Unlocking Success: How Alec Walsh Plans to Transform 100,000 Lives

Quentin (01:31)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Investor Field Podcast. My name is Quentin Edmonds, better known as Q. And today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with and I’ve been chatting with for a little bit behind the scenes. My friend Alec Walsh, who’s been making some serious moves in acquisition, business acquisition and

Man, he’s so good in his space and I’m glad to have him here with you. Alec, think our listeners are really going to take something away from you and your approach to building capital and business acquisitions. And if you’re ready, man, I just want to let’s dive right in if you’re ready, man.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (02:12)
Please, I am. And first off to you, your listeners, Q, you’ve been fantastic. I appreciate you as a host and your ecosystem. So I’m just honored to be here. I really appreciate anybody who’s willing to spend some of their life energy listening to us talk. All right. So thanks to you and your people.

Quentin (02:13)
Absolutely.

Rose,

yeah, you’re one of my favorites already, buddy. You started off like that. That sounds good to me, but no, I appreciate that we’re here to serve you. We’re here to serve our listeners. So I definitely, appreciate that, sir. Thank you so much. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with you and your world, give us the short version of what’s your main focus these days and what markets are you operating in?

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (02:46)
You got it.

Absolutely. So I can’t start that without saying first, our goal of our company is to feed, employ and house 100,000 people through the work that we do in business and real estate acquisitions. We have a three year goal tied to that. we do everything on our team is based off of getting that number as high as humanly possible. So we have the greatest impact. And so that’s a lot of our

function. My day-to-day function is really raising capital, getting people behind these deals, but also structuring them in a way where people feel secure behind them. And it’s the best for the business and we don’t create any capital or operational bottlenecks. It’s been a fantastic, very people oriented on both sides type of business. And that’s what we’ve been rocking for a long time now.

Quentin (03:50)
Absolutely. I love it. I love it. What’s really caught my attention is just that Mount Everest, right? To feed, to employ, and to house a thousand plus people. I mean, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. And I know, I mean, that’s not easy, right? Especially in this climate, it’s not easy. But what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (04:19)
Absolutely. The key for us has been who not how, building out our team internally. But the who not how also applies to investors, partners, people who are willing to come in, work with us, look at these deals and say, yes, we will get behind these business owners and their transition. We will get behind these multifamily assets or these rent by the room properties to house more people.

Quentin (04:24)
Cool.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (05:33)
to provide jobs through the business acquisitions so they can feed their families, so they can do what they need to in their lives, right? It is all about people. It is so people-centric on both.

the lender investor partner side and then also the acquisition side. It’s an incredibly intimate thing. These people have spent their hard earned time and money acquiring a big multifamily asset or starting and becoming a thriving business in their ecosystem. Right. And sometimes they just know that they want to transition. Sometimes they don’t really know how to. And that’s where we’re coming in with our expertise. And we always need more people on our team helping with that. We need more

people partnering with us to help do that to have the biggest impact we can in that three-year time frame. And ⁓ I don’t see us stopping after three years. That’s our first KPI, our first benchmark, and we’ve done a great job getting to there so far.

Quentin (06:32)
Who, not how. Did I hear that correctly? Man, you know.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (06:36)
correct. Yes sir, you did. It is the most

important lesson I’ve learned.

Quentin (06:45)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I love that. I love the insight. I love that perspective. love that. I don’t know if we call it an acronym or not, but that just who not how that’s that just focus that that focuses us in on what it is that we’re trying to do. Finding the right partners. I love it. I love that you said that. Now, now every operator I know has a moment where things get real, right? Maybe a deal that went sideways or time that you had to pivot real fast.

You might share one of those moments for you.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (07:16)
Yeah, and more of a pivot, even ⁓ a moment, I would not say of weakness, a moment that was a challenge to overcome, right? Like there is nothing in business, especially coming from prior service military. Maybe I’m a little bit of a nihilist, but nothing in this space will kill me anymore. So if we can kind of meditate on that and keep a calm mind about how we’re going to operate and how we’re going to troubleshoot this challenge, because we got people to feed, employ and house. Some of that has been building the team, right?

had

to hook and jab and know from internally and externally, get all that feedback and adapt quickly to build our team out better in a way where our lenders get more communication to them quicker and we’re more effective in that. And then for a lifetime value for those partners that are coming in trying to help us reach our goal, they feel like they can reach out. They can look at other opportunities. We make our investors, our partners.

just as dangerous as any other borrower or any other investor. We want you to have the most information to be the most informed, to make a decision about what you’re going to invest your money in, how you’re going to have this great impact in your world also through ours. You’re setting the example in your own life by trying to follow a goal like ours. And I’m so privileged to be a vessel of that for people.

