, you're. You're growing the business. So you're talking to new facilities. And then you're also supporting these therapists, clinicians on the back end, correct? Yep.
- [29:41]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, the back end stuff, it's, you know, it's everything. It's billing, training, clinical quality management, it, HR support. It's a lot more than just hiring somebody and placing them somewhere.
- [29:53]
Will Smith
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, great. Wow. From the mission perspective, like you, I really like the business. Of course, the dynamics of the business. The model of the business seems attractive because. Although is it to state the obvious, there's a recurring component to this. Who the payer is, as you said, is. Is kind of great. It's Kind of an easy sell. Of course, you don't have much. You can't raise prices very much, I guess would be one of the weaknesses. Yeah. At all. On the other hand, hate to talk about this so clinically, but is mental. Are mental health services a nice to have or a need to have by the facilities?
- [30:40]
Cliff Nelson
It is actually a need to have. So, like, first, from a, like, moral, ethical standpoint, if somebody is going into a nursing home, they're obligated to provide care for all of their needs. You know, you can't take somebody with a mental health issue and then not treat it. So that's important. From a regulatory standpoint, nursing homes, if people don't know, are very, very heavily regulated. If you look back over the history, you know, there's instances of abuse at nursing homes. There's instances of, you know, medications being given to zonk people out so that they're easier to care for. And this is. Over the last several decades, the regulatory response has been really rigorous measuring of different metrics and really rigorous health inspections to make sure they're doing the right thing for patients. So, like, things that we address in the facilities would be the percentage of residents on antipsychotics. We want that low. Those are dangerous medications that should only be given as a last resort. The percentage of residents that are showing symptoms of depression. Because if they come with depression, you want to control or manage that, whether it's medication or behavioral. Same thing with categories like anxiolytics, hypnotic drugs. That's the type of thing that we manage for the facilities. And then similarly, when the health inspectors come through, if they see that a patient resident has had a behavioral issue that causes a danger to them or, you know, significant distress, if that goes untreated, you know, or if it gets treated with medication before considering other avenues, that can be, in extreme cases, considered a form of abuse because you're giving an. Either giving an unnecessary matter, you're neglecting to treat somebody.
- [32:31]
Will Smith
Great. Thank you for that. And then the size of the business and a little bit of its. Of its history. Size first.
- [32:39]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah. So when. When we acquired the business, it was just north of 15 million of revenue. We were running at about 20% margins, depending on how you look at it. I think there's a big asterisk there for a lot of, you know, search acquired healthcare businesses. But also more broadly, that's the margin you can get if you're running really, really lean and, you know, like the. The owner, the psychiatrist was wearing a million hats that I can't wear, including clinically. So steady state's a bit lower than that.
- [33:13]
Will Smith
Well, Cliff. Yeah everybody, that, that, that's, that's, that's the Jacob.
- [33:17]
Cliff Nelson
Right? So, so I say that people think oh man, that's how much money is coming through. It's not like that once you start investing.
- [33:23]
Will Smith
But, but a business of this size, 15 million, I would imagine that you could hire a couple more people to absorb the additional work of the exiting owner and it wouldn't move the margins that much because that 50 million is a big business for.
- [33:38]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, it is.
- [33:38]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [33:38]
Cliff Nelson
For search. It is a good sized business. I think I would say as a general rule for, for most, if you're comparing healthcare provider businesses to you know, a widget company at the same level of revenue, there's generally less infrastructure for the healthcare business than there would be for the manufacturing business.
- [33:59]
Will Smith
Okay.
- [33:59]
Cliff Nelson
So it's so people intensive to manage. You know, there's not the same scale effect or leverage you can get in a widget business.
- [34:08]
Will Smith
So peopling the business to absorb the exiting sellers. What he, what he was doing is maybe I'm underestimating it. There was like a lot of hiring that needed to happen basically.
- [34:21]
Cliff Nelson
Oh, and I underestimated it too. If I could rewind, I would have estimated it better.
- [34:26]
Will Smith
Okay. Okay. Wow. Okay. Well just to, just to do the, do the obvious math for everybody and taking into account that you said that the margins dipped after you bought it. J curve 5020 margins on $15 million in revenue. That's a nice 3 million dollar EBITDA business. So quite, you know that that's, that's a big one. And you did a traditional search. So this is the sort of business that a traditional search enables. We should also note that, that self funded searchers are going to have a much harder time getting their hands on a business like this and, and number of people or bodies understanding that the people you place aren't are they employees? What's the structure there and how many people are in this business?
- [35:10]
Cliff Nelson
That, that's a can of worms we should not go into. But yeah, when we came in there there were about a hundred providers and then roughly 25 people on the administrative side. The providers. Like that's a mix of full time, part time, you know. So the FTES is, is much lower than that and at the time it was a, a pretty healthy mix of 1099s. You know it was majority employees but there were a lot of contractors. At this point we've pretty much shifted away from that to almost Exclusively employees.
- [35:40]
Will Smith
And so what's the number of people that you would consider employees today?
- [35:44]
Cliff Nelson
So total Today it's about 150, including both providers and admin staff.
- [35:49]
Will Smith
Again, another metric that suggests a pretty big business. Not many of my guests have 150 people on their employee.
- [35:59]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, it, it's actually, it's a fun size because it's, it is big enough that like if we have facility needs change or have somebody quit, we can cover in most areas. Most areas pretty reasonably. But it's not so big that like I don't have a connection to the vast majority of the staff. Like every time we start a new employee, I'm the first person they meet. Day one. We do it virtually. That's really fun. And you know, at this size, you could give me the name of an employee and I know you know who they are, where they're located, what they do. I could probably give you some of the facilities they're going to, you know, talk to me in a couple years. At 300 people. Maybe that breaches my brain capacity.
- [36:46]
Will Smith
The team at Aspen HR recently published a short white paper targeted at searchers Entitled A New CEO's Guide to Human Resources. It lays out the key items you should be thinking about as you transition into CEO and owner of the business you bought. The link to download it is in the show notes. Aspen is a professional employer organization, or peo, run by a searcher for searchers. Search fund veteran Mark Sinatra runs the company which provides HR compliance, flawless payroll, Fortune 500 caliber benefits and HR due diligence support for your acquisition, all for a fraction of the cost. Go to aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly at Mark aspen hr.com Anything else to say about this business that is not obvious that the, the listener should, should know?
- [37:45]
Cliff Nelson
No, I, I think we covered the big high points.
- [37:47]
Will Smith
Okay. Okay, great. Okay, you find this. Where is the business?
- [37:51]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, we're, we're based in Silver Spring, Maryland, so just outside of D.C. and then I, I mentioned already, you know, Maryland, D.C. virginia, Pennsylvania is the coverage area.
- [38:00]
Will Smith
Okay. So businesses in Silver Spring not far from me. You were doing your search from Chicago, so we assume there's been a move there. Now I think we return to the, the plot. You close on the business, your baby comes late a little few days. Yeah, thankfully. And so actually you close on the business first and then a few days later the baby comes. Give us a picture. What's that like?
- [38:29]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, so I'll go all the way back to signing the LOI because that when, when it Got signed. I, I did have the feeling like this is the one for a bunch of reasons. And I thought, you know, yeah, that 90 day window, we're going to hit it, we're gonna off to the races. But it was the very typical experience of, you know, the seller hired an attorney who was primarily a real estate person. The seller's experience with business transactions was a smaller private practice and real estate. So he thought, you know, okay, there's not a whole lot of diligence to do that. First request list comes in, he's like, whoa, you know, concerned. And so there was actually a lot of trust to build education on the process. We did get them to ultimately hire a health care focused attorney who, you know, smooth things over a bit. But all that takes time and stretches out. So, you know, I guess it would have been, you know, beginning of October where it's like, now the clock's ticking, I'm one month out from the baby due date. And we, you know, had preemptive rights notice going out to investors, the bank term sheet was signed and they're, you know, coalescing. And I just remember in the weeks leading up, every day, waking up every day and, and rolling over to Christine be like, don't go into labor today. Don't go into labor today. And I don't know, she listened. I don't know if, if Calvin, our son, listened. But, but that worked out. But it was, it was a hindrance because normally, like, you can push these things over the finish line by getting there in person. I know plenty of people who, when they're in that home stretch, they fly out and they don't leave until the deal's done. I couldn't do that. I couldn't fly at all because I'm not missing the birth of one of my children for a deal. The due date passed.
- [40:18]
Will Smith
You.
