The Roll-Up Playbook: From Zero to $100M Revenue | Felix Jander Interview

My guest today is Felix Yander. Go founder of RCPA, one of the Europe's most impressive recent bio and field success stories founded back in 2021. So not so long ago. RCPA has completed 80 acquisitions, grown to more than 1,100 employees across 60 plus locations and scaled to over 100 million euros in annual revenue, becoming Germans leading provider of occupational safety and occupational medicine services. Great to have you with me today, Felix. Yeah, thanks a lot for inviting me. It's July, 2026, but back in 2024, the company partnered with Warburg Pinkus, one of the world's largest private equity firms, and you rolled a significant portion of your equity and remain heavily involved in the business, meaning the RCPA stories far from over. Let's start from the early days. Where did it all started? And very importantly, I would like you to bring out if you if you can share. How did you find and solve this in the early days? And where were you financially when you when you're starting RCPA? That is the question I get so often so please. Yeah, as much as you can. I can tell you more about that. Just just to make to make the facts correct, we did like approximately a little bit over 40 acquisitions today. So 80 is a bit too many. I wish I wish it were 80. No, but 40 is a lot as well. And yeah, no, back in 2020, I was I was pretty much just coming out of a startup that I joined previously. So first I was at BCG right for a few years after studying business, and then it was at Comtravo as it was named back in the days. It was a B2B travel startup where I started building up the sales team, the marketing team. It's nowadays named Navan and it's actually IPO last year. So quite recently. But for me Corona was kind of a turning point because COVID hit and and then business travel was kind of that right. So there was pretty sure no one was traveling. And so the company was also difficult times. And yeah, so we had like a restructuring going on. So out of the 50 employees that are previously hired for my sales team, we had to get rid of more of most of them. Like I would say like a 40, 45 people. So down to five to 10 people and back in those days, I figured, look, this, this is going to be in tough times for a few months, the startup Comtravo. And so I started looking at a new business and together with a friend of mine, Alex back then, who I met at university and the guy, we started looking at different topics, but we actually started with venture, then search fund and then got into roll up. We were not, we were not wealthy at all, right. So was all self financed this ideation period and we were living off our savings that we had made up to date. Okay. And self financed for a year or less. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And also when doing a research, I found you were using those unemployment benefits, which you were actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I figured look in Germany, it's actually part of the federal unemployment program is that you can apply for such a thing that is like a founders age, so to say, yeah, let's call it founders eight and you can apply for it, which we did. And then it's, it's kind of the same money that you get, but it's for a different reason, so to say, and that's what we did, but it's basically unemployment benefits for founders. And let's get into this. How was the, you mentioned, okay, you were looking at VC firms, tech startups, then search funds and then eventually roll up. So what was the process and the thesis there? I mean, Alex and I, we were coming out of this venture bubble, right. So Contravo was VC financed, I think, by Project A, Criandome, some other, some other larger, larger funds, I don't reckon. And so, so that was kind of where we, where we came from. So obviously we started ideating also around that, but some, at some point we figured like, dude, we actually are not so much into this like hyper growth and product finding product market fit and also this kind of hiccup growth. So to say, yeah, you hire a lot, then, then you size down again, because of the burn rate, and then you go again with the next funding round and so on. So we wanted to do something more profound, something even more boring, so to say, so we didn't go after something fancy, right. And that's how we got more involved with German middle stand, so SMB businesses and, and especially search funds. And back in the days I was talking about to Tobias Weber, who also was one of the first search funders in Germany. And, and yeah, then together we started looking more into smaller segments, because we even figured with these two or three million EBDA companies. There's the crowded space as well, you have like a small care private equity funds family office and the likes going into it. And that's how we went into smaller segments and then started developing around, okay, let's consolidate something, yeah, and build up a group of companies. What are your thoughts of, okay, acquiring companies, reaching out to people, let's talk more about the human side and what were you actually doing when it comes to sourcing, writing those letters and overall the sourcing phase of you building this roll up. So when we first started, we had like, we had like a list of 60 niche segments, like boring niche industries and German middle stand, so we had things from orthopedics to logopatics, but yeah, also to occupational medicine. So we were looking into different small niche segments. And so the first, let's say, two weeks or three weeks was more like broader outreach. So we did some cold calls, yeah. And and after narrowing down this long list of 60 segments to let's say three four five segments that we found specifically interesting and then we got deeper into it. And then we started out reaching specifically to associations in the in the market. So so like, you know, there's like these SMB associations where we started reaching out to the presidents of these associations, then we also started just cold calling owners of businesses. So we get some some kind of feeling for financials, how they think about valuations. And we also started just meeting some of them. And we were pretty much honest. Yeah. So our pitch was, look, we're two guys from Berlin, we entrepreneurs, we want to start something in your industry. We still not completely sure about how it's going to look like, but we might build up a group of companies. Are you interested in talking for half an hour and that guy is like 10 meetings. Yeah. And and that's how we got a feeling for how many companies are there in the market, how their financials and margins. And how willing are they to sell at what price and so on so forth. So that was like the the weeks three to 10, let's say. And when it comes to the actual outreach, did you, did you just sat down and set like a specific goals because myself like a lifelong salesperson. And when I was just doing a podcast episode with Ramsey, the go founder of Evergreen. And they've done so