Alt Investing Made Easy

Sarah Florer (00:06.789)
Welcome everyone to Alt Investing Made Easy. For today's episode, we have our friend Wade Bruffey here of Main Street Securities based in Austin, Texas. And we're delighted to have him here. He's going to talk about his business that he's involved in and also his background. Welcome, Wade.

Wade Bruffey (00:28.706)
Thanks so much, Sarah and Roland, for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. It's a warm day in Austin, Texas, but we're having a good time over

Roland Wiederaenders (00:36.258)
Gosh, yeah, it's not a surprise in August in Texas. Yeah, Wade, it's great to have you here and it's really great the way that we met you through our new law partner, George Lee. And so we're really glad to have met you and what we want to do today is find out more about you and Main Street securities. I think that this is a real pertinent topic for any discussion about.

fundraising, raising money for small businesses, and then the specific way that you all do it, I think it'll be really interesting. So, Wade, why don't we start out initially by talking about Main Street Securities and what that is as a business and what your emphasis is there.

Wade Bruffey (01:27.54)
Yeah, thanks Roland. I'll love to do that. And I think it'll be fun to talk all about not only Main Street, but this SMB asset class. And we like to call it SMB land in general as well. We're big proponents of what we do and of the people that we do it with. So it'll be fun to kind of talk about the landscape. And this is a topic that we feel like is.

reaching an exciting inflection point. There are a lot more people talking about buying a small business than there ever have been. And I've been doing this for a while and I'll be happy to share that kind of story with the audience. But yeah, it's an exciting time. So thanks for having me again. And I'm excited to share that with y'all. As I jump into who are we at Main Street, something that we are actually really excited about and it makes us, you what we feel is somewhat unique in this space.

is we are a FINRA member broker dealer. And so I do want everybody to know that I am a registered representative with Main Street Securities and that anything that I discussed today is informational. It's not investment advice. It's not an investment recommendation of any kind. And as we go into all this, I'm sure that I'm not, you guys have, it seems like a pretty experienced audience that's aware of what alternatives are. And even if they're still learning about alternatives, they are aware that alternatives are, you know, they're risky.

They're private placements and they can be risky. can involve the loss of your entire investment. And so just want to put that out there. What we are talking about today is largely speculative in lot of ways. And we can talk about how we're kind of professionalizing the space. And if anyone wants to go check it out, the qualifications of Main Street or its representatives, we're on brokercheck.org. So just directing anyone there if they want to take a look. also MainStreetSecurities.net is our website. So feel free to reach us anytime.

Roland Wiederaenders (03:13.548)
Yeah, that's-

Roland Wiederaenders (03:18.168)
We'll be sure to include all of those contact, all the contact information and we greatly appreciate people that are focused on compliance because it's a place where you can really get into trouble and but it's relatively easy to follow the rules.

Wade Bruffey (03:21.037)
Thank you.

Wade Bruffey (03:35.19)
Yes, exactly Roland. listen, think that one of the things that, so Main Street Securities, our businesses, help acquisition entrepreneurs raise money for their small business acquisitions. And so what do I mean when I say small business acquisitions? Typically this is deals and these are typically leveraged buyouts. So buying an operating company with some combination of debt and equity. And typically those businesses are having...

cash flows from the 500 to 750,000, maybe up to the five, some cases up to 10, maybe even 15 million. So just kind of the lower middle market to use a more specific industry term, but maybe more people can get their head around SMB. We certainly think that. as the space gathers a lot of momentum, we actually, to your point about, we feel compliance is a big benefit to us.

in this space because there's a little bit of the wild west as this kind of asset class gets going. And, know, we see a ton of deals. We're very selective about the people that we decide to take on as clients. and you know, we, the reason for that is because we, we feel very strongly that we are professionalizing these offerings. Like we should bring somebody, an investor, you know, part of it is our obligation to

provide investors with clear information that has been, it is objective, that is factual so that they can make an appropriate decision about what works for their investment objectives. And when we want people like at a professional level, even beyond our compliance obligation, we want people to know that when they're looking at a deal that's sponsored by Main Street, that's being brokered by Main Street, that they're interacting with a group of professionals that has

a lot of experience under their belt that has a track record of knowing that has a track record in this space that has that have worked in other, you know, leading firms that do this kind of thing so that when they get a piece of material from us, they know that there's a certain standard that's being that's being followed.