- [40:18]
Cliff Nelson
We, we got past November 1st and, and everybody on the whole deal team knows this. So every call they're like, thank goodness you're here. And we ended up closing, you know, Friday, November 4th, late in the day, of course, because they never close early in the day. And you know, I, I fully expected or was prepared for Christine to go into labor over the weekend. And like, can I even announce this to the team before this happens? Fortunately, that didn't. And so we did two virtual announcements on Monday. I remember telling my seller, you know, make sure that the meeting invite is titled exciting announcement or something positive so people aren't worried. And I think he just said mandatory meeting. So, like some of the context There the. There was a very prominent bankruptcy and liquidation of one of our competitors in 2021. And a lot of my employees came from that. So they see this and they're freaking out. Assuaged a lot of those concerns as much as you can in a, you know, 30 minute to an hour teams meeting. And then, yeah, that was Monday. I think it was the Tuesday.
- [41:28]
Will Smith
And Cliff, if Christine hadn't been so. So pregnant, would this meeting, this day one speech have been in person? Would you have flown to Maryland and.
- [41:38]
Cliff Nelson
Done it in person? Certainly for the administrative staff, because they're all in Silver Spring. For the clinicians, it would have had to be virtual anyway, anyway. But of course, you know, had she not been pregnant, I would have had the whole week to go make the rounds, meet people in person, all that. That wasn't there. So that the day after we announced, announced to the team, the doctor said, you know, you're. You're going to be induced. So we went to the induction. It was a long, long labor. And he was born on the Wednesday morning, you know, less than a week after we closed on the business. And then Thursdays are the big meeting day at pgs. We do all of our regional stuff. So from the recovery room in the hospital, I was on mute, no camera, listening to those meetings that Thursday. And, you know, kind of picked it up from there.
- [42:31]
Will Smith
And. Okay, so I mean, that. That's week one. Of course, that is the most. That is the most kind of acute moment of a delivery. But anybody who's had a kid, especially the first kid, you know, the. The kind of overwhelming nature of it continues for weeks and months. So. So did it just settle down then or what happened? How did you handle this first kind of month of what. What is your son's name? Calvin.
- [43:00]
Cliff Nelson
Calvin, yeah.
- [43:01]
Will Smith
What? Calvin's life.
- [43:04]
Cliff Nelson
There was no good answer that this really felt like a no, no success scenario. Survival mode. So the. The plan was for me to go out, you know, to Maryland to be in person, you know, for one or two days a week for kind of the indefinite future. And then, you know, Christine kind of mustered resources of family for the days when I was going to be gone. So, you know, over the next three weeks, you know, first week I flew out, I think I was there two days overnight to meet with people, start learning the business. The next week I was out for a day trip where I was like the 5am flight, the 10pm flight, because it was Thanksgiving that week. So, yeah, in the middle of this, then we're going and traveling to Wisconsin to see family who were like, congratulations. What the hell are you thinking?
- [43:56]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [43:57]
Cliff Nelson
And then, you know, the third week I had one more visit and I don't remember where in that three weeks we decided, or I should say I pushed, like, we've gotta move. I can't do this. Like, it was stressing me to feel like I'm not physically present in either because I, I wasn't, I felt bad that I had, was asking, you know, Chrissy, as my, my spouse, my partner, to basically figure out how to be a parent without me while she's also physically recovering, by the way. And so, so we made the decision. I think it was the week of Thanksgiving where I went and signed a lease. And we just picked a place, you know, no scrutiny, wherever we can move. And then she got mastitis, which if, if people aren't familiar that it's an infection, you know, that happens, it can happen with breastfeeding and was prescribed antibiotics and had a big allergic reaction like hives head to toe from the allergy. So going into that third week, we had movers booked for the Friday. We had an apartment lease signed. I'm stressed to my hilt, like, trying to, to fulfill both sides of my obligations. And the, the oh, crap moment is, you know, her saying like, I, I, if, if this doesn't clear up, I can't move. The doctor said don't do it. That was probably the toughest part of this, this whole journey because it, it, like it's a no win situation. Like she feels like, you know, we, we committed to do this. She made a commitment to me. We're both aligned, that we're not going to do anything that puts her health at risk. But at the same time, like, I really, really didn't want the answer to be, we can't move. And the way it fortunately, you know, played out is, I mean, a day and a half before the movers were set to come, you know, the hives cleared up, you know, the allergic reaction's gone, Doctor says you're okay to move. And then we did it. I mean, we, we packed up everything on that Friday. We drove through the night. Calvin was a champ and, you know, he woke up to feed at the rest stops along the turnpike. And, you know, then we were here. But then it's, you know, it's still just for six months. It's a blur. I mean, everything from, you know, living in our apartment on lawn furniture and air mattresses. You know, the movers are delayed, of course, even things like, you know, Chrissy had To find doctors. You know, she, she has, you know, post op or, you know, post delivery care. Calvin needs a doctor because he's got a million visits to go do. And then I was, you know, I was getting to the office at 5:30 in the morning so that I could make it home while Chrissy was still awake to help with the baby. And that was like the first six months, it all blurs together.
- [46:52]
Will Smith
And that move to Maryland was, was going to happen. It just had to be pulled a lot forward. To be clear, this.
- [47:00]
Cliff Nelson
Yes. Scramble to deal world, that would have happened, you know, simultaneous with close, you know, baby comes later or significantly before. But yeah, the plan when we realized they were going to converge was, you know, we'll have to push the move out later than otherwise we would have.
- [47:18]
Will Smith
Right.
- [47:18]
Cliff Nelson
But that wasn't a good plan.
- [47:20]
Will Smith
Right, right. Because so it was January. Ish. You were thinking something like that. Yeah.
- [47:26]
Cliff Nelson
We hadn't even spent.
- [47:27]
Will Smith
And then because of this back and forth over the first two and three weeks of Calvin's life, the flying back and forth to Maryland, you realized that this wasn't tenable even until through January. Needed to move. Exactly.
- [47:39]
Cliff Nelson
Basically that's right. Yep.
- [47:40]
Will Smith
Wow. Okay, let's. I want to hear kind of about the, you know, the emotions of this. You've. You've used the word stress. Maybe start us off with how are you and Christine relating at this point?
- [47:56]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, that's a good question. We, we never, it was never antagonistic. That's probably the only reason that we got through this, you know, in good shape is it was always collaborative. And I actually think it's kind of like the core, the core entrepreneurial skill is figuring things out. Like it's constant problem solving mode. We hear this from your guests all the time. And I think we both looked at this. It's another problem to solve. But the emotional side of it is, you know, we both had made commitments to each other and we were both in a position where, you know, we were maybe gonna have to break those commitments. Of course, you know, the other one understood in all those cases, but it still is just a really difficult spot to be in. And I'd say for me, I actually had a board member had prepped me for this going and he's like, you were gonna feel like you did. You're being a bad father and a bad CEO at the same time. And that's true.
- [48:57]
Will Smith
Like, wait, this board member said that.
- [49:00]
Cliff Nelson
Before closing because he knew the timeline and the convergence.
- [49:04]
Will Smith
Okay.
- [49:04]
Cliff Nelson
And was prepping.
- [49:05]
Will Smith
So this wasn't A blanket observation that he made about anybody with.
- [49:09]
Cliff Nelson
No, he wasn't saying because it was.
- [49:11]
Will Smith
At the same, I mean, to your situation. Yeah.
- [49:13]
Cliff Nelson
And I, I think my biggest stress and training is like, I've got, you know, the two most important people in the world to me in one part of the country with needs that I ought to fulfill. But then I've got over 100 people elsewhere which like, given this context of this prior bankruptcy of an unrelated business and like, they're all nervous and stressed and strained. It's a time of uncertainty and I'm picturing all of them going home to their loved ones. Like, what does this mean for me? Is my job safe? Is it going to change? Like, and I want to solve both of those at the same time, which just isn't possible when they're in different places.
- [49:51]
Will Smith
Well, and, and of course, as we know, regular listeners will know that first impression that you make can. Is, is very delicate. And, and sometimes a searcher will make a bad first impression and recover, but sometimes they'll make a bad first impression and not recover and there will be immediate attrition or, you know, all kinds of problems can, can, can flow from that. Not saying that you made a bad first impression, but you weren't delivering them. Yeah, well, but you weren't delivering the impression that you, you, you would have choreographed in your ideal, in your ideal situation. I mean, you were.
- [50:25]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, I think.
- [50:25]
Will Smith
Or am I wrong? Did. Where you.
- [50:27]
Cliff Nelson
I would say like the, the silver lining is you are never going to have a private equity overlord, acquire the business and say, hold on, I've got to take care of my baby. Like, it, it softens. I think it did have an impact of softening the message because like, look, I'm, I'm a person too. We're in this together. And like, you know.