far, 106 acquisitions. And they said that when they first got started, he reached out to those individuals who have who has been doing outsourcing for for living. And they really got the process down to the number, how many goals they have to do. And then it's very easy. You just wake up in the morning. Yeah, you have your breakfast and you just go to the office and you just start calling and meeting with those businesses. Did you have any sort of data you were going after or you were actually we did. So after like I mean what I now mentioned is like the first let's say 12 weeks or 10 weeks, where we started with ideation and deciding for market. After that, we had pretty much settled on let's look deeper into occupational safety and medicine. And there was also the face where we kind of. We said a goal where we set down and said look, we want to be successful in this and especially fundraising. We need two to four deals in like 12 months and time. And so we set down and calculated a conversion of 1% I think and calculated like how many letters and how many contacts do we need to make in order to achieve this number of deals in in 12 to 18 months. And it's actually how we did it. Yeah, so so we send out like the first few batches were like 3 to 400 letters. So meaning 1% conversion is like 3 to 4 deals. Yeah. And and that's also we did. Yeah, so we put a lot of work into these letters because you only have kind of one chance of contacting them first right. So together with working students and interns, we let them research like literally anything about the company. So we call their website. We try to find newspaper articles and so on that when we wrote the letter was very specific. Look, you opened to to new locations this year. That's very impressive or it's very interesting. You have five employees occupational medicine and you grew your part of employees and occupational safety that might be a good fit to us. So so so very specific to the information. And why this specific company was relevant and I think that in the end also made it so successful there. So after repeated outreach. We over the years. This is now a bit blurred number. We had up to 80% reply rate, depending a bit on the cohort, which is, which is super rarely seen, right. I mean myself I come from sales right and they're a good reply rate and called out reach was like 20% 30% max. Yeah, you know it. So 80% was unseen, but it's also proof of how diligently we were writing to these entrepreneurs and how diligently we were also following following up on it. Yeah. So every time we were in let's say cars who we called up this one guy was in cars who and told him, look, we're there. We have spontaneously time for some coffee. Can we meet. Yeah. So that's also part of the work. which goes into that reply rate obviously. But three actual question, yes, we did. We sat down and we set us a target like two to four years within 12 months, and that's how we calculated backwards, how many letters and outreaches we want to do. - 80% that's remark about it. - But that's only after three years, right? It's not in year one, so it adds up over time. Yeah, then you write Christmas cards and so on and then every time you write, you get another response obviously. You should just be too annoying. - I don't know how you did it in sales. - No, sometimes you are annoying, but I think if you put in there for people to appreciate that. The answer will be no, but they will appreciate that. - Yeah, and I think also if you notice that people are kind of at that point where you get on the nerves, yeah, you should also let them alone, yeah, not push further once they told you, it's not the right time, yeah, then give them half a year and then ask again, if there's a good reason for asking again, but that's also something I think we, sometimes we do better, sometimes we do lesser ed, yeah, but most of the time we kind of responded to that, yeah. And let them alone for some time. - And during the same time, did you do the same type of outreach to investors as well or how did you put it all together eventually? - Yeah, good point, yeah, I mean, no, (laughs) of our process with investors was more like bilateral relationship based, right? So we first, first when we started, when we started, we didn't have a clear idea of how we wanna structure this, yeah. We ended up structuring it like a search fund. So you maybe know from search funds, there is this 30 to 35% for the founders and then the rest for investors, you do like one time financing of equity. So we had something like this in mind. So first we started like just talking to some people out of our extended contacts and network bases and then we started looping them into like regular discussions like every month or so, we spoke to them and told them, look, we find roll up interesting or we find this specific market interesting or look, we talked to these three companies and they have pretty impressive margins, yeah. So we had like a circle of 10, then 20, then 30 people that we entertained on a regular basis, yeah. We did like monthly investor updates, how we called it. And then at some point we kind of nailed down some terms. So we did a term sheet and we presented to this basis. I think it was like six months in in February or March. This is how we want to do it, are you fine with it? And then we had one or two lead investors who really go shoot at some little things with them. But in the end, we ended up at exactly what I mentioned earlier, like a search fund like structure. So there was a time-based vesting portion and there was a performance-based vesting portion and the performance-based vesting portion was based on money multiple that we would give to investors at exit. Or that the investment would provide to investors at exit. And personally, how was this period for you? At the moment, you're this calm, relaxed. It's a beautiful summer. You've seen a great amount of success, but during this time of doing it all, how did you feel? And because I think these type of people who have been going through this period, I wouldn't say they're like different animals, but they have this level of great persistence, not giving up. They're tough people in a best way possible. So how was it for you this period? Did you ever have like tougher days or is there anything you'd like to bring out? What helped you do to keep going? - So actually, I mean, if you want to have a frank response, it was kind of, I think the best time of my life, yeah. I was never again. So if you're not very, you're building everyday something. It's very creative as well. When you're iterating, you're sparring with smart people. So you don't have the burden of leadership, right? Of developing people, which sometimes also is tough and needs a lot of effort. You're just surrounded by like-minded smart people. You can iterate every day and you move very fast. So I found that back in the days, I found that super cool. So like the first six to 12 months, I tell everyone, we're the best, so to say, yeah. Also the times afterwards were super