Sarah Florer (05:48.537)
I just want to say one thing here, Wade, and that is when you say SMB, I think we all know what you mean, but could you just throw out a definition?

Wade Bruffey (05:55.912)
Yeah, of course. So small and medium sized business. Thanks for that, Sarah. Yeah, if anyone and what I think a small medium sized business is think about your businesses where the owner is also an operator in the company. This is something that we talk a lot about is being an owner operator. I don't think I have our hat, but we have some hats that float around the office that have owner operator on the front of them, which we will hand out occasionally. If you guys are ever in Austin, swing by, we'll give you one.

Sarah Florer (06:10.799)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (06:22.127)
Cool.

Wade Bruffey (06:24.846)
But we talk a lot about this concept of being an owner operator because a lot of these small businesses that are across small, medium size, so maybe to use a financial metric, maybe that's anywhere like $250,000 of annual cash flow to maybe 15 million, maybe like employee sizes of 10 through 150, something like that, where these businesses are for the most part sub real scale, but are important.

businesses and their communities that they serve or important businesses for their customers. And that could be, you know, everything from, I mean, there's a really famous ice cream shop here in Austin that are one of our, colleagues interviewed and did a whole, you know, YouTube, you can check it out on our, on our YouTube channel or our affiliates YouTube channel. We're affiliated with a company called main shares. And I can talk to a little bit about that too, but you know, they've done a,

Sarah Florer (06:55.427)
Mm-hmm.

Wade Bruffey (07:20.216)
they've done a workup on that. We work with folks that are buying things like excavation companies that are super significant in their neighborhood or any number of types of small businesses, but really ones where the owner is very involved in the day-to-day. So when we're looking at clients, we're often looking for people who are gonna be willing to step into that owner operator role, which can sometimes be a messy role. So it's not for everyone, that's for sure.

Sarah Florer (07:30.02)
Mm-hmm.

Roland Wiederaenders (07:49.698)
So it really starts with a client. The client comes to you and says, hey, Wade, we want to buy this business and we need some assistance with the financing. And then you say, OK, well, who are you? Do you have experience to be an owner operator with this business? If so, then we'll help you finance it. Is that a pretty good description?

Wade Bruffey (08:13.622)
Yeah, that's exactly right. Roland. I think that the unique thing about Main Street is that we are really focused on the piece of this puzzle that I think a lot of people have trouble figuring out. And that's really like, when we think about what is our, our principal mission, it is to help people raise equity for small business acquisitions because, know, fortunately we live in a pretty great country that has some really great infrastructure around helping entrepreneurs succeed.

And it's something that we feel is very unique to America and something that we excel in is this culture of entrepreneurship. And so there are things like the SBA where you can go out to the small business administration. And a lot of our clients are using what's the seven a loan program where they can get, you know, up to five million dollars of acquisition financing that, you know, hopefully can really help them propel, you know, if they succeed with this business, propel

the success of themselves and create wealth for their family and help the community and grow the company. And this is really attractively priced debt that is, for the most part, pretty accessible. And there's a lot of banks out there that land on these SBA programs. But a lot of people, and really why our firm was founded, and I feel very, lucky to be an early team member here at Main Street.

Sarah Florer (09:21.871)
Mm-hmm.

Wade Bruffey (09:40.204)
We have always known that, mean, and part of our founding story is that our founder actually owned a business brokerage before this and big problem with his clients where he was trying to sell their company would be, you know, the buyer getting to the finish line and then saying, I don't have enough money to make the SBA down payment. So you, cause you required to make an equity injection. So enough people came through this where the light bulb goes off and I was fortunate to meet the guys, right?

Sarah Florer (10:00.153)
Mm-hmm.