- [50:52]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [50:53]
Cliff Nelson
I think two years later it's safe to say I've, you know, whatever first impression, like, we're through that. But culturally it's really important to our practice and our providers that they have a lot of flexibility and autonomy. You know, we have a ton of part time people who they might be caring for an aging relative themselves or you know, they value being able to drop their kids off at the bus stop and they're flexible in when they can go into their assigned facilities. And so it, in a way it's helped like it reinforced that culture. Yeah, I'm a parent too. I have family obligations even as the CEO. I adjust my schedule to make it work and I want the same flexibility for the team here.
- [51:35]
Will Smith
How interesting. What a happy byproduct of this experience that you were building culture and you didn't even realize it.
- [51:41]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, I'm not sure I would have picked this as the way to build that culture, but it's the silver lining.
- [51:46]
Will Smith
And how did you perceive that your wife was handling this. This. This period?
- [51:52]
Cliff Nelson
Not.
- [51:52]
Will Smith
Not. Well, keeping keeping in mind that we're gonna hear from her directly here in.
- [51:56]
Cliff Nelson
A little bit, she. She is very tough. We did not talk about this in the pre call, but to give a sense of how tough she is, literally physically. But before we met her, her appendix burst and she had to have surgery. And, you know, it started with her being like, oh, I think I've got a little stitch. You know, oh, maybe I exerted myself too much. And by the time she finally called and went to the hospital, like, oh, it has burst. Most people call days before this. So she's tough, but for anybody, you know, putting myself in her shoes, it's like, the uncertainty. Like, even up till the end, she knew the baby was coming. We all knew. One way or another, the baby's here. But deals fall apart at the 11th hour all the time, so that. That's still uncertain until it's done. And then, you know, she has her own career that is now uprooted. And so during her maternity leave, she knows she's not going back. And so it's like, new family dynamic, new place to live, new job situation, no friends, no family support system. Locally. She started seeing a therapist. Like, I know she's comfortable with me sharing that. Like, for obvious reasons that would strain anybody to the point where, like, they need somebody to talk to. Some days I feel like a therapist, a CEO, but I'm obviously not. And even if I was, I didn't have time to, like, really be there and work through these things. And even if I did, like, there's a reason therapists exist because family's not the person to go to for some of these things. So it was tough.
- [53:35]
Will Smith
At any point, did you question what you were doing?
- [53:38]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, and I still do. I think. I think anybody that tells you they're 100% sure is probably lying.
- [53:42]
Will Smith
Not.
- [53:43]
Cliff Nelson
Not questioning the what. Like, I. I love the what. And. And back then, even knew it was the right thing. But even going back. Going back to that beginning search moment, you know, with COVID like, there's the what have I done? Like, oh, my gosh, Did. Did I make a mistake committing to buy this business knowing that there was a baby on the way like that, that doubt creeps in.
- [54:08]
Will Smith
Let's close our conversation with just a little bit more on how it's gone these last two years. We talked a little bit about the J curve in our pre call. Let's start there.
- [54:20]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, that in, in one hyphenated word, that's how I would say it's gone. Is, is where we're in the J curve. You know, the biggest risks for this business going in which, which everybody knew about were its people intensive. And that impacts both recruiting the people who do the work that bring in the money, you know, also the administrative team, you know, and being tied to government reimbursement rates. Those were like the two big things. Both of those have been a challenge on the people side. The practice, the way it evolved over the 30 years it existed roughly before I joined, you know, it was very Dr. Centric and being provider centric, to be clear, is a very good thing. But everybody probably knows or has experiences with doctors not being great administrators. And we have some that are great administrators but they've got a better, highest and best use for their time. And so the way it evolved was like individual fiefdoms for each doctor that when you're small it works really well. They are so embedded. They know exactly what's going on in every facility. They were involved in the payer relationships and insurance, they were involved in HR decisions, it all those things. But that meant it's being done differently everywhere. And to go hire specialists to do that, to enable us to scale that costs money. I mean we took as an example before I joined, there was one person doing all of the recruiting and all of the HR for the practice. That's more than a one person job. And so now, now we have two people on the recruiting team, we have an HR generalist and we have an HR support person. So we've gone from one to four. That's not free to do. That's a big investment and you can think about similar needs across every team. And it's really hard to, you know, to, to balance, you know, how quickly do you make that investment? We all want growth. The growth's not free. That, that's been the theme. It's really tough to balance that. And we're still clawing our way out of the J curve. Two years in, to be clear, you.
- [56:42]
Will Smith
Knew to expect the J curve. So now that you're in it though, just, just knowing intellectually it's coming, but being in it, that did, did that soften the blow or is it really still because it, it's kind of like intellectually you can be like, yeah, I wish we were getting all that, all those new earnings now, but we'll get there. This is just laying the foundation and, and we'll get there.
- [57:05]
Cliff Nelson
I, I'd see that. That's like, that question is probably the biggest single source of anxiety in my seat is, you know, I intellectually appreciated there's a J curve. I didn't model it the way I should have. I think searchers rarely do actually build it into their financial model. Investors, board members, they all know and actually more than I do, they know intellectually and through experience that there's going to be a J curve. But it's part of their job to not let up. If they were telling me constantly, oh, don't worry, it's the J curve, you'll be fine. That's going to delay climbing my way out of it. And so I do have this, you know, on both sides, like one. I know, yeah, the J curve is there, but it's not comfortable. And if it is comfortable, that's a problem. Like you need to claw your way out of it.
- [57:55]
Will Smith
Yeah. Gotta love investors for, for the pressure and accountability that they exert.
- [58:00]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah. Well, and, and actually it's, it's funny that I love, I love the setup of traditional search when it's done really well. And, and by that I mean, I have a, an amazing board. It, it's a mix of, you know, one larger search fund investor, one smaller search fund investor, and one industry person, plus me. So there's four of us. The, the investor group trusts them and like, the communication to the investors is such that like, really it's the board. And I don't get a lot of stuff from investors being like, oh my gosh, I'm worried about the J curve because they're all aware of it and they know the board is on top of it.
- [58:40]
Will Smith
Anything else to say about the experience? I'll, I'll volunteer one thing and then, then I'll leave it to you, Cliff, to click close us out. You had said that it is the business you thought it was. Which is, which is actually, you're an outlier there. We, we. The norm is sort of that it's not the business the searcher thinks it was when they bought it. And happily, in your case, it was.
- [58:59]
Cliff Nelson
Yeah, I would say it depends what level of detail you go to, like the broad strokes of the big things that the traditional search investors want to check. You know, at healthy growth, good margins, both at the, the Ebitda margin and gross profit margin level good sticky, predictable revenues, overall capital efficiency. I mean we've got those, I would say. And, and we also did know going in that there was historically an under investment in, you know, the, the platform side of it. That's business building though. So we, we expected that. I would say all the details or extent of that has been surprising. Like there are some areas where I look, I'm like, man, this is really held together with Scotch tape and it's going to take a lot more to get it where we want it to go. But that I chalked it up probably to just experience having this being my first time go going through it. I think there's lots of businesses out there held together with Scotch tape.
- [60:02]
Will Smith
Yeah, yeah. Anything else?
- [60:06]
Cliff Nelson
No, I think really the big message I would want searchers to take away from the conversation is, you know, this journey, there's so much personal growth embedded in doing this that even if you know you're going to have it, it's going to be to a greater extent. Like I said, grit gets spoken about lots and lots for the searcher. But you've got to appreciate going in that that's it's more than just your grit that's involved. So I think if they take that away from it, then it's been a good, good interview.
- [60:41]
Will Smith
And, and, and on that point, Cliff, is the actionable piece of advice here to just kind of over communicate what this journey could look like to your partner sort of thing. Just get them on board and then get them on board again and then.
- [60:56]
Cliff Nelson
Confirm that they're on board 100%. And yeah, all the prep that people advise searchers do before taking the leap, like listen to this podcast. They tell prospective searchers, go talk with 20, 30 plus people who've done it. The spouses probably should be involved in that. Maybe not 30 conversations, but to a similar extent.
- [61:17]
Will Smith
Super. Cliff. Well, it's, it's, as we've already said, it's a, it's a really important point, the partner involvement in a search. So I, I thank you for really raising your hand and saying let's, let's have a conversation about that. In particular, this has been really helpful and it's going to be so rich to now hear from Christine in a separate one on one conversation. If people want to get in touch with you, sir, how can they do that? How do you like outreach to happen?