cool, yeah. But like this fast-moving pace really intrigued, yeah. And look by nature, I'm actually, I wouldn't say, I'm such a brave person, I'm pretty cautious. And I wouldn't say hesitant, but cautious, I think, is better to say because I could have also started something similar just right after BCG, right? But I did not feel ready at first, wanted to get some more entrepreneurial experience and so on. And, you know, I wouldn't even say that I was like the classical startup founder that did like this bootstrapping, I don't know, living of a hundred euros a day was, I had some savings, I knew I was fine, you know. So, and still, obviously, it was also a tough period. I mean, we tried to save every cent we could, so we could run longer for looking for businesses and markets. And I remember very well when Alex and I, I mean, we slept together in Ibisotels, yeah. For 60 euros a night. So we were very cost conscious, yeah. And, yeah, but I was cool, yeah, I liked it. Though the sleep was not the best, but yeah. - You mentioned the VC background. What's interesting, the other day a week ago, I had a podcast with a gentleman Eric. He built a startup about touring COVID. They had to let go 80 people and eventually close down the business. And then he started reading about installation software and eventually he found an investor and partner. And now they've bought over 10 businesses and building this diversified holding company in Malaysia. So it's interesting to see the future, the guys from the VC world, how many of them might want to or willing to try the, let's call it more stable route of buying a business with a positive cash flow. - Yeah, I see the trend totally, yeah. Like in Berlin, you have, let's name some funds. You have Criandom, you have Cherry Ventures, you have Project A, General Catalyst and the likes who all move into that space and also have done some investments in startups already. I feel, I mean, they have the difficulty of telling their LPs. I mean, for their LPs they're still in the asset class of venture capital, right? Which is in mindset of I produce one outlier and nine writers, yeah. And but the outlier has to return more than 10X and putting that return expectation on rollup, I think is unhealthy. Because in the end, you're gonna, you're gonna try to reach that expectation, even if it's not 10X, yeah. But a rollup hardly is a 8, 9, 10X case. So if you wanna have that possibility of achieving it, then you need to take more risks in the beginning, which means you do something with software, you have a burn rate, you hire up front, a lot of people whom you were then hoping to generate some margin value creation or some growth value creation or so, but, you know, it's a significant risk that they're taking there and I think it's, they're making it a bet, so to say. And I think that's what they're doing is, they're taking the beauty out of this rollup concept, which is the stability, which is buying stable cash flows, which is, which also is leveraged by the way, that you can leverage quite well. And they put on a lot more equity and a lot more risk. And I don't think that's healthy for the concept, yeah. And so what we try to do with AVEN is that we try to stay out of those markets. So we try to stay out of those markets that are proud to be VC-financed. It also tend to be the larger ones. So real estate brokers or the tax advisors in Germany, very hot topics, yeah. Where VCs move into very large markets, super many targets. You can enter at low multiples, but then we say, okay, look, maybe that's our market. We rather focus on something more niche-y where we don't have that risk, yeah. Because it kills your entry multiples when you have too much money in the markets. - I want to spend a bit of more time on the very early days of now you getting the meetings. Because it's a 100% proprietary deal flow. You didn't do it through a broker or investment banker. How are the first meetings and conversations with owner operators and maybe most importantly, the evaluation part of you going there, I want to buy your business and then they will give you those extreme, extremely high valuation expectations. How do you survive this period and found the good ones? - So I would say general answer to this topic is it depends a lot on how mature your market is in terms of M&A. What we had back in the days with occupational health is a very immature M&A market. So they had hardly seen any offers of any competitor nor any M&A broker. Yeah, there is some other markets in Germany for instance, dentists. Every dentist has received at least five to 10 letters. Yeah, if the dentist is in a certain size and so they know what EBTA is, they know their multiples, they have an understanding of net debt and so on and so forth. So our market was very uneducated. So when you do this organic outreach, what we first did is kind of educate them a bit. Yeah, like, look, this is a valuation, this is how we would do it. We wouldn't pay everything up front. We want to delay some components of the purchase price. So there was a lot of education part to it. And there was also a lot of, you don't need, let's not call it waiting, but patients here. So because you hardly hit anyone, that is exactly at that point where they tell you, okay, I want to sell my company within the next four months, it is the key advantage of M&A brokers. There you know the deal is actionable. When you do organic outreach, you have to go their pace, yeah, and you have to be there at the point where they think of selling the company, but often you reach the meta point where they didn't think about it yet or are not super, super keen on selling within a short time frame, yeah. And so, you need to be patient as well and wait for them that it's the right time. And so, what we often did is we did a meeting, we did a first meeting, we explained our concept, our vision, how valuations work. Sometimes, we also dropped some numbers, but we didn't do that with many targets. And then we told them, look, we would be really interested in taking this further. If you're ready, then let us know, then we do a valuation, we sign an NDA, we look at your financials, and then within five days, we can tell you where we are, like ballpark numbers, and some of them reached out to us two months later and told me, let's have a look at this, some of them right away, and some of them like two years later. Okay, and let's talk about the first acquisition, because after this one, nothing will be the same when it comes to confidence and actual belief that we can do that. So, tell me about the first acquisition. So, it was actually too small, our first acquisition, everyone told us, you need to look at this sizeable enough, that has like one million EBITDA or more. So, and then our first acquisition was like 350,000 EBITDA, so actually way too small. Yeah, but we were so keen on the market that we figured, okay, let's do it anyway. You know, when the transaction is actionable, then you also, either you do it or someone else does it in the end. So, we decided to do the