Quentin (08:43)
See, that’s the kind of stuff people really don’t talk about enough. And honestly, that’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term. So, hey, I appreciate it. let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving right now or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you?

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (08:55)
Yes, sir.

Absolutely. In this season of our journey towards our goal, we’ve shifted from some of our real estate acquisitions more to the business acquisition side of the house. And it’s been an amazing journey. That is our biggest opportunity as it stands right now. We have some great, we have three businesses.

I have an investment thesis that we’ve built out and developed in two industries. And one is aerospace aviation defense manufacturing around that type of side of the house. honestly, the most excited I am about our upcoming two acquisitions that we just got.

letters of intent offers signed by the sellers and building these relationships with these two jewelry store owners here in South Florida has been an eye-opening opportunity

that I think is incredibly underutilized because under normal circumstances I would have never touched something like retail but even in

our business acquisition ecosystem. I have partners who have bought HVAC companies, who have bought electrical contracting companies. Those companies are growing maybe three, four, five percent over the next couple of years. A lot of private equities come in and done some great roll ups in that space. But also from a supply and demand standpoint, that brings down that threshold of growth.

I’ve seen colleagues do really well and also do really, really not to say poor, they’ve run into some challenges that they might not be able to overcome very quickly. And I had a good colleague, $4 million top line HVAC company, and then another colleague, $5 million top line electrical company. The one gentleman with the HVAC company went negative 300K in his first year. That’s a challenge to overcome. It was a completely profitable business. went, so essentially went negative 30 % and then went

back to net zero so we went up 30 % and then he did another 40 % on top that he went up 70 % in the next 12 months after that but if he wasn’t the right operator if he wasn’t that operator in place I don’t think that business would have lasted and there is another electrical example where that gentleman he’s going to go bankrupt and it’s it’s very unfortunate to see and it’s as little as 12 months but one of the things that I saw in that

in that realm is yes it can be recession resistant but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can fall back on your assets.

for liquidity or even to maintain working capital. And that’s where I saw the jewelry space as actually being something that though it is a luxury item, because you can hold gold pools full of gold bullion and gems, these things go up and down in value. But if you have a good distribution of about 50-50, you got 50 % gold in a recession. It goes up to offset your gem loss. Or if your gems don’t lose at all, you’re actually at a great hold.

like in asset holdings in liquidity, even in a recession where everybody else in retail, say you’re selling t-shirts, you’re gonna be out of luck trying to liquidate. And the same thing for certain home services businesses, right? It is strictly based on your performance and your ability to market and sell and the demand in your area. And here in South Florida, I mean, we do not have a problem with…

with people trying to invest their capital, their hard earned money. And we are one of the most affluent and highest, highest.

⁓ income per capita county, I believe in the United States, if not the top three, I think it fluctuates. So there’s disposable income here is what I’m trying to say. And these gentlemen who are looking to transition have done very well for themselves and they don’t have to market necessarily. They don’t have to be doing hooking and jabbing with what’s now or social selling on TikTok shop. They’ve done just fine without it. ⁓ So bringing a couple of

really unique levers into a legacy business like that, that is asset rich and very stable is incredibly exciting to us. And there’s not a lot of people doing it in this space, but there are some great examples of some roll ups that people exited here.

And another thing to annotate, how we structure our deals is to exit to the employees. want deals to get big enough to where we can put them together and do something called an ESOP and an employee stock option plan. I want everybody to write that one down and start looking into that bad boy. Because when you get past a certain threshold of a number of employees, and that’s why we’re putting these companies together, is we have good systems, enough employees to justify essentially creating a pension program, which you really don’t

see in the United States and hardly any corporations. The only place you really see it is the federal government side. And at that, I mean,

Who knows how long we might have that great benefit here in the United States for our employees, but I want to give that back to the private sector. And that’s also how we’re helping feed, employ and house more people because the less of us that sell to a big bank and sell back to the people, the more impact we can have in our communities. And that’s what I’m really behind for all of this, right? There’s just a different way. And it was a lack of information on how to exit previously. Enough business owners don’t know how to. And I think that’s the education we need to be pushing, frankly.

Quentin (14:53)
Mm-hmm.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (14:58)
I think that’s a huge opportunity in this space and we need people to help partner with us to get behind that, bring us opportunities or become more dangerous and become more educated.

In part, we do lunch and learns. We do one-day workshops and two-day intensives in person so that we can make borrowers, lenders, prospective partners more dangerous so they have more information to make more informed decisions like I said before. It’s imperative that you know how to move and shake in this environment.

And we have options and we are creating flexibility in the business space right now. We’ve done great with our assets and our holdings in real estate, but our biggest opportunity that we are doubling down on right now is business acquisition. And it’s not just because everybody’s talking about it. It’s because there’s real velocity behind some of these businesses.