- [61:41]
Cliff Nelson
LinkedIn's probably the easiest. Cliff Nelson, PGS I should be searchable.
- [61:46]
Will Smith
Great. And of course we'll link to that in the show notes Cliff Nelson.
- [61:49]
Cliff Nelson
That sounds great.
- [61:50]
Will Smith
Thank you, sir.
- [61:50]
Cliff Nelson
Thanks a lot.
- [61:53]
Will Smith
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Cliff. Now we'll hear from his wife, Christine for her perspective on this whole journey. Christine Nelson, welcome to Acquiring Minds.
- [62:06]
Christine Nelson
Thank you very much. I am very happy to be here. Thanks for having me as a guest.
- [62:11]
Will Smith
Well, Christine, we've just heard from your husband Cliff about his experience acquiring PGs, getting over the finish line on his deal. Right. As you were due. And then the first few weeks of Calvin, your son's life coinciding with the first weeks of Cliff's transition into CEO of pgs. Now we'd like to hear your perspective on the aforementioned events as the partner of a searcher. And not just a partner, but a wife going through her first pregnancy at the same time. First, thank you for doing this, Christine.
- [62:50]
Christine Nelson
Thank you. I'm very excited to share our story and our perspective. I think it's unique and it's a good one to tell.
- [62:57]
Will Smith
Great. Well, to start us off, let's go back to the first time you heard Cliff mention to you search funds, buying a business, and then proceed from there. When was that?
- [63:10]
Christine Nelson
So Cliff and I met in 2017, and he was near the end of finishing his MBA and he started talking about search right away. So it was. It was clearly this thing that he had learned about in school he was excited about. And truth be told, I thought he was just telling me something that was an interesting topic he learned in school. Every time he would talk about search, I wasn't quite clear that this was something he was interested in pursuing in the near future. And so I. I listened, but I didn't probe too much. I didn't ask too many questions about it in those earlier years when I first learned about it. And it wasn't until then we got married end of 2019. And near after we got married, you know, he kind of sat me down and we had this serious conversation where he said, I would like to do a search fund. This is what I want to do. I'm ready to do this. And I kind of had a. Oh, I didn't. Sorry. I wasn't listening quite intently to what this means earlier. Please let's rewind. Try to fill me in. What would this mean for you? What does this mean for me? We are married now. I feel like this is a partnership, a sort of. Sort of journey. I was not opposed to it, but I was, you know, I was not quite clued into what exactly this would mean. So.
- [64:24]
Will Smith
So his early mentions of it and you not it wasn't that you were apprehensive or like, oh, God, I hope he doesn't do that. It was more just like, seem like a topic among many that he brought home from school and so.
- [64:37]
Christine Nelson
Exactly.
- [64:37]
Will Smith
You didn't inscribe it in your memory. Exactly. And then when it got serious, serious, you were like, okay, let me, let me really, Let me listen.
- [64:44]
Christine Nelson
Yes, yes. Well, anyone that knows Cliff knows that he has lots of ideas and he has lots of passions. That's one of the things I love about him. So how was I to know that this was going to be the one that was exactly what he was going to do?
- [64:56]
Will Smith
Okay. And so then when he was serious about it and you needed to train your attention on it, how'd you react? What did you think of the concept?
- [65:04]
Christine Nelson
I. I was pretty critical, honestly, at the start. My initial response, and this is going to crack anyone up that is listening because you're very in tune to this. But mine was, this can't be real. You are making this up. What do you mean? Someone's just going to sell you their business? Who are you? Like, what makes you think you can do this? I did not understand that this was a well thought through process that had been proven. You know, evaluated multiple angles was a real thing. So I thought he was kind of just blowing his horn, saying, yeah, yeah, you know, I think someone will sell me their business. Was. Was honestly the reaction I had.
- [65:38]
Will Smith
And then. And then here you are. So how did, how did your resistance begin to chip away?
- [65:46]
Christine Nelson
Well, I've learned when I knew, when I married him, that I was going to experience a lot of things that I probably wouldn't have if I just, I don't know, stayed a nice Midwest mentality and didn't branch out too much. So I knew that I was going to go on journeys with him. So I was, I was excited. I was open to it. I knew we weren't going to stay in Chicago our whole life. We weren't going to live that exact life we were having when we got married. So I was. I was open to this one as the option. I was like, okay, tell me more. This sounds good. I don't fully know what this means. And to his credit, neither did he. Right. You can. You can listen, you can read, you can talk to people as much as you want. Until you do it, you don't know what your experience is going to be. And we've definitely found that out as well for us. So I sort of just said, okay, like, let's, let's do this. I don't know. It's gonna. You tell me. This is gonna be probably a couple years out before any change really happens anyways. That'll be plenty of time for me to sort of figure this out, what I'm doing with this.
- [66:47]
Will Smith
And you referred to Midwest mentality. So too. Did Cliff. What? Say more about what you mean?
- [66:53]
Christine Nelson
Sure. For me, I think for many in the Midwest, you know, we kind of grow up with the mentality of you. You follow those in front of you. So you. You go to school, you get a good job, something that's kind of familiar to people. You. You do really hard work, you kind of put your head down in work, and ultimately you'll end up retiring. You'll. You'll have a family, you'll have a really nice life. And, you know, you don't stray too far away from what is familiar and what is sort of seen around you.
- [67:22]
Will Smith
And you think that this conservatism, professional conservatism, is a Midwestern thing as opposed to, say, small. A small town thing.
- [67:31]
Cliff Nelson
And we.
- [67:32]
Will Smith
We touched on this a little bit in the. In the pre call. I hadn't heard this stereotype about Midwesterners. Obviously, there's businesses that have been started up and down the Midwest. It's, you know, it's the manufacturing center of the country, sort of, I guess kind of the Rust belt was. But. But that includes large swaths of the Midwest. So clearly there have been business. And, you know, some of our most famous entrepreneurs historically were Midwesterners. So I'm just. I'm just interested by. By this. That it's taken me this long in life to hear this stereotype of the Midwest.
- [68:02]
Christine Nelson
Sure. You know, we may be wrong. It might be my. My puddle of the Midwest that this is sort of the exposure that I've been to or that I know Cliff and I kind of both came when we didn't know each other growing up. We lived in different areas growing up, and we both kind of came in saying, yeah, this is a Midwest mindset, but there may be plenty of people listening that disagree, because you're right. There's obviously plenty of. You see everything everywhere in the country, including the middle. Yeah.
- [68:30]
Will Smith
But regardless of that, of. Of what the exact truth is there, your truth, as it were, was that this was the culture of your town or your family, that your own culture.
- [68:44]
Cliff Nelson
So you.
- [68:44]
Will Smith
You would have. You would describe yourself at that time probably still as conservative when it comes to risk taking, Professional risk taking.
- [68:52]
Christine Nelson
Absolutely. Yep. I would. I've grown, I've Learned a lot, but definitely that was how I was born and raised.
- [68:57]
Will Smith
Okay. Okay. Well, pretty cool dynamic that, you know, you, you trust your partner to take you on an adventure.
- [69:07]
Christine Nelson
Yes.
- [69:08]
Will Smith
Great. Okay, so, so you say you, you kind of listen to what he's really talking about, wrap your head around it, say, okay, let's do it. Where is the next important point in the story? I know Shreveport eventually happens. I want to hear your perspective on Shreveport. But is there something before that?