first, and it was pretty cool, it was a pretty cool doctor's practice. In Hildesheim, that's in Lower Saxony, in Germany, close to Hanover, and it was small. Yeah, it was like three, four doctors only, plus like seven, eight other employees. So, let's talk to the two 11 maybe, yeah, which is significantly small for small deal. But we had a very good relationship to the seller, to the founder of the company, and together with him, and also his successor was quite a good deal. What was the story from the first acquisition to five acquisition? And from which one you started using depth, because I guess in the first two, three, four acquisitions, it's not very clear yet, and you can maybe share more about the depth side of doing this. I mean, the first acquisition is the hardest. That's also why we decided to do it, even though it was a small company. And because then you have a story to tell, right? So, it's not only PowerPoint slides that you're going to share with your next seller, but you can tell them, look, talk to this guy, he is always told to us, he can give you a proof point that we trust with you guys. We pay the purchase price, which is also often a fear, when people see you first that you can't pay, yeah, that's reality that many people apparently don't say they have the money, but then they don't. Yeah, and so the second and the third acquisition was easier, and then after the third acquisition, you already a group of companies, and then you can actually visualize your vision of like, "Ah, yeah, we're going to have some central HR function and some central recruiting, and then they're going to help you with recruiting doctors, which is a big issue for everyone in the market." You know, then the story got tangible, that helped us a lot to your question. So the first deal, we did all equity, which I would also on hindsight do exactly the same way, and then we did a debt financing together with a debt fund, because so there's two reasons. So first of all, it's speed, yeah. So when you do the first deals on equity, then obviously faster, then if you negotiate with a bank every single time, and secondly, debt fund or debt or specialty that is absolutely preferable in my point of view, yes, you might pay like an additional seven, eight bips of interest, but you can make it a hundred percent bullet. And that's super, super helpful when it comes to cash flow, because you don't have amortization of the loan over the years. So you can use the cash flow for one or two more acquisitions. And that in the end gives you way more IRR than these, let's total it to 10 percent interest here. And so speed plus debt fund debt is the two reasons, and debt funds only start up from a certain size. So you need 223 million EBTA to have such a debt package, and that's basically the reason. And that's also how we did it. Yeah, so we did I think four to five acquisitions, then we did the debt funds financing on the holding, and we also did a recap. So we got some additional debt for the deals that we already made. So the six and seven steel was kind of a hundred percent debt financed. So to say, and that played really played out really well for us. Building and growing, Garcipa, you were an entrepreneur. You were not an investor. So you went Stefan, something you've said as well, these companies are built operationally. These are the people we are looking for. And so you were the person there. So how was your day-to-day look like when building all this? I mean, I mean, year one was a lot of M&A, to be quite frank, yeah. So meaning M&A actually, it's more kind of sales, yeah. So you need to sit in the train and travel around and meet everybody in the market. I think in the first year, in the first 12 months, we had like, I think, 70, 80 on-site meetings, yeah. So it's a lot when you think about that you have to travel all the time. And then for every on-site meeting, you need to have like three to four calls up front. And it switched once we had like two to three companies, like with the third company. That's when we started hiring someone for finance, centrally, and HR centrally. And that's when we actually started building up central functions. And what we first did is like, creating a central setup, so to say. So we consolidated finance using one tool, which is called Lukarnet, and Germany is a controlling and consolidation tool, which helped us to have like a real-time view on cash, to have all our finances consolidated, but also to track some KPIs based on a company level. So that was super important. And with HR, what we did is we got all employees into one system called Personio. And then we started recruiting centrally as a service for the subsidiaries. As I mentioned earlier, recruiting in our market is a super big topic, because you don't have many doctors with that specialty in occupational medicine. And they're rare to find or very old. So you need to be super good at recruiting in order to get the best profiles. And that's where we started. Then it got a little bit more entrepreneurial, and building it up, building it up. Then let's zoom in again at a status where we were like 15 companies. There we were like 350 employees. And we had a team of 15 to 20 employees centrally. And the biggest two teams was HR. So we had like out of those 20, I think seven, eight were recruiting. So in order to recruit the doctors, because we needed the doctors to achieve more sales. Yeah, it's pretty basic. So every doctor we could take in some of clients. And there was a prerequisite for growth. And the others were quite evenly split between, let's call it a value creation team. They did a lot of pricing initiatives, M&A and finance, yeah. And then you get like two, let's say three employees each, yeah. And that's also where it got more entrepreneurial, so to say. And especially with that value creation team, there we did like deep dives into every company. So we went to Hildesheim because I mentioned it earlier and did a pricing project there. Or we went to Hamburg and we consolidated three companies together. And those project there was like the most entrepreneurial work, I would say. Because there we went really into the company. Actually, me myself, I also went with a value creation team if it was a strategic project into that company. And then we spent there every week, like one day and did pricing. Now you went Stefan. What were the roles, strengths and weaknesses when building all those? Because there were those different phases. And there were obviously phases which you haven't both of you hasn't the experience before. So how did you go through this? And which time you know that okay, it's better for you to do this. It's better for you to do that. Just to mention, in the very beginning I started off with Alex. And later on Alex and I split up and Stefan joined. So so that was kind of also journey which goes a bit into the reaction of your question. So Alex and I were still very good friends. But we both had to learn that if you're good friends, it's not always a match in terms of work here. And in the