Wade Bruffey (10:07.894)
right, not long after this was launched and just immediately resonated with me like, yeah, that's a big problem that people who would be great operators do not have in their personal network, maybe somebody that has the kind of capital that would be required in order to make that equity injection, which, you know, sometimes can be in the millions of dollars. So we really exist to help people access that network. And so do we take, try to find the best operators and the best

Sarah Florer (10:29.42)
Mm-hmm.

Wade Bruffey (10:37.528)
deals, the best businesses, and really help them raise the money that they need to get the deal done. That's it. Yeah. And we focus on that equity side, just to reiterate that.

Sarah Florer (10:44.131)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (10:49.635)
I just think that's really cool because you can hear about equity, can dig around in the internet and find information about that. But it's often, I think, reserved to larger businesses, more sophisticated projects. Maybe in the commercial real estate space, people are more familiar with syndication. And we have talked about on this channel, Wade, about first of all, what you've said already. just want to re-emphasize, and that is that

This country, the structural situation with entrepreneurialism, with also the securities laws, with different kinds of regulations that are in place, really do... And also the history that we have of Boom and Bust, in fact, has really informed so much of a basis that really supports people at all stages of this business, founding businesses, forming businesses, growing businesses.

It's different in the rest of the world and I lived abroad for many years and it's, know, wealth ends up very concentrated in the hands of a few powerful families that have had generational wealth already for, you know, many generations because they can afford to enter new markets, they can afford to take risks, they can afford all of these different things. So it's always important to point out that I think in our country here, we have a framework that's for everyone to access and seek opportunities to

stay small as an important local community business, grow bigger, grow bigger, bigger, and those opportunities are there. However, it is complicated and needs guidance. So I'm really grateful to hear that there's a business like yours that focuses on that because everybody has to start somewhere, right?

Wade Bruffey (12:34.422)
Yeah, 100 % Sarah. we, you know, our clients are often, you know, small business acquisitions is a growing asset class. can get into some of my backstory before, but I was with one of them, you know, in my opinion, still it's one of the most impressive firms out there doing this. So I was very lucky early in my career to get to learn from some people that are really great at doing this and that have done this. You know, I think they've acquired over hundred businesses at this point. So just really the best possible learning environment.

And a lot of our clients, and as more people have realized, wait a minute, there can be a really good opportunity here if you're willing to work hard and take some risk, these investments, they can also be profitable in these situations. So as more people enter the space, what we really...

want to do and our clients compete with this private equity money that's pouring into this asset class. So, you know, a lot of the times our client is not the highest bidder on a deal, but they are able to walk into the seller of this business's office, shake their hand and look them in the eye and say, I am planning on moving to this town. I'm going to bring my family. My kids are going to go to the school that your kids went to. And I am going to lay down roots in this place and take care of this business as the new owner operator.

Sarah Florer (13:33.669)
you

Sarah Florer (13:53.029)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (13:59.424)
And we may not have the highest, you know, the highest bid. The private equity guys have probably more money than us and 90 % of the cases, but you know, these are real people. And if the person really cares about the seller really cares about handing it down to someone that is going to be part of their community and treat the business like they treated it that time, that, that helps us win a lot of the time. So it helps our clients win, I should say.

Sarah Florer (14:26.031)
think that's really wonderful. It's like micro private equity almost.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:27.778)
Sir Roy.

Roland Wiederaenders (14:32.28)
We are focusing on people that really have the ability to be successful. it sounds like experience is important, an ability to demonstrate that they'll make a commitment to the business, to the community that it serves. What are some other characteristics that you look for in the people that you take on as clients?

Wade Bruffey (14:32.46)
Yeah, in a way.

Wade Bruffey (14:57.576)
It's a super good question, Roland. Yeah, I mean, there's a number of factors. I guess starting with the first one is we really, we deal with a lot of stakeholders throughout the transaction process. If any one of your listeners is working in a investments firm, they know, or if you're even if new to the space, you're probably been learning. There are a lot of different parties that come together to make a deal work and to actually go forward and happen.

