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11 November 2016 Multimedia

Cultivating a Disaster Resistant, Compound Interest Machine—Brent Beshore

  1. Brent Beshore
  2. Patrick O’Shaughnessy

Welcome to Patrick O’Shaughnessy's new podcast series, Invest Like the Best.

This week’s guest is Brent Beshore, Founder and CEO of adventur.es, a family of companies that invests in family-owned companies.

Welcome to Patrick O’Shaughnessy's podcast series, Invest Like the Best.

This week’s guest is Brent Beshore, Founder and CEO of adventur.es, a family of companies that invests in family-owned companies. Brent has a very specific mission with this company, to cultivate a disaster resistant, compound interest machine. At just 33 years of age he has already built a portfolio of private companies that has produced impressive results. He’s done all this out of the limelight and with no outside investors. Brent discusses his rewarding but difficult journey and what he has learned, including sourcing and evaluating businesses, how he and his team have improved profitability at his portfolio companies after acquisition and so much more. The description of his process starting at 21:40 was very unique–I learned a lot of about evaluating smaller, private businesses.

Books Mentioned

Links Referenced

Show Notes

1:34 (First Question) – Start with some background on Brent and how he has gotten to this point.

3:14 – Brent highlights the types of companies he wants to get involved with and what they hope to accomplish with their acquisitions.

4:20 – Looking at Brent’s early background, including what he studied in school and some of his early jobs

Washington & Lee University – Produced most presidents, also top party school

6:58 – A look at his first business and how that led him to the entrepreneurial journey of buying companies

8:56 – How Brent was able to use his own capital to make his first acquisition and grow from there

11:51 – Some of the books that have influenced Brent’s earliest strategies

12:36 – Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

12:48 – The Fish that at the Whale

13:20 – Wild Company: The Untold Story of Banana Republic

15:24 – Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

15:59 – The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves

16:34 – How Brent secures capital to buy companies and the discussion of debt

18:03 – A look at some of the holdings in Brent’s portfolio

21:40 – Patrick asks Brent what he looks for when choosing an investment target

26:11 – What motivates the people who are on the other side of the table that are willing to sell their companies to people like Brent.

29:16 – Would Brent ever consider outside capital on an investment

30:27 – The type of returns that Brent is seeing on his investments

34:10 – How Brent is able to get the profitably model to grow quickly in their investments, often with some pretty simple improvements

40:40 – What are the benefits of content marketing to boost your business

44:32 – The Robert Collier Letter Book

44:38 – Scientific Advertising

45:32 – A closer look at marketing with respect to his business Influence & Co.

48:39 – The conversation shifts to data and how Brent incorporates that into his business decision. Plus, his relationship with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street

53:01 – Patrick asks Brent about his opinion of the public markets

55:31 – Looking at Brent’s most interesting days both personally and professionally

1:01:00 – A look into Brent’s foray in wine making with his wife and the Beshore family vineyards.

1:04:36 – Looking at debt beyond money; culture debt, code debt, systems debt, expectations debt and more.

1:09:39 – What is the biggest miss that Brent has ever had, and what lessons did he learn from that and other deals he hasn’t done.

1:12:37 – What about ones that Brent said no to but then it was a good move

1:15:57 – Brent explains his theory of not over-negotiating for a company that he is bidding for

1:18:46 – The personality traits and skills that would help people thrive in the small to mid-market private investing space

1:25:58 – What is the motivation for Brent to continue doing this

1:28:22 – The daily values and habits that have aided Brent in his career

1:30:55 – The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for Brent professionally

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Cultivating a Disaster Resistant, Compound Interest Machine—Brent Beshore (audio)

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