midst of the fundraising when we did the term sheet I mentioned earlier, that's where we actually split up. And Alex remained a shareholder. And but dropped operationally he dropped out of the company. And then I started looking for co-founder. So together with our lead investor with Patrick from Tengelman, we we interviewed candidates. So I did like I called up everyone, friend of friends who could potentially be a fit. So also there I had a long list of candidates. And then we invited three of them for workshops. And Stefan turned out to be a very, very good match. And now he's also close friend of mine. But let's stop for a second. How was the process there? You talk here, it's so easy, but how do you actually like it? Yeah, it's tough. It was very tough. Because I mean we were in the midst of negotiations. And it's potentially it's a deal killer, right? If the if the founding team splits up, like right in the middle of negotiating in SHA. I see that. Yeah, Alex and I we communicated very transparently the reasons with all our shareholders. So well, so first we decided. Then we wrote an email like explaining it. And then the next day we called every shareholder or potential shareholder together and explained the situation. And why I would stay, why he would drop out and at which terms. So we kind of didn't even negotiate. We just said, look, this is the terms. And then some of them like one or two said, oh, this little hop to me, I'm out. But most of them stay. Yeah, and so we filled up, we filled up the funding with people that we had in kind of our rating list and so it was okay So to say we are I mean, maybe we're also lucky or was the right timing in terms of fundraising. I don't know Yeah, but maybe it was also the communication and and then Alex stayed for I think three more months to have like a smooth handover and and Alex and I and and Patrick We together got to know those candidates and so what was really important to me with those candidates is that it's a profiler that Compliments me meaning I'm kind of what I'm good at is I can go out. I can I can do sales. I can talk to someone And and I needed someone who is more rigid in terms of processes who's more rigid when it comes to analytics and so on Who's also more diligent than I am and and that's in the end why we decided for Stefan because he had some previous and A experience he was at a later stage. We see and he was he was a truly intelligent analytic person But also very good entrepreneur. Yeah, and and so we actually didn't do interviews. We did like so we did just like One day working together. So we invited those three people and we said look let's sit down together for one day and work and then see how it goes And and in the evening we had a dinner with our girlfriends and wives. Yeah, so To also get a feeling for if that would like of it would work on a personal level and and yeah That's that's how it went and then we decided for for Stefan I still remember that Patrick said look, I mean the others are good as well But but Stefan's the only entrepreneur and and that's in the end for me Was there anything else which why the other candidates weren't a good fit or just the fact that Stefan had this entrepreneurial. Yeah, I mean it was best entrepreneur and it turned out to be true Yeah, and he's silly is yeah, obviously Okay, so now where we are we are you mentioned recently 15 companies 350 employees There was roughly the point in 2024 when we started the process Which ended up in selling some shares to all the thinkers. Yeah, what was the Like I've I've learned recently that Great companies are bought not sold so I guess they reached out to you Yes, actually both. Yeah, so Fun story we reached out to a company There was a company of the investment of Warbox investment director's parents And that's how we got to know what we think is already I think in 2021 or 2021 too And back then he told us ah look this is way too small for us very cool what you're doing But that interesting for us and then two years later we we talked back and and suddenly we were large enough For potential deal. Yeah, and then we also initiated a broader process So yes, it was sold in a way. So we had an investment bank We spoke to many parties, but in the end it turned out to be what we think is which we already had a relation to from back in the days So both not too many people have this experience of of selling to be rolling equity What changed like it's 2026 now you've been doing that together for Two two and a half years how much can you share like how much has has been changed when it comes to all things getting better It's a different scale and and it's also different level of professionalism, right? So I told you back in the days we were like 20 people in the holding that's still a very small team Yeah, and even though we were in total in the organization we were like 350 to 400 people back in the days But it was still a little start-up so to say yeah when it comes to the people and also the culture and the feeling And and now together with war work And it developed into a true corporate company in a very positive meaning. Yeah, so it has clear processes. It has a central brand And it has a management structure that we started setting up back then But now you have like regional offices in place in every region Yeah, and there's very clear p&l responsibilities and so on so forth. And that's just mentioning some examples And which you can do across all dimensions also when it comes to operations There is Medigene the software that we jointly developed further that we now digitizing all processes in the subsidiaries So in the local offices with and yeah, so so I think it's it was the right time to do it Obviously every time when you do such a process in hindsight you think how we might have maybe we should have waited for six or 12 more months Yeah, then we could have done this in this acquisition and then done a process Yeah, but in the end I think it's good because you need to also leave some value creation for the next and and warbook needs to leave some value creation For the for the potential next investor. Yeah, so it only is a success story when when everyone has his own success story So to say and and I think so far it goes very well Yeah, as you mentioned earlier now it's a company with 1100 employees with one of the market leaders and occupational health and related services in Germany And it's pretty impressive when you think it's just five years ago that we started yeah What comes to mind if I say your word resources like before and after selling to a To a bee firm what what changed when you when feel going to the office maybe reaching out to some some some some some banks or some people and Now you have those guys With you and previously it was just just you and your smaller firm sure sure I mean just to put it into right perspective right. I mean I was I was working together with warbook for like nine more months So to say but then as of beginning 25. I'm only a board member right so I'm not operational anymore But back from the