So a lot of the way that we think about things is how can we, like knowing what we know about navigating the bank process, navigating the SBA 7A process, navigating what the LPs have told us as we speak to people and we're raising money. What are the kinds of characteristics that we know that somebody needs based on the other people that are involved in the process as stakeholders? So I think first and foremost,

The deal and operator fit is so imperative. It is so important because it's the first thing that the bank is gonna, like before you even talk to an investor about it, and guess what? They care a lot about the person that's gonna come in there and be the steward of their capital. But even before it gets to somebody like that, it's gotta go through the bank. And the bank is gonna be that, and a lot of times deals will live or die by the first few conversations with the bank.

Sarah Florer (16:08.357)
Yeah.

Wade Bruffey (16:23.022)
because the bank is also thinking about, and even in the instance of the SBA where they're 75 % covered if they make a decent loan, they're still, they care a lot that the person that's gonna be getting their hands dirty has had prior experience doing this kind of thing. And so there are a lot of people, and especially recently there were some new SBA guidelines that got released earlier this year. They have been very particular about the...

the owner or the buyer business fit. And on the occasion that we do work on a larger transaction, like I said, we're dealing with businesses probably around 500,000 of cashflow, maybe total enterprise value of about 2 million on the very small end to up to maybe 50 million on the higher end. And we've even looked at a handful. We haven't signed any clients that have larger acquisitions too much bigger than that.

yet, I mean, it's not that we wouldn't take something like that on potentially. I think that the key is that in any instance, anybody that's going to be involved in this deal is really caring about what are the chops of this person standing in front of me? Because we, as we like to say, they're making a bet on not only the horse, the business, but they're also betting on the jockey. So if they don't feel like this person's coming in there with a really good.

Sarah Florer (17:42.127)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (17:45.582)
value creation strategy, or at least enough experience to say, you know, this business is a great business. It's probably not going to grow, you know, a massive amount each year, but if we keep it on track, it'll make it'll be, it'll continue to be a profitable business. That's another thing that we only look at profitable businesses. So, you know, you can still make a, you know, if that's your event investment objective, and that's your thesis, just to keep the steady eddy going. can work. So, you know, I think it really depends on.

Who's the person doing the deal? What's the company? What are the dynamics? Does it make sense? And ultimately, you know, it's really helpful when we work with people that are good with people because a lot of times you're meeting an investor and then, you know, you're having a handful of phone calls, maybe, maybe three, four hours of time to talk. And then someone's going to write you a hundred thousand dollar check. In some instances, this is not insignificant amount of money. It's a big decision. So, you know, that's, that's really, really important.

Sarah Florer (18:34.117)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (18:42.618)
Yeah.

Roland Wiederaenders (18:47.005)
That's something we talked about before, Sarah, isn't it? A great deal can be made a bad deal by a poor operator, but a great operator can make a mediocre deal great. It really all is about this. The horse is important, but the jockey is really the one we have to look at.

Sarah Florer (19:00.898)
Exactly.

Sarah Florer (19:09.293)
And I think also there's another thing that strikes me here, is something Roland and I have talked about, which is, you know, there's a sophisticated financial services industry out there. But to even buy into that, to even be at a place where you can afford certain things, for example, investment banking services, broker dealer services on a large scale, you know, those price tags, just the size of your company usually has to be a certain size for it to make sense.

But I do think it's so nice that you've identified that there's a need in the small, medium area. And also, it sounds like you've turned it into a business model that works, which is great, because everybody needs access. And in a sense, what do investment bankers do? Sometimes they arrange deals, right? In a sense, that's some of what you're doing. And so we can call it different words, but in the end,

people need those services for a reason, including at a smaller scale. And it's nice to see, for me, it's nice to see that there's a value that your company's putting on the small business, the role it has in the community, the multiple stakeholders that there are in businesses everywhere in the world. There are multiple stakeholders. We have a focus on shareholders here and there are lot of reasons for that. But on the other hand, in the end, there are other people who depend on businesses who want those there.

who communities need services and different things. So I think it's just wonderful, the space that you're operating in. So it's really nice to hear about it.