- [69:24]
Christine Nelson
Yeah, not a specific point, but a general comment. As I was thinking about, you know, the partner's perspective in all of this is something worth noting is that a lot of the journey that the searcher himself or herself goes through, the partner goes through in their own way. So getting overly excited or maybe overly apprehensive about any location, the timing that things are taking, etc. You know, I, I felt too on my, on my own journey because anytime he would bring up a new company idea, my first question was always, where is it? And, oh, you know, I don't, I don't actually know. I have to go back and remember because to him it's more about the business he's jumping into. For me, it's, where is it going to be? Because that's what my life is going to be. Right. So we kind of had a little bit of an adjustment on that one too. You mentioned Shreveport as a specific one. That was Shreveport, Louisiana was a opportunity that he got pretty far on. So far that I actually came and came on one of the trips with him, one of the visits, because it looked like it was serious and I am lucky that he wanted my viewpoint the whole time. And I said, I've never really seen myself living in that part of the country. I could be surprised. Let's go. I'm staying open minded. I entered into this whole journey, you know, saying, I'll go where we go. You tell me this could only be a five year thing. I can do anything for five years, right. So, so, so I go with him. And in absolutely no offense to Shreveport, it was a lovely place. It was not a place I wanted to live. And you know, I, I spent the day at the hotel doing work while he was out meeting with the business owner and, you know, getting to know the job and this and that, and I'm researching what's around and start at things and thinking, you know, he's going to come back and he's going to tell me this was a fun trip, but no, this is not the business. And we had the exact opposite conversation. That night at dinner where he said this, this, this could be it, I'm pretty excited. This seems like a very good opportunity and I did not mean to at all, but I just immediately broke down in tears. I was not expecting this. Okay, you know, I guess I'll wrap my head around it, but can I voice my concerns? Let's do like you told me, this was going to be a partnership. So let me tell you how I'm feeling. And like I said, luckily for me, he was receptive to it. We talked a lot about it. I did tell him, I will come with you, I will do this, but gosh darn it, you better be absolutely certain about this one. Like we are not going to, not taking a chance if you're kind of wishy washy on this deal. So you better be pretty darn certain. And that, that was probably the, the, the biggest actual opportunity that we, I don't know, had to work through. Throughout his journey. I, I sort of mentioned earlier I, I didn't expect to leave the Midwest. And so the fact that I knew I was going to be moving anywhere in the country was sort of something I was still wrapping my head around. And that that was the sort of first big opportunity was a place I had never expected myself to live was a little tough. And when you're, when you're the partner of the searcher, you know, you're, you're not in control. You're consulted, you're considered, but you're not in control. And so Cliff is able to see all of these really positive sides about the opportunity because it's his job opportunity. I see only what my life will be and I have a career as well. And so with all these opportunities, it's a question of, well, what could I do there? What would be my job there? Are there jobs for me to do? I work in the food industry. We are all around the country, but we're not everywhere in the country. So that was always a big contender too on what will I have to do? Might I have to change careers or at least you know, where I'm working specifically based on where we go.
- [73:31]
Will Smith
The, this move question of moving is most relevant to traditional search funds. The model that Cliff did where you really, you're kind of expected in. Many traditional searchers will go anywhere where they can find the right opportunity or almost anywhere. Many of my guests who don't do that model, they do the self funded model or other models don't do that and have the liberty or choose the path that enables them to Stay put or really be selective about where they buy a business, which is typically local to where they already are. So in some ways, this piece of your story, which for you, partner, is one of the biggest questions of all this where you're going to live thing is not going to be relevant to a ton of searchers because they're not doing traditional searches.
- [74:20]
Christine Nelson
Fair enough.
- [74:21]
Will Smith
But. But not to take anything away from it. It's just to call it out because it is such a key part of this. Key part of this experience for the both of you. But. But. But the other thing, in some ways, too, this is actually. This piece is also not specific to search in any couple where partner A gets some incredible professional opportunity, and it means moving the family in. Partner B kind of follows, this tension arises. So in some ways, this is. This is a. This is a pattern separate from. From search itself.
- [74:57]
Christine Nelson
Sure.
- [74:57]
Will Smith
But. But anyway. Now, after Shreveport, did you say kind of. Okay, maybe I. Maybe we need to set some boundaries on where we'll live. Like, it's not just going to be anywhere. I'm not going to move to, like, the little tip of Alaska sort of.
- [75:12]
Christine Nelson
Thing, you would think, but not really. No. I think that that one helped Clift understand both of us, honestly, to understand how would we really react to this idea of moving anywhere. But we. You know, from my perspective, we had the conversation upfront when he agreed to this, and the whole way through the process is, this is the deal exactly to what you had said earlier. This happens to people all the time. You got a good opportunity, you move with your spouse. We're married. I'm going to come with you. I'll make the best of any situation. That is what it is. So. So no, he really didn't shift how he considered looking for anything, and. But I just remained, you know, true to how I felt, because that's the best I can do is at least be honest and how I'm feeling about it throughout it.
- [76:01]
Will Smith
Great, Christine, thank you. The other thing that you had said that I want to call out is how you kind of got familiar with what he was doing purely because of the. The physical constraints imposed on you by Covid and. And your, you know, your proximity to all of. To him and therefore all the calls that he was on. Tell us about that. Because. Because I feel like. I don't know if there's a learning there, but it is kind of. It was an important feature of Tell us what it is first.
- [76:35]
Christine Nelson
Yes, absolutely. So I'm sure Cliff touched on the details, but essentially, he Started his search journey. And then. And then covet happened and the shutdowns happened and we all went to working from home. And so my job did too. His job as well. We were living in a one bedroom apartment, downtown Chicago. We were very close to each other at all times. We could hear each other's meetings. Right. Not unique to many couples in that situation, but for me, that was very beneficial because I got to hear his entire fundraising journey firsthand from. I could hear his calls, I got to hear him reaching out to all of the companies and what those conversations sounded like. I joke that not too far into his process, I could probably give his spiel. Like, I. I knew it pretty well, I heard it so many times. And. And that was really helpful then for both of us because so he would have, let's say you would have a good call and he could pop into my side of the room and tell me about it or a bad call, and he could tell me about it. Like, I was his first point of contact that he would debrief on all of his calls with. So that was really beneficial, I think, for both of us that I could completely understand what he was doing, what this job was, what the journey was, what, you know, and.
- [77:45]
Will Smith
And it was beneficial because. Because you. Because it just kind of educated on you. On really what this thing is less vague more. Or did it also. Or maybe did you respect it more? Was it like, wow, that sounds like a hard thing to do or what? Like, what was your.
- [78:02]
Christine Nelson
Yes, I definitely did respect it more. And I do not mean to come across that I disrespected this process by any means, but. But yes, I did, you know, and I got to. It was a very cool thing to see from your partner. You know, you guys know each other in your personal relationships, but we didn't work together. We don't know each other from work. So I don't know who he is when he works, but I got to learn that and I got to see how he, you know, presents themselves and, you know, hear what these kind of conversations are. And I'm always inspired by him. And, you know, that really continued. And I think we just built a lot of respect for each other by me being there on this journey with him and he, you know, being able to show me and be vulnerable about what was tough. You know, he didn't have to come home and then tell me about his day. Like, if he was feeling rough or very excited, you know, I was right there. He couldn't hide any of it from me. So it did give me a lot of respect for the amount of work that all of you go through to do this. It's. It's tough. It's very tough, but so it was very nice to see it firsthand. Absolutely.
- [79:01]
Will Smith
Right. Okay. And next point in the story is what? You being pregnant. Take us forward.
- [79:10]
Christine Nelson
Yeah, yeah. I'll back up just one. One step of that is, you know, we. We got married when he started this, and we decided, you know, we have to start a family. It was a very big conversation the whole time of, do we wait until you finished your search or do we start it now? And ultimately came up to don't let search stop living your life. We want to have a family. Let's have a family. Let's figure out how to do this. We'll figure it out. I guess whatever the timing is. And I can fast forward honestly through to the tough stuff where we talked through every option and said, well, worst case scenario is I'm going to have the baby when you close the search. And unfortunately for us, that's exactly what happened, as I'm sure Cliff walked you through those steps already, so I'm. I'm happy to kind of step it through from my side.
- [79:55]
Will Smith
From your side, please. Yeah. What was. So. What was that? So, Right. So you guys, in your timing of it, it was like, let's know, we're going to proceed with our family. We don't want to stop. The most important thing for a search, and the chances that, you know, Cliff finds and is closing on the business. Right. As the baby comes are slim to none. So. And then, in fact, that's exactly what happened. So maybe from. From there.
- [80:19]
Christine Nelson
Yeah. Yes. So from my perspective, I know. I know the baby's coming. Right. You get pregnant, you have a due date, you know, when the baby's going to be here. But from his journey with finding this company, you know, some days it was. Some days it was. This was going to fall apart. Some days it was, no, this is it, and we're going to close in a month. And then it was, you know, no, it's going to be delayed three months. Like, the whole closing process just kept getting sort of later and later and closer to the date, closer to the due date, closer to the due date, until it was basically neck and neck. And gosh, that was tough being the one that was pregnant. Any of you listeners have been or have, you know, a partner who has been pregnant. You understand that, you know, women want to nest. That's what we do when we're pregnant. And so there I felt like I could, it was a very tough pregnancy because I couldn't do a lot of things that naturally my body was telling me to do. Let's start up a nursery, let's buy a house. You know, let's, let's put down roots because this baby is coming and I am a first time mom. I don't know what I'm doing, but let's try to create the right space. And we really couldn't, you know, we, we, we ended up making, I mean, well, our apartment by the time the baby was born was, it was a mess, it was a disaster. You know, there was, there was a bassinet in the corner and you know, we were using our stroller as a bassinet because there was no room to, to, to, to buy the right equipment because we thought we were going to be moving. And, and I said this in our, in our pre call, like, you know, the baby's coming but you don't know that the deal is done until the deal is done. And so we really didn't want to. We talked about buying a house in Chicago and just saying, well, if the deal closes, we'll just rent out the house. And you know, we talked about all these other options and we actually got pretty close to doing that and ultimately said, no, let's just, let's just stay here. We're going to stay in this small space because we're probably going to move to Maryland soon after the baby's here. So, you know, Cliff's busy thinking about the business and I'm sitting here thinking about the baby and just looking around and thinking, this isn't right. None of this is right. This is not what I planned. You know, this is not the space I intended. And I, it's out of my control. There's nothing I can do to make it better except just take it every day and know that we're going to be okay. You know, just kind of had to keep saying that every day.