days that I was working personally with warbook thinkers. I I thought it was very inspiring So I was sparring a lot with dirk dirk bestner. He's a former former chairman of computer or CEO Sorry, and he's now the chairman of nazi per board and he also was a member of the board of directors at at Deutsche Telekom So he's a senior very experienced guy. Yeah, and which was new for me as an entrepreneur to work with someone like this Very personal on a day-to-day basis. So to say. Yeah, I like to have the sparring and I think you make some bolder decisions Yeah, when it comes to Pulling strings because you also need to because it's it's a different scale. There's a lot more money at stake Yeah And and and so you need to be bold in your decisions. So we did larger acquisitions. We did some very bold move When it comes to going into that software play and enrolling out that software and Automating processes and and the likes. Yeah, so that's that's I think we're changed for me that you that you work more professional That you take some different decisions that you spar with different people But in the end it's it's it's still the same people on the ground, right? So the nurses and the doctors those haven't changed much And I think it's also important for the future of Asipa that we keep that in mind So so that we keep in mind it's still it's still a group of companies from it's from its origin It's it's a heritage from its origin So there has been this one founder in hill this time who started that company 20 years back in time. Yeah, and somewhat this still needs to be Part of the DNA of Asipa while it still is a good thing that it's becoming a corporate company. Yeah It's it's the right way we're going there and as long as we keep these two things in mind It's going perfectly well. Anything else you'd like to add maybe what what's what comes to mind? You mentioned you becoming at this private equity firm together you guys becoming more bold Is there anything else you would like to add which which was like a obvious It's obvious now, but it wasn't obvious before we hired better people. Yeah, so You know you remember the story with the ebus hotel and the 60 year old yeah, so You were very cheap in some ways. Yeah, so And and unfortunately also when it came to some hires that we probably shouldn't have done. Yeah, that being said And I think those are the main topics that come to mind. Yeah, I think we were bold in in in some strategic decisions in acquisitions And also in hiring we hired better profiles And obviously also the brand won't think is helped just to give you one hint. Yeah, we still we still had no coffee machine in the office When we exit it because we were so frugal. Yeah, um, we had like just this filter coffee and then at some point I think in 2025 there's now proper espresso machine The folks listening who might reach out to you in the future looking to raise capital from from you Do you expect them to have this same type of mentality? Yes, I mean they don't have to be frugal But I think it comes along with entrepreneurship that The euro is always better spent in your company than in everything else Yeah, and we wanted to grow and build a company or a group of companies and so we felt it's Simply didn't feel important to us. Yeah, um, to have like the nicest espresso Nista machine We felt like this money is better invested in hiring another intern or this money is better invested In in doing this and that with that company. Yeah, so and I think that in mindset is super important Especially the first two to three years because that differentiates true entrepreneurship from just some private equity guy Who wants to gain money doing a roll-up. Yeah, and but you need true entrepreneurs if you want to be successful It's not enough if you're just buying those companies and put them together and then sell them Nobody's gonna buy that. Yeah, so so you need an entrepreneur in order to to build those processes in order to do to deliver those those synergies and those value creation effects because otherwise private equity firms are not interested anymore. Now, before let's talk about this area of before selling, I want to talk about the integration and the culture part, you giving like a sort of masterclass of, I don't want you to teach, I want you to do what you did and what you experienced and in that way, hopefully this being helpful for. Forks listening because you've seen a lot that not too many people have been able, able to do that. So when it comes to integration, building culture, what, what would you say? I mean, first takeaway is start early. So so we start with a second or third deal, right? And you should start right away with the first deal. So as soon as you've done the, the first deal, start your integration when it comes to don't, don't hesitate to change the text advisor at day one. I see many roll ups that hesitate to change the text advisor and then they are like, yeah, but maybe it's better if we do it in half a year or time or 12 months, no, don't wait. Do it right away. Tell the owners, transparently in the process, look, it is part of the game. There's going to be some changes and they're going to, they're going to take it. And if they don't take it, then you shouldn't buy them because then they're going to be trouble in the future. Yeah. And so, so very first learning is just start with the first deal and with the integration. And, and second learning is, I think, I think you need a culture that that does both. So, so you need a holding that is like very fast, very young, very start up in a way, but you also need people that respect this kind of heritage and that is people that build up these these companies for 20 years, right? So you don't need like, but in startup guys coming to the company and then knowing it all, you need people who respect that and would also show that respect, but then still manage to change things. Yeah. And I think that's a thin line, which is very important. I think one learning that we had, it's very important. So, a bit later in the journey, not not with the first company, but maybe with company four or five, you need to start value creation. You don't need to do it all, like really focus on one thing. And get that right. Yeah. So, so I see, I see some of my investments. I see they want to do it all. Yeah. They want to centralize procurement. Then they want to centralize this position of, of let's say, some, some like handyman. Yeah. They want to, they want to change the RP and then they want to do something with marketing and they want to do something with sales. That's not going to work. Yeah. You should focus on. Let's, let's have one KPI and let's say my KPI is, I want to achieve 10% growth here and then take one or two very simple measures, but execute them super well so that you can see the effects, at least with some companies at the exit. Yeah. That's really, really important that you, that you said, let's make an example. Yeah. We would ask about we started in year three doing pricing projects, because we saw these guys, they