Wade Bruffey (20:45.976)
So do we, we care a lot about it. Thanks for that.

Sarah Florer (20:49.253)
So, Roland, sorry, sorry Roland. No, no, I'm done.

Roland Wiederaenders (20:49.545)
You know, Wade, I thought an interest. Yeah, go ahead. no.

Go ahead, sir.

Sarah Florer (20:56.965)
Go ahead. no, I was going to say, are we ready to hear more about your personal journey? But I think maybe Roland has one more question.

Roland Wiederaenders (21:03.372)
Well, yeah, yeah, I just I thought it would be good to hear a success story, you know, as specific as you can get without betraying any confidential information.

Wade Bruffey (21:12.394)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, listen, I think we, to Sarah's point, I mean, we feel like one of the most exciting things that we get to do is to take someone as a client that this doing this acquisition has the potential to completely change the trajectory of their life. These are hardworking people that have been leaders in their prior career, like up until this point.

And they are willing to put in a lot of cases, put it all on the line. The SBA is a personally guaranteed loan. This is serious stuff. And they're willing to put all of it on the line to get to that point where they can hopefully create some, know, speaking to Sarah's point, this is like, you know, the real opportunity to generate some family wealth. Like this is an opportunity to create value at another, at a level that a lot of times doesn't exist just being in a corporate world. And so,

you know, when we have, and I would say like we don't, you know, there's no, there's no way to pick favorites because in a way they're all special. And so when we see somebody and we have a closing and it's somebody that, that is so excited, like there's a, I think that the real excitement is like, it's a combination of, of excitement, joy, terror, like a whole bunch of emotions that are going on when the deal actually closes and the wires cross and it's done.

Sarah Florer (22:39.364)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (22:41.238)
And, just being able to say, know, like we wish you well, congratulations on all the success that you had during this capital raising process, getting people on your team, getting investors on board, making sure that they, you know, feel confident backing you and, and, and are ready to jump in. And, know, the, always are saying that the, this is all like the prologue, like this, this whole like banking journey, all this stuff, the private placement and.

Sarah Florer (23:06.436)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (23:11.042)
getting the deal done is chapter zero and chapter page one of the book starts on the day of the closing. you know, we really, when we see people turn that page, I think that's just, mean, for me, and we can talk about, I'd love to just share background, whatever else you guys want to know, and whatever else that you think it would be helpful for the audience. But, when people have that, that's the thing that I think keeps us coming back.

to this again and again. it's, think we get a little bit of special joy, I think, for doing it with some of our clients that are really excited and doing it maybe for the first time or just that this is a special moment to be part of for sure.

Sarah Florer (23:43.374)
Hmm.

Sarah Florer (23:53.753)
I think that's really cool. So shall we hear more about your background? And then I do just want to re-emphasize here that this is such an important space. Businesses are getting sold all the time and need to be sold all the time for lots of reasons throughout all levels of the economy. And the fact that you're professionalizing this space and you're making great services available to people, regardless of the...

Wade Bruffey (23:59.928)
Yeah.

Sarah Florer (24:22.84)
the company size, essentially. mean, you have some parameters, obviously, but they're very different from what really exists on the middle and high end of these kinds of size businesses. So I just want to reemphasize that here to our audience, that if you need such services, Wade and his team are available.

Wade Bruffey (24:44.846)
Yeah, thanks for that, Sarah. Yes, certainly. We'll love to hear from whoever is going through a process like this. We are focused on small business acquisitions. So if you are buying a business that fits the parameters that I've described, we'd to chat with you about it.

Sarah Florer (24:59.362)
and we'll include all the details in the show notes. But moving on, so how'd you get into this?

Wade Bruffey (25:07.338)
Yeah, thanks for asking. It's been a really fun journey and I've been very, very lucky and blessed throughout the process. I started with a general interest in getting into finance and wasn't maybe quite sure where I wanted to go with that, but I knew that I'm super interested in the markets. think investing is just something that I've always had a little bit of a mind towards thinking about what

the world going to look like going forward and what are interesting business models? And I've always had that in my head. I'm interested about how the world works. And I think that investing is an interesting piece of thinking about that. And I was very fortunate during undergrad to have an internship at a private equity firm called Salt Creek Capital.