- [82:41]
Will Smith
And so, and so how kind of bad emotionally did that part get? That part before the baby came, before.
- [82:48]
Christine Nelson
The baby came, it became pretty tough. I ended up just internalizing it, I think a lot because I knew there was, this was it. There was no, you know, there was no other option. This is the life we're living. It was sort of the. Every time I talk to someone, you know, how are you doing? You know, what's the plan? This and that. And it got to a point where I'm just like, I just, like, just stop asking Me, this, the plan is. The plan is we're going to have a baby. We'll figure everything else out. I don't know. I cannot. I've got nothing. It was just like eye on the prize of what's going to happen and when is this all going to time out. I will say another struggle with this too is that I wasn't sure what to do about my job. So I was about like, will I hit maternity leave while we are like, will the baby come and I'll be in maternity leave when we move or are we going to have to move before, before the baby comes? And I haven't told work because it may not happen. Right. So I've got a lot of logistics side on my side going through that. Just kind of every day taking it day by day, trying to figure out how to get through it. So, yeah, it was getting pretty tough.
- [83:58]
Will Smith
Okay, so the baby comes and tell us what that experience is like, kind of the delivery in the immediate aftermath.
- [84:05]
Christine Nelson
Sure. The baby comes. So Cliff closes on a Friday, November 4th. I'm induced November 8th. Long induction. Baby comes November 9th, and we are both in the hospital exhausted for many different reasons. And Cliff's jumping onto calls because he is three days into this business. And here I am trying to figure out how to nurse and how to sleep and what to do with the baby. And he's like, I gotta jump out. I'm go jump on a call. No resentment, nothing like that. We talked about, about that. This is probably what's going to happen. But you know, we just kind of look, kept looking at each other like, I can't believe this is our reality right now. How did we find ourselves in this situation? But, but okay, here we go. Let's just get through this. So, yeah, baby was born. Luckily for me, baby was healthy, I was healthy. We are able to get home. We go home. And by that next week, Cliff is traveling to Maryland and back to start seeing the business for short trips. Right. I think he went overnight once, maybe twice, I don't even remember. And, and, and as a new mom, I needed help. And so I was, you know, having, having some of my family come in. My family is mostly up in Wisconsin, so my sister came once, my mom came once. You know, having help come down for those times that he's gone. Just so I'm not alone, because I, it's tough, you know, first time, first time mom. The emotions are strong and I feel like I, I need to be, I feel like I need to be the sole parent at this Point. And that sounds harsh, and I think Cliff would say the same, but he had two babies at that one, at that point, and I had one. And so I knew that, like, Calvin had to be my focus, and I would tap into him as much as I can, but know that he's really being pulled in two directions. And if it was really tough, very emotional, for sure.
- [86:03]
Will Smith
And, and despite the fact that you guys had agreed that, you know, this is. This is an unpredictable adventure and stuff is going to happen and we're gonna have to push through it, and then you find yourself in this situation. Okay, this is what we. This is one of those moments where we're gonna have to push through. Was there not. You said no resentment. That would be the word to ask about, despite the fact that your intellect was telling you that that wouldn't be fair. Was there part of you that was feeling it anyway?
- [86:27]
Christine Nelson
I don't think that I have.
- [86:29]
Will Smith
Sorry, Christine, but one thing I'll. You know, because just remembering the. The immediate aftermath of a birth, my. In my two cases, like in. In everything, I learned about that process and what it's like for couples and stuff. Like, there's all. There's also a pattern where, where mothers resent fathers just anyway because they're going. Because mothers are going through this incredible hard, difficult thing and the fathers aren't. And no matter how helpful the father tries to be, it's like he's not really suffering any. Any of this. And so there's just some natural resentment that can. That can surface anyway, let alone if the. The whole variable of a search also happening at the same time.
- [87:13]
Christine Nelson
No, you. You're absolutely right. I, I never thought of it as resentment, but I was feeling. I was very frustrated, very upset, but I. And jealous in a way that what he was going through was really, really tough. But I was physically recovering and mentally recovering and the hormones were crazy, and I wasn't on any sleep. And in my head, I was. In the worst case scenario. I was the worst off person of the two of us. So, you know, I was. I was frustrated, I was upset. I never. I never thought of it as resentful. Maybe it was, but, you know, feeling a lot of other. A lot of other emotions. To his credit. He did the best that he could. Right. And it's easy to say, looking back, we're now over two years out of it. I'm. I'm certain I probably felt different, but he definitely did the best that he could.
- [88:10]
Will Smith
Yeah. So now, a week or so later, the back and forth For Maryland is, Is, is not good?
- [88:16]
Christine Nelson
Yes. Yeah. So the plan was always we would wait till the new year. Baby was born November. We would wait, we'd get through the new year, and then we'd move out to Maryland. Cliff's doing the back and forth, and he comes home from one of these and says, I can't do this anymore. You seem to be healing. Calvin seems to be doing fine. After Thanksgiving, we're out of here. We gotta go. That was a little harsh. He did ask it as a question, but, but basically it was very much implied, like, please, we have, we have to go for my sake. I can't be with you and be with this company. The only way for me to even try to do both is for us to physically be in Maryland. And I understood that. I knew what he was saying, but I pushed back on that so hard. You know, this was, that first time we had that conversation was one of the first, like, this is not what we talked about. So many things have already gone not according to plan. But we talked about getting through the new year. I had, I had, you know, family was going to come and visit and help. I was going to try to see some friends before we left, before we, you know, went to a new part of the country. I wanted to pack up the apartment. I wanted to figure out how to be a mom for more than three weeks, like I had plans to do before we moved. And so for Cliff to say, we gotta go. This is not working for me. I understood it. I got it, ultimately, is what we did. But that was probably the first time I really pushed back and said, no, we can't do it. We. But I understand. So we, we made the plan to do it. The plan was going to be, let's leave after Thanksgiving. We'll get through Thanksgiving. We'll, we'll, we'll drive up to Wisconsin, we'll see both of our families, and then we'll come home. And basically, two or three days later, we would get movers to pack up the place and out we would go. We would drive to Maryland. And then it was somewhere along in that journey that I, I, I got mastitis, which is an infection that you could get if you, if you're breastfeeding. I got mastitis, went to the doctor, they put me on antibiotics, and it started healing. By the way, mastitis is the worst sickness I've ever had in my life.
- [90:23]
Will Smith
Wow.
- [90:24]
Christine Nelson
The worst. I was the worst fever I've ever seen. My mom was there with me at the time because, of course, this Happened when Cliff was traveling. So my mom was there and was probably not the best person to be there, because poor mother looking at her daughter. I was. Highest fever I've ever seen. I was physically shaking. I could not calm down. And thank goodness my mom was there because I could not take care of my baby for 24 hours. I could not do anything but lay down and sleep. It was awful. Just to set the tone of how bad I got sick, so I got on antibiotics that did clear up the mastitis. And then. Right. Once those antibiotics were done, I got mastitis again, which is pretty rare, unfortunately. So I went to the doctor, got my S again. They put me on antibiotics, and pretty quickly, those antibiotics, then I reacted to. And I got full. Full body hives. And this is again, while Cliff is traveling into Maryland. My sister is with me at this time. And so I call the doctor. Doctor says it's gotta be a reaction to the antibiotics you're on. Here's what we're gonna do. Switched me to new ones. And she told me, which stuck in my head and scared me at the time, was, if this doesn't clear up in 24 hours, you have to go ER and so I'm like, we can't move. We're supposed to move in two days. Doctors tell me I have to go to the er. I am that sick. We. We can't do this. My sister's with me, and. And she's. She's telling me, too, like, you can't go. This is crazy. You can't go. Look around. Nothing's ready. This is ridiculous. What are you doing? And so. So I forget if Cliff. If I had to call him or if he came home. Those details are still fuzzy. But basically, we talked through this, and I told him. I said, cliff, I'm not going. Doctor told me I can't go. And you said, we are only moving if I am healthy and the baby's healthy and I am not healthy. So. So. So that's that. And we talked through it, and he said, well, what you told me is that the doctor said that, you know, within 24 hours, if this clears up, you're okay. So I'm going to hold on to the Hope that within 24 hours, this clears up. And if that's the case, sounds like you're healthy. I guess you're right. Okay, so this. I mean, this is how much we're. We're each trying to, you know, win this argument. Dare I say, he. He needs to go. I need to stay. And ultimately, thank goodness I do clear up. I do get better that next 24 hours. I'm totally fine. So plan is back on, and we get the movers on as schedule, and we drive out to Maryland, and that's that. And I cry almost the whole way. It is. It is not the exit from Chicag that I expected. I.