haven't changed pricing with some customers for 20 years. So where the market price for an occupation health practitioner was at like 180 euro per hour, they still charged like 90 euro. Obviously, there is a gap that you can increase the price to, maybe you don't have to increase it to the 180, you can tell the customer, look, you get a discount of 20% and you still have a, have a 70 euro plus, yeah, in terms of margin. And so, so that was our lighthouse case. And in, in hindsight, we probably should have put more, more resources on that more energy. We did that with two of the companies so we could show some effects at the exit, but it's even more powerful. If you can show it on a group, the A level and you can show like look here, these, these 10% they come from pricing. That's, that's cool. Yeah. And so, so that's learning number three, build up your lighthouse cases and don't bother the ocean. Don't do it all. Yeah. Focus, I think it's the fourth or fifth point now is is don't start having a burn rate. Yeah, because I see some people that take this advice to serious and then they do too much in terms of integration. And then they start hiring a CTO and a chief product officer after the first company. That's also not the right pace. Yeah. So because then you end up in the VC type risk profile. So yes, please hire those people earlier. Do some investment, but investment means like to FTE for six months and not 10 for one year. Yeah. So just to get perspective right, because then you end up in such a VC case again. I have written down a few things here. One, you mentioned pricing and I'll add you a few more. One is what you mentioned before is marketing. Then there is sales and then there is customer support. Maybe you can share something on each. If something comes to mind. And maybe how long do you focus on on this one thing? To just to give a perspective, to just see the see their hopefully improvements when making those changes. So just to repeat, right, what we did is one of those and we deliberately decided against the others. What I can share now is experiences from my investments from other cases that also puts on other levels than pricing. So what I can share, for instance, is I have one investment and there we more focused on growth and there we focusing a lot on lead generation. So we generate leads in that business with cold outreach with online marketing and also mailing and CRM tools to get leads for the local salesmen and owners that we feed to them and then they close them because there we have some we found some potential that we can always take its project based work. Yeah. And the more projects you have, the better you can select the project with the best margin. So it's a twofold level. So on the one hand, you have growth because you have more projects. And the second level is if you have more projects that you are declining, then you have better margins because you only select the projects with the best margins. That's the lead gen part. Then I have another investment where they centralize sourcing. So procurement. Yeah. So they have a team that centralize. So for them, it's really important because they they have like some parts that they need for the business and they have some synergies when they buy it centrally. That's that's pretty clear. What else do we say? Yeah, like what we later did now with RC par is we have the software play. Right. That's also good example with Medigene. So what we're doing there is So so before, you know, the process when you come to into this into this practice and just into this doctor's practice and you do your assessment for occupational health. Then it's often very paper based. Right. So you need to fill in a formula for your enemies is and together with a software as a digital. We generate reports automatically. And you have a process that is very structured. So there is no difference in service level or quality between the practitioners at least a degree. And that's also something but that's that's a level that needs significantly more investment. And for instance, the central procurement. Now that the journey from start to to exit last that approximately 36 months, which is unusually fast. Can we talk a little bit about can you share maybe a bit about the investment returns and the transaction to Warburg pinkers. What can you share? It's a very broad question. I mean, I mentioned the number of employees that already gives you good feeling that the company by now again tripled in size in just 48 months. Right. So we continuing this pace. So to say, yeah, which is very impressive. Also by the new management. Yeah, what I can share is always makes sense and also when we invest with even now or when we look at investments privately, Freddie and I. We often we often tell the teams need at least 10 million EBDA to be actually ready. And why is that? It often comes along with at least 10 to 15 deals. So when you calculate 1 million EBDA per per deal. And it also comes along with being a mid market deal, which is good because then you are open to another landscape of buyers. Right. You don't want to sell to small cap private equity funds often because they are a bit more price sensitive with mid market and large cap funds. You can build a growth journey together. Yeah. And this growth journey often comes along with a better exit multiple. Yeah. And and there's also what we kind of did with Aussie palm. Yeah, we got close to that figure. And and then we had a growth journey together with Warburg pinkers. And it also reflected some of our compensation that we received as previous shareholders. Yeah, that we went on that journey. And I'm personally still invested as you mentioned. I'm still a shareholder in the company. And yeah, maybe that I can share yet. So that gives you feeling so we were such a mid market deal. So that gives you feeling for the region of EBDA we were. And and for our previous investors, I think it was a very good return. I think Freddie and I we mentioned in some other podcasts that it was a I think 80% IR or so we mentioned. So that number is already public and I can share. When things went wrong. Can you maybe share what went wrong because maybe there are some again obvious things which people who are listening and what you do yourself as well on day-to-day basis when it comes to making those investment decisions, backing other independent searchers of what what are some of the things you always bring out like make sure you you look at this or make sure you keep away of of doing this. What are some of the things you would like to bring out because based on your experience again. I can give you an even answer, so sort of fun that I'm currently doing that is investing in roll ups. So when I talk to when I talk to founders there, I often tell them try to iterate early with the market. So when you are in those in. this ideation period. Then you should start very early, just take your phone in your hand and call the people in the market, discuss with them openly, be transparent, be nice, and it brings you to result