And Salt Creek Capital is based in California. They've been doing small business acquisitions for over 15 years. And there, it was a great place to learn. So I started there as a summer analyst. I got a full-time offer there after I graduated from college. And I was, like I said, just so lucky to be part of that. And then what a great learning environment for me. did a, worked on a lot of deals as part of a small team. And this was kind of before...

SMB acquisitions, like I think it's also kind of interesting because it was also before social media became, I think, really, really robust in some of the business spaces. Like this is kind of like early stage LinkedIn. know, people weren't having the kind of audience that they had for business on social media at that time. And so really, this was a nascent space. I mean, we were

we were obviously there were competitive bidding processes and a lot of people that were into this buying these companies, but way dramatically less than what we're seeing today. And so, it was a really interesting time. learned a ton. mean, one of the really unique things that has helped us and helped me and helped us here at Main Street be successful is the Salt Creek has a really similar philosophy. They find an operator first, an executive to

Wade Bruffey (27:26.22)
find a company that needs new management and then they only, they focus almost entirely on this management transition piece. Cause this is a delicate, like you were saying, people need to change their, they need to sell their business for one reason or another. And this can be like make or break, getting the right person in the seat to get the new CEO, the new owner operator. So we, learned a ton about that and I got to work with some incredible executives.

Sarah Florer (27:44.857)
Mm.

Wade Bruffey (27:55.99)
early in my career, which was an enormous experience. feel super lucky to this day. And, there was, you know, always a curiosity and to think in the back of my mind, I guess, a young curious person, what would it be like to actually go and work in one of these operating companies that we're helping these people buy, even beyond kind of the like portfolio ops and like getting a little bit bored information here and there.

You know, I think that's one of the exciting things, you know, that, that, you know, being in the private equity space can offer is a lot of exposure to a lot of different types of businesses. But I got this inkling that it would be fun to go out and work in a small company and see how that works. So I did that. I actually ended up leaving the firm and I joined a series B startup in San Francisco at the time, in, healthcare. I'm personally, like we were talking a little bit before we started recording.

about meditation and, uh, you know, I'm really have been into meditation for over a decade now. Um, it's an extremely important part of my life and I'm really into wellness and health. So I joined a company that I thought would be interesting to do that. It was a super interesting company, AI and healthcare, um, still a great business. We, we, did, we had a lot of wins, um, as a team there. Um, I was, I was helping to lead the strategic partnerships channel.

Sarah Florer (29:10.447)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (29:19.478)
licensing technology, licensing software, licensing hardware, doing software integration. So a really interesting experience there. And then started doing some consulting as well on the side. I, before long, I had a colleague who I started doing the consulting with. Before long, we made the decision to do that full-time. So I've also been an entrepreneur. I've started that company. I've started two businesses actually, both in the kind of consulting space.

But it was a great experience there. in early 2024, a friend of mine from San Francisco, I saw a posting about small business acquisitions on LinkedIn. And so I just reached out to him and said, I've got more experience than most people, think, in this kind of niche, interesting space. I'd love to learn about what you're doing. And so then we caught up. it's a friend that

Sarah Florer (30:09.562)
Hmm.

Wade Bruffey (30:18.114)
You know, I should have kept in better touch with, but you know, when you have these people in your life that maybe you're not always in touch with them, but when you do get in touch with them, you're right where you're left off. That's, that's, that's this kind of friend. So I felt very lucky to, to just like it, it just made sense. So I think between when I first had the conversation with the guys, you know, founding founding team here, three weeks later, I was in Austin. moved from California to Texas and the rest is history. Here we are.

Sarah Florer (30:24.623)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah Florer (30:44.143)
Wow. So from San Francisco to Austin, huh? I think a lot of people have made that journey over the past few years.

Wade Bruffey (30:47.918)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, fun stuff.

Wade Bruffey (30:57.194)
I know it was a complete accident, but it's been great. So it's a good journey.