- [93:02]
Will Smith
Which. Which is the only place you. Well, you grew up in Wisconsin, but then the only place after college you'd lived and it was really home.
- [93:09]
Christine Nelson
Correct? Exactly. It was.
- [93:10]
Will Smith
How long did you live there?
- [93:11]
Christine Nelson
I lived there almost 10 years.
- [93:13]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [93:13]
Christine Nelson
Yeah. So. And I loved it. It was where I. I felt like I started growing as. As my own individual and as a person. So, yeah, it was a big place for me.
- [93:22]
Will Smith
Yeah. Yeah. And. And so you guys couldn't do a goodbye party sort of thing.
- [93:27]
Christine Nelson
Exactly. And it wasn't even. I don't. I don't need to throw a party. It was. I don't even think I told my friends because it happened so fast, and. And I'm a new mom and everything else is going on that I. I think I texted one or two people saying. But I also feel I'm a Midwest people pleaser, so I feel guilty not being able to give them the proper goodbye that they want. And so I sort of delayed the whole thing. And so it's. It's true. I had said to Cliff, the only way that I can picture this right now is I feel like we are sneaking out in the dead of the night, just running away. And that's not what his experience was. He knew what we were going to. Everyone knew he had been, you know, bought a business, and we were moving to Maryland. That was not my life. I was just a new mom that everyone was worried about sneaking away in the middle of the night. And we literally did. We left at sundown, drove through. Drove all the way through. And like I said, I still look at the. Those. The picture that we took, like the last picture in our apartment, and I get choked up. Like, I still cry thinking about just that. That silent exit that we had in our city.
- [94:31]
Will Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be so hard. Christine. I want to. I don't want to just kind of be dark, but I. Because I think it's. I think it's frankly, the. The important. The hard ship here is the important part of the story. You know, how tense did it become between the two of you?
- [94:50]
Christine Nelson
We have a very. I don't know, kind relationship. Is maybe the right thing to say things again. Midwest. We're Midwest. Nice. Exactly. You know, we don't, we don't yell at each other anything like that. But these, the, those few weeks was probably some of the most tense it's ever been and that just the things that we both had to say to each other. He had to say I can't do this anymore to that being living in two places, being in Maryland, being in Chicago, him saying I can't do that to a woman who he is married to and just had his child and he knows is going through all of the, you know, everything that I'm going through and for me to say back like I can't do what you are asking, like it, it was probably, it was definitely the most difficult time we've ever gone through. The positive way you said I don't want to only speak dark. The positive thing about it is and why I think we, why I really enjoy our relationship is we were able to have real conversations about it and not really feel resentment towards each other, just be able to express how we're feeling, cry to each other, you know, feel the sadness, feel the emotions and talk each other through it, through what we're both doing. So it was the toughest part but we've come out very strong after going through a situation like that.
- [96:11]
Will Smith
How does the move go, Christine? We're going to start wrapping up here but let's hear like so, so much of this is, is been the where the heck are we going to land? Then you learn it's going to be Maryland but it's still this kind of unknown. What's it like when you get there? How's it been?
- [96:28]
Christine Nelson
So we, we, like you said, we drove through the night. We left about 4pm we drove through the night, we stopped at the restaurants. Calvin was a champ, you know, on, on the three hour dot he woke up to feed. We would pull over at the, at the truck stops and I would feed him, change his diaper, you know, give him a little bouncing time or whatever while Cliff would sit in the front seat and close his eyes and take a 15 minute nap so we could get back on the road and keep doing this. So we quite literally drove through the night. 5am we roll into our new apartment that Cliff is seen. He went and signed on one of his journeys, you know, kind of a, hey, we're home. You know, it's, it's dark, I can't really see anything. So the intro to moving to Columbia, Maryland was anti climatic at best. And then we get there and we spend the weekend and Cliff to his credit is so excited to move to Maryland. And so he wants to, he's like, we're here, let's do some things. You know, let's drive into Baltimore. Let's, you know, let's go get some crabs. Let's do this and that. And I'm just emotionally not there. I'm like, we don't have furniture. The movers aren't going to be here for two weeks or something. You know, we have an air mattress. I'm not going places. Like, what do you want to do? He pushed us in the car, we drove around. So we had kind of a fun first weekend of getting to know the city. But then it starts. Then the work starts on Monday. He starts going to work every day and you know, he's getting up at five in the morning to leave to go into the office so he can work before everyone gets there. And now I'm waking up at five in the morning with the baby anyways and, and then I'm home all day in a new city that I don't know anyone, don't have any family, have never been. Went for one quick weekend trip with him, but don't really know anything about. And, and a brand new baby. And so it got a little tough. The some positive things about it is we have wonderful family and a wonderful support system. So almost for, for the few first month, um, we had quite a bit of family rolling through and they would come and help me and stay with us. I felt awful because they were staying with us and we still didn't have our furniture so we could offer them an air mattress and a patio chair. And that was about it. It was ridiculous. And, and that was kind of how it was then for the furniture came. But then for the next few months, you know, Cliff's gone 12 plus hours a day, me and the baby just trying to figure out what to do alone in a city that we don't know.
- [98:55]
Will Smith
And so how does that, how do you digest that? How was your emotional state like at that point? Are you like, wtf? Are you like, well, this is part of the adventure.
- [99:03]
Christine Nelson
What is it more WTF than part of the adventure? I got, I was pretty low. I got a little bit depressed. You know, postpartum is a thing also. So luckily I was able to check in with myself and I got myself a therapist that was very helpful. I did that pretty quick, started talking to someone and then I found a way to start meeting friends and getting to know people in the, in the community. So I joined an app for, for moms that got me Also hooked up with a workout group for moms in the area. So the first three months that we were out there, I had a six month maternity leave. I was extremely lucky. The first three months of those were, were kind of tough because I'm starting to, you know, get adjusted and, you know, everything we were just talking about. But then the last three months were pretty awesome because I was, I'd started to make some friends and it's, you know, me and the baby taking on Columbia, Maryland. We didn't see much of Cliff, we didn't see much of dad, but. But we had a pretty good time, honestly, so. So I kind of reflected it in two part. Two parts or see that, you know, that first break in two parts. But yeah, it was definitely tough at the start. Thankful for family that came and helped, thankful for getting some friends quickly, that, that got me through it. But otherwise, you know, just sitting in an apartment with a brand new baby, being pretty sad.
- [100:24]
Will Smith
Christine, you told us about when you were in the cooped up in Covid and listening to his calls in your little one bedroom in Chicago. At this point with Calvin, with the baby and all that you've been through. Are you, Is he, is he still talking to you about the searcher? What is now the CEO, his CEO ship? Or are those conversations kind of come to an end because you've got other things on the brain?
- [100:51]
Christine Nelson
That's a very good question. It didn't come to an end, but it definitely decreased a lot more. He would still tell me, you know, it's hard to come home and not talk about your job. But I did get a lot more from him at that point. The response of, I don't want to talk about it. It was a long day. Like, I just can't talk about it, which I understand and can respect that, you know, you don't want to sit back and rehash it all. So, so yes, that's. We went from being near each other and seeing the whole process together to a little bit more siloed and it's okay. You know, that's kind of a little bit more normal. But yeah, I feel like I know a lot more about his search than I maybe do and did know about the start of him starting out the company.
- [101:36]
Will Smith
Yeah. Okay. Anything else? I want, I want to ask you to kind of reflect now because we're, we're two years or 18, 18 months or two years away from all of this now. So I want to have you reflect on it and where you think you've landed, but anything else on the plot itself before we get there.
- [101:57]
Christine Nelson
I think we. I think we have the key things of the plot.
- [102:00]
Will Smith
Okay.
- [102:00]
Christine Nelson
Yeah. It's quite a journey.