Quentin (16:30)
Man, listen, that’s big. That’s big. I mean, you have a lot of great things, great things in place already. ⁓ You know, I’m still stuck on the Mount Everest. You know, I love just that idea of just the Mount Everest and what you’re doing there. So listen, the next move, it can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. So now, you know, so a lot of people listening.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (16:38)
I appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Quentin (16:58)
They’re either early in their journey or they’re, I’m sorry, early in their journey, or they’re looking to level up. And I think it benefits them from hearing this, I really do. So when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (17:09)
Yes.

Absolutely. I would go back to knowing

based on your industry that no matter what it is, it’s going to be people centric. And that is both from a team building standpoint and from a partnership standpoint. I would also, and maybe this is a hot take, I would not bring partners and give up equity and do things of that nature. So you really know from a proof of concept standpoint that you’re able to go from that solopreneur I’m hooking and jabbing and hustling. And I got my three to six months of working capital and I’ve got some

I’ve got that ⁓ also life expenditure, that burn rate for my personal life. I got three to six months for that as well and I’m taking the leap. I’m doing this thing. At that juncture, you have to also do the calculus on can you buy some of your time back, that Dan Martel kind of mentality by building a team. Leverage automations, learn about AI in your spare time or pay some money and

Get and download the brain of somebody who does know it or get them involved with you, right? And and don’t be throwing out equity left and right necessarily right out the gate to do such but partner with people in a way where you can learn as much you can or I Hey, I’m the first one to lean on people that know their space far better than I am I’m not gonna be the subject matter expert in every space and every piece of my business and I’ve learned that and I’ve learned it the hard way and that’s okay and you Have to be able to build a

team and get people to partner behind you or work with you behind you. You have to be able to put together what is your goal. That’s why I think the Mount Everest is so important. Why do you really want to do this? What is your desired end state? If it’s just a certain I want to make a certain amount of money, there’s some reason behind that. That’s what people want to hear. They don’t want to just hear, hey, I want to get rich. Like, okay, sure. What does that mean? You know, like people get rich all the time playing the lottery, does that really fulfill them? What is your fulfilled goal?

Right? And then reverse engineer exactly how you’re going to do that. And then all of a sudden the floodgates will open behind people that want to get behind you and invest with you, partner with you, see what you are up to and support you, but also work with you. Right? And opportunities come out of the woodwork when you really get behind your goal and make it digestible for everybody else.

Quentin (19:42)
Absolutely. So well said, And listen, you can’t fake that. Like, relationships in this space is everything. And so, yeah, man, that’s some very, very great advice, man. Thank you so much, Alec. So listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out or connect with you or maybe collab or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (20:00)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. in my…

link right below here in my title here. I have my Instagram. You can get a hold of me and follow me directly there. On that there’s also a Blink electronic business card link in that we’ve got a four step process you can follow by following us by getting down our wait list for our two day or one day intensives, right? There may be some popping up near you or you may get the opportunity by partnering up with us to get an opportunity to come out here in person to beautiful South Florida and see what we’re doing but also become more

as a lender, a borrower, as someone who wants to partner with other people in this space, right? So we’re trying to educate everybody involved in this entire process. think continuous improvement is everybody’s job. Even the people that we’re working with to buy their businesses, right? Who are looking to partner with us.

I cannot say enough how important it is for you to be dangerous and educated about what you’re investing in. And so we’re trying to help as much as we can through some live workshops in person, especially post COVID. We’re trying to, we’re trying to hook and jab and be able to talk to people one-on-one and directly and shake some hands. And that’s our biggest one right now. And to learn about our opportunities, ⁓ Instagram is another great one, I would say, and get a part of our mailer. We can send you those opportunities. We raise,

through another platform where you can join that community that’s fractional.app, fractional.app. And so in that you can kind of see the visibility of what’s going on, what are we up to, what are we investing in, and you can drive, you can be a part of sitting in the driver’s seat with us and see through our webinars, our initial deal reviews, and ⁓ we’re just trying to share as much information as possible about what we’re doing. So.

even if you don’t work with us you just be more dangerous in your ecosystem or you do something that we’re doing to help and feed, employ and house more people. I’m not greedy there’s eight billion people out here who need some who need a hand or are looking for some guidance right? I’m not going to touch them all at least at this juncture with the work that we’re doing but we’re going to try and do the best we can so.

Quentin (22:21)
Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. So thanks again for being here, I really, really appreciate you, And for those of you tuning in, if you get value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We got more conversation coming with operators just like Alec Walsh.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (22:38)
Thank you.

Quentin (22:50)
and who are out there that’s building real businesses with integrity, with helping people. And so we’ll tune in and ask you to tune in and we’ll see you on the next episode. All right. Thank you so much for joining us.

Alec Walsh | IG: Alecwalsh15 (23:06)
Thank you.