Sarah Florer (31:02.437)
Well, I hope Austin's treating you well. By the way, we're based here. know, Roland's been here for many, many years and I've been a kind of in and out resident. So in the 90s and the 2000s and now, so now I'm here.

Wade Bruffey (31:06.67)
Hmm?

Roland Wiederaenders (31:17.699)
Hey Wade, had a question that occurred to me. What role does Main Street take in the company's post acquisition? Do you all can take a continuing role?

Wade Bruffey (31:31.756)
Yeah, that's a, that's, love this Roland and thanks for prompting this. think this is a really interesting thing. And I'm excited to tell the audience about this in case anyone's thinking about buying a small company, because it's a lot of work. And like I said, day one is really the day of closing when you start to, when you become the owner, Mainstreet securities. So our broker dealer is the affiliated broker dealer of a company called main shares. Main shares is the kind of parent company.

Um, and, uh, uh, it's not the, have a, we have a third parent, but you can think of main shares is quite a bit bigger than us here at main street. So we are the capital raising arm and main shares is a actual technology platform. They're a software company. Um, so what main shares does is they build software to help people successfully close an acquisition. And then on the back end, they have a whole suite of, know, when you take money from an

a limited partner, like there's some, you know, typically obligations that you have to these people that you've taken money from. we main shares helps with shareholder management, distributions, tax document distribution, a whole number of things that they do to help to give the people that have bought the business the ability to focus on what they need to be focusing on, which is running the business. So taking some of that like investor,

workload off of them, which, you know, in a private equity firm, like, you know, typically you have, that's part of the firm's operations is keeping the portfolio companies reported on. And there's a lot of transparency, which is really a value to working with a private equity firm. So we're trying to help these folks that are independent acquirers have some of this professionalism and a level of, Hey, investors know that they're going to come in and there's going to be stuff managed by main shares so that I'm going to get this stuff.

So that's really helpful. And then the other piece of main shares is it's an equity capital marketplace. So there are people, if you're an accredited investor, and I should say that our investment opportunities are open to accredited investors only, but if you are an accredited investor, you can go to www.mainshares.com and create an investor account on main shares and look at deals that are being brought to market by small business acquirers.

Wade Bruffey (33:54.606)
you'll notice that some of those deals will say brokered by Main Street Securities. Those are the ones that we're representing in the market. Main shares has a separate team that will list people's deals. If there's somebody that comes in, whatever the requirements are, they decide to list it directly on Main Shares. That is something that some people do. But I think as we become a bigger and bigger company, we do believe that Main Street will be the avenue for the majority of the listings that come through the kind of Main Shares universe.

and get listed on the site. But I guess I've done everything but answer your question, Roland, which was how do we get involved? Main shares on the back end gets involved. So there are options that they have for certain clients. I think if you are interested in this, I can put you in touch with the main shares folks who are better at explaining all this than I am. But there are portfolio services where they would help you and act as sort of a consultant after the deal is closed.

Roland Wiederaenders (34:26.831)
That's great.

Sarah Florer (34:27.173)
That's great.

Wade Bruffey (34:53.58)
in order to the operator succeed.

Roland Wiederaenders (34:54.169)
Yeah, that's kind what I was curious about is like whether you take an active role in the management after post acquisition or whether it's more just really you do all the work ahead of time and then it's more of an investor relations, making sure that that component is being taken care of, but really the operation is completely turned over to the acquire or.

Sarah Florer (34:56.217)
That's wonderful.

Wade Bruffey (35:19.114)
Yeah, it's a bit of both. So we do, like I said, we have that arm of the business that is the post-closed support. Our day to day on the Main Street side is the, of it, we are a placement agent. So we're focused on getting these deals capitalized. That's our objective. a lot of these, we're fortunate we share an office space. So we hear a lot through the grapevine and we're always excited to.

to help to hear about what those guys are working on and all the great businesses that are coming through. But that is our main focus. It's just getting these deals investors and working with the investors.