- [102:01]
Will Smith
Okay. So. So now, how do you think about all this?
- [102:05]
Christine Nelson
Yeah, that's one that Cliff's asked me too. Um, he's asked me if. If, you know, would I go back and do it again? And I definitely don't want to repeat what we did. I wouldn't live through it again, but I'm honestly extremely thankful that we did it. I'm. It was. Well, it got us to a really good place. Like you said. It's been over two years now that we've been here. We're very happy where we are. I've landed a great job, too. We have a. We've had a second child. Like, life is pretty good. And we wouldn't be in this exact spot without going through this journey, so. So that's pretty great. But for me, on the personal side, I am a different person than I was in 2019 when we started this. I'm a lot. I'm a lot stronger. I can deal with ambiguity and change and risk a lot more. And those are things that I'm proud of. Like, it was Cliff's journey, but I. I benefited a lot from it too. And I hope that other spouses can feel the same way or have a similar experience. And I don't think that I would have. I don't think I would be exactly who I am right now if we didn't go through this. If we didn't. We didn't have all the challenges that we did. You know, if I didn't understand completely what being an entrepreneur really was firsthand, I don't. I wouldn't have appreciated it as much, and I really do. I respect it. I completely appreciate it. I got a little bit of it to myself coming up now. Seeing him go through it a bit, too.
- [103:28]
Will Smith
So you have an itch yourself.
- [103:32]
Christine Nelson
I do. I do. Nice.
- [103:35]
Will Smith
No, that's great.
- [103:36]
Christine Nelson
Well.
- [103:36]
Will Smith
And I'll tell you, Christine, whether or not you have an actual itch to be an actual entrepreneur, Cliff characterizes you and partners of searchers as entrepreneurs already. That this journey that you've kind of gone on the journey to a different. A parallel track, but certainly on the track. Um, okay, maybe not the. The explicit business piece of it, but. But as he said, this is such an intertwined. This journey is so intertwined with the personal life that. That obviously all of the personal bits are really kind of affecting you just as much. Yeah, You. You're gonna add something?
- [104:15]
Christine Nelson
No, I was just saying I'm glad to hear him say it like that, because I do agree, being that person.
- [104:20]
Will Smith
Well, it's. And it's wonderful to hear that you feel like you've grown and that this has been positive for you. Two final questions. One, one about money. So I presume you'll correct me that, you know, your reason for supporting him in this is because he's your partner. And you. And you kind of have a philosophical belief that that's, that that's the role that you each should play for the other. It's just to support the other's ambitions. But this path is also about making money and potentially a lot of it. And potentially younger than most people come into money. Most people never come into money. Is any of your. Are any of your, like, your ultimate assessment on this whole journey. Journey do you think will be tied to whether or not he's successful? And you guys jump, jump from middle class to upper middle class or beyond, or are you not thinking about it in. In like, material wealth terms? Really?
- [105:25]
Christine Nelson
That's a. That's a really good question. We talk about how our financial situation, of the outcome of this could be frequently. And he, you know, he gives me the numbers and, you know, we lay out what. What it could look like, what are different options? And it's one of those things that quite honestly, I hear, I listen to, and I assume the worst and I say, you know, what, if we come out not in a better financial situation, we still have a really good life, we're still doing really good, and, you know, that kind of goes to. With. We won't come out in a worse financial situation, which is a very nice thing about this sort of process. So to me, it's not about the money. It would be great if we do find ourselves coming out pretty, you know, doing pretty well on that side. But quite honestly, I. I see. I see the success of this being a lot more of who does Cliff come out as and is he proud of the work that he did and does it step him up to what he wants to do next in the appropriate way? To your point, we are young. We do have a lot of career left. This is not the last thing he is going to do. And if he comes out feeling like, I learned a lot, these are my new skills, and now I'm excited to go and do X and he goes and crushes that and is happy and fulfilled, like, that's what I want in a partner. We. We're already doing okay financially I'm not doing this for the big financial win, I guess, just excited. Who. Who it makes my partner to be.
- [106:57]
Will Smith
That's beautiful. Great answer. And actually one more question. I can't let you go without answering this, Christine, because it's. Because it'll be. This one will be very relevant to people. We didn't. We've only glanced off the fact of your job. You did say directly, like moving is also going to be like, what am I going to do job wise? But let's. Let's hear like a little bit. Give us some detail on how you thought about that and how.
- [107:23]
Cliff Nelson
What you.
- [107:24]
Will Smith
How you've handled it, because that's a big one.
- [107:27]
Christine Nelson
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I. I've got a real. A career I'm very proud of. I'm a product developer in the food industry. So I'm a food scientist by my undergrad degree. And like I said earlier, we don't have jobs everywhere. We don't have companies everywhere. Chicago is a huge hub for food companies, actually, and that is why it was a great place to be. I had lots of different options should I want to stay there my whole life. Out here in this area, there's a couple great companies. I've landed myself in a really good position and we talked about this in our intro call of whether it was luck or the result of hard work. But for me, I feel very fortunate that I was able to find a position that's exactly what I'm skilled for and interested in doing in the Baltimore area that timed up exactly when my maternity leave was ending and I was able to make that junk. Did come out of this feeling very confident and very successful in what I am doing in my own career as well. But that was absolutely one of the top concerns I had along the whole search phase was what will I do? Will I have a job out of this? Will I have to take some time off? Will I have a gap on my resume? You know, as. As I get out and try as we get to wherever we're going and I have to look for something else. So. So I do feel really lucky that for me I went from something that I really liked and have been able to stick with something that I really like out in the area that we are.
- [109:02]
Will Smith
Would you have been prepared to. You just mentioned gap. So I guess you were prepared to maybe not find a job and stop working for a while. Was that the plan? If you had landed here, Maryland or somewhere else where Cliff might have bought a company and not found something?
- [109:17]
Christine Nelson
It was a consideration yeah, it was a consideration for sure. And that sort of positively lined up with having a brand new baby is. Okay, well, I'll just stay home for a year or whatever and I'll take care of the baby. Because the thing we haven't really mentioned too much too, is that with us both working, we had to find daycare and you know, that that's always a pretty long waiting list. So add that to the grand scheme of logistics that we had to do coming out here too. So that was probably the top thing I would have done, is just stayed home for a while and figured out exactly what I want to do, wherever we are.
- [109:47]
Will Smith
Yeah.
- [109:47]
Christine Nelson
Yeah.
- [109:48]
Will Smith
Gotcha. Okay, great. Okay, Christine. Well, you've given us a ton. So much. This is really. Thank you again for coming on. I know this is a very personal story for you. Is there any, is there anything that we didn't hit on or any, any last thought that you want to leave us with or, or, you know, piece of very direct advice you want to give to people other than everything you've already shared?
- [110:11]
Christine Nelson
Sure, yeah. I think the one thing, if I could, you know, share anyone to anyone listening here is that if you are the searcher, just remember that your partner is on this journey as well. And I'm certain most of you probably are. I was very lucky that my partner was very in tune with that. But, but have a little empathy for what they're going through and try to try to help them be a part of the process. It came naturally to us and I, I really enjoyed it and I benefited a lot from it. So it's sort of the reminder to the searchers that, you know, this isn't a solo thing that you're doing. Even if you're not moving across the country, it's still a big thing you're going through and try to do what you can to keep the partner involved. And if you're the partner and you're, and you know, you're finding that this is tricky, I hope that you also end up being proud of the position that you end up in and, you know, find the good things about going through it and, you know, lean into that entrepreneurial spirit that your partner is going to, because that helped me a lot for sure, is just sort of acting like I am one myself. And that gets you through those ambiguous states. And it's, you know, once, once they land it and the search is done well, a whole new journey begins. But, you know, hopefully a little bit more stability and consistency comes with that as well.
- [111:32]
Will Smith
And maybe you'll catch the bug, even.
- [111:34]
Christine Nelson
Which it sounds like you might have a little bit.
- [111:37]
Will Smith
And Christine, would you be open to people reaching out? Probably. I would imagine it would be partners. If anybody could be wrong, would you be open to conversations if they wanted to connect with you?
- [111:47]
Christine Nelson
Yes, absolutely. Please reach out if you would like to talk about anything. I'm happy to help.
- [111:51]
Will Smith
And do you like LinkedIn or direct to email? What do you like?
- [111:55]
Christine Nelson
LinkedIn sounds great. You can find me on LinkedIn. Christine Nelson, I'm sure you send out the content, contact information. Perfect.
- [112:01]
Will Smith
We'll include it. Christine Nelson, thank you very much. This has been great.
- [112:05]
Christine Nelson
Thank you so much.