way faster than doing like desk research and modeling for 10 days or so. So pick up the phone, do some cold calling, and iterate fast in those first weeks and months. You should have a clear target. So don't make this ideation process too long. I've seen some teams that are ideating now for 12 months. Don't overdo it, ideate, take your long list, but then also boil it down quickly, get two, three, four markets, and then within 10, 12 weeks decide for one of those markets. Don't do it longer than that, because at some point you just need to jump. And obviously you can always find something that could be better with another market or you can always find something that you should discuss still with aspiring's partner, but at some point you still need to jump. And I think 12 weeks is a good time frame. If you're doing it full-term or full-time. And after that, when you start talking to investors, I think many teams now underestimate the importance of pipeline. So it's a different pitch also when you negotiate your terms with an investor, so let's take even. It's a very weak position. If you tell them, yeah, we have one L-O-I, we spoke to some brokers and we might get a second wouldn't. But then there's no pipeline behind, yeah. What you want to show is, look, we reached out to 500 companies in the market out of that 40% replied so far. Out of that, we had so and so many on-site meetings and out of that, we generated 20 companies where we have financials now. That's powerful, yeah, because then you can tell you investor, we can very clearly calculate with our conversions, this should result in five to 10 million EBITDA within the next 36 months, yeah. And that's what you want to hear and what also gives you a strong position when it comes to new negotiations. And many founders, they have the feeling that, yeah, maybe one or two L-O-I's and I just call up some brokers and then it was then I do fundraising and then I do my outreach, yeah. But I think that's the wrong order. Another advice is, once you have funding, the first month is purely M&A. So don't get rid in discussions, don't get lost in discussions where you talk about, I had one team that was talking about ERP system integration before we even had bought a company, yeah. So I was like, look guys, can we please first buy five companies before we integrate ERP systems? And I see where it's coming from, yeah, because everyone's talking about integration. So that's why I'm also emphasizing this point. Integration is important, but the first six months is still M&A focused because you have to build that pipeline and you need to be, you build a momentum for the next years, yeah, for the first six months. And after that comes the integration part that we already discussed a lot, a lot now, yeah. - I have a long list of the tidalies on my notes, lessons from Felix and we're not gonna go through all of them. I just wanna cover the first lessons from Felix otherwise a few guys. - Number one is bringing experience operators or advisors, bring someone into the company who is in their 40s or 50s. Can you talk more about this? - Did I say that? Bring in someone who's 40 or 50? - I think I took it from the, maybe now this is a translation issue because I don't speak German, but I was listening as German, very, much easier. - Because I said, don't bring them in. (laughing) Because, should I say something about that? So because many people, when they come to us, they feel it's extremely important to have that industry guy, that gray hair industry guy who is like 55 years of age. And I feel it's not the right skill set for a founding team. You can have such a profile as an advisor, yeah. So a meeting, have a face to the market, who also knows the market, when you have a question, when it comes to value creation or so. But I wouldn't take such a profile into the founding team, even let's take the example of dentists, yeah. I wouldn't take a dentist into the founding team. I would always take a dentist into your advisory board or maybe into your chief medical officer. You can make your, one of your first acquisitions founders or sellers, you can make your chief medical officer. And I think that's way more efficient than having that in the founding team. So I would revise that statement if I really made it. And what was the other point again, the other lesson? - No, I, you know, I think where it came from. I was listening to your at Frederick's episode in German, then I was taking all the German language translated it. And it, maybe it was something Frederick said, because there were another things. He has seen many operational situations. He brings stability and understands people management. These were the notes I've been, I've been taking when listening to German version of one of the episodes. - Yeah, maybe it was Frederick. So, so I would say to the, yeah. - A little different, yeah, as I just said. So it's good to have that face to the market. It might help you in M&A. But also what you need to keep in mind, if it's someone who's known into market, then people have an opinion about that person. And that opinion might also be bad. Yeah, so be careful to keep the dentist example. So if it's a dentist that is known in the market, but everyone hates him, then it probably doesn't help in M&A, yeah. So it's a twofold thing. Yeah, it can play out well, but it also can be a negative impact. - Very glad actually that I asked this. So you actually guys have different opinions. - Felix, I really enjoyed the conversation. - Yeah. - Fascinating, fascinating story. I think it's important to mention what you're doing now, maybe say it with your own words. - Yeah, sure, yeah. - 10 months ago or 11 months ago, Frederick, who was one of the first investors at Asipa, and we know back from BCG back in the days. He called me up and told me, look, actually what we're doing on the side now, these roll-up investments, I would like to professionalize that. And out of that originated a fund named Avon, and we are now a fund that already invested into three small cap roll-up platforms, so to say, in Germany. And we're always on the look for new teams, yeah. So if you're good entrepreneur, then reach out to us. And what we like to do is everything, and that is like a niche market in Germany, Middle-Stand, and especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But we also have a mandate for full Europe, but focused on German spoken areas. And yeah, it's super happy that I took that path, because back in the days, Fred and I were managing tickets of maybe three, four million euros in a WhatsApp group, and I think this is way better set up than before. - Yeah, and the important to mention here, I had an episode with Frederick as well. So this Frederick episode will come out first, and then this one, so guys, you're listening, you can go back and listen, the one we did with Fredrik. But Felix, again, congratulations on your success, and thanks for being so transparent with everything today. - Yeah, thanks a lot, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks, Mick.