Sarah Florer (35:56.344)
And what I'm hearing also, which I think is just a highlight, is if you come forward with a business and you're looking for an investor, you want to sell your business. And you go through this process and of course you have to let it go. But the person acquiring isn't going to just be on their own all of a sudden alone. You have resources for them. So you've cultivated a relationship potentially and then the resources for them. So all those indicate and point towards helping them be successful as new owners of a business.

Wade Bruffey (36:26.786)
That is right. And even beyond the resources on our side, like another thing that we've done that a lot of people get a ton of value out of is we've got what we call our main shares has what they call their operator network. And so the main shares operator network is a community of like-minded people that have either bought a business or would like to buy a business. And so it's a, it's kind of a, it's a, it's its own little community for people that are interested in this and people where, you know, Hey, somebody might have a question like, Hey, what do I do?

or what do you think about like I found this in the numbers of this deal like does anyone know what this is or you know it's it's a number of things and you know we're it's really cool what they're what they're doing.

Sarah Florer (37:05.14)
That's interesting.

Sarah Florer (37:09.989)
Well, know, one thing I really like personally about working in this space is that there's a lot of opportunities for people to apply themselves and have deals be successful. don't want a rose-colored glass into everything. Of course, things can go wrong. But I think there's a real willingness in the community as a whole of people who work in small, medium businesses and also this ties into alternative investing.

There are a lot of stakeholders who succeed when a business succeeds. Our economy succeeds. We as communities tend to do better. So I think it's wonderful that there's a business like this that contributes to that.

Sarah Florer (37:53.249)
sorry.

Roland Wiederaenders (37:53.277)
You know, we're coming up on a 40 minutes, so we want to be respectful of our audience. But Wade, is there anything that we've left out that you want to, know, maybe some final closing thoughts or just anything that is essential for us to know to really take the key takeaway from Main Street Securities?

Wade Bruffey (38:14.796)
Yeah, first of all, just thanks to both of you. This has been a lot of fun and thanks for everyone who's listening. Really appreciate your time and attention and hopefully that you got something helpful out of this and hopefully, you know, send us an email. Like I said, if you're interested in alternative investments, we think that we're getting to participate in some of them. you know, it's a, it's a pretty new space to really open this private equity asset class up to more people. And, you know, we've got some.

clients that were really, these are great people, in my opinion, certainly. And so just, yeah, I mean, we'd love to hear from anyone. We're always, part of what we do is we educate people because this is sort of a new thing. And so we don't feel like, boy, I don't really know if I'd fully understand something like that. If you've got a business mind, if you're curious about stuff and you think that...

know, alternatives would be an interesting part and an investment that makes sense for you, come to us and we'll be happy to explain how the deal works. You know what the equity terms are, what that means. You know, we do this all day long. And so we really are, we care about helping people, know, giving people facts that they can work off of and doing that in a fair and balanced way and just making sure that we, you know, we help you come to the.

the decision that makes the most sense for you. yeah, we're come one, come all, we love talking about this stuff. Clearly it's what gets us up in the morning is, we really are passionate about working with the folks that we get to work with. It's so exciting to be part of them. I you guys are, I'm sure feel the same. It sounds like you've kind of been alluding to it a little bit here and there, but this is a really exciting industry.

we get to work with some of the most dynamic people and thinkers and, you know, hopefully, you know, we're able to put some really interesting projects together. So that's, that's what I have to say. And thanks to everyone again for, for listening and thanks to Roland and Sarah for having me here.

Roland Wiederaenders (40:20.883)
Thank you, Wade.

Sarah Florer (40:21.061)
Thank you, Wade. Well, and thanks, Dex.

Wade Bruffey (40:23.71)
All right, y'all, we'll see you at some point around Austin.

Sarah Florer (40:26.807)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So thanks, everyone, for watching this episode of All's Investing Made Easy. Please like and subscribe if you like this episode.

Roland Wiederaenders (40:26.891)
yeah, for sure.

Roland Wiederaenders (40:38.203)
And remember everyone, take aim with your alternative investing strategies.

Sarah Florer (40:43.365)
See you next time.