Steve Divitkos

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Steve Divitkos

Steve Divitkos

@divitkos

Founder of Mineola Search Partners, a firm that invests in Search Funds, the entrepreneurs who run them, and the companies that they acquire.

Toronto, Ontario Katılım Ağustos 2021
210 Takip Edilen728 Takipçiler
Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
CEOs want to spend more time working *on* their business than working *in* their business. But how realistic is it for a SMB CEO, especially a new one? That's the topic of discussion this week with Jim Schleckser, author of the book "Great CEOs Are Lazy": mineolasearchpartners.com/2026/03/19/gre…
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
While the ETA ecosystem has worried – seemingly for over a decade now – about the possibility of PE firms moving down market, it’s interesting to ask whether the inverse may now be happening, at least to a certain extent: Are Search Funds moving up market? mineolasearchpartners.com/2026/03/05/are…
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
Crafting a truly effective incentive compensation plan is simultaneously one of the most difficult & important tasks that leaders of #SMBs face. This week, we tackle the 7 most common challenges leaders face in their attempts to reward desired behaviors mineolasearchpartners.com/2026/01/20/why…
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
I implemented EOS in my company in 2015, and we leaned on it heavily through to our exit in 2020. Based on that experience, this week we tackle the most common FAQs received from others also considering the implementation of an operating system. Enjoy! mineolasearchpartners.com/2026/01/08/ins…
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Steve Divitkos retweetledi
KUMO | withkumo.com
KUMO | withkumo.com@withkumo_·
This week on SMBX: 1. “A Four-Part Framework for Evaluating Small Business Acquisitions” from @divitkos 2. 💡 How ETA operators could capture the rollup upside without VC from Nick Bryant 3. Practical look at Form 8594 and Purchase Price Allocation (PPA) in asset sales from @withkumo_ 4. If seller transition matters, put it in the purchase agreement from @Eli_Albrecht 5. Year-End Recap: What it actually cost to run a home services business in 2025 @WilsonCompanies @OwnedxOperated @thehvacjack kumo.substack.com/p/take-five-19…
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David Senra
David Senra@davidsenra·
True happiness comes from helping others: “By far my favorite thing in the world is championing other people. That's just what I enjoy doing. If I look back on my life, the sort of wins that I've had, the things that if you were to write a Wikipedia article about me would be like the accolades or the accomplishments…. I don't care about those things. I don't think about them. When they happened, they didn't do anything for me emotionally or otherwise. For whatever reason that's just not what I enjoy. But when your success happens or when many other people that I and my team have championed, have a win —I feel that deep in my soul and heart and gut in a way that is just more gratifying to me than anything else in the world. And this extends to my kids, my wife, my friends, the CEOs of companies that we've invested in, people that we have on our show, that we tell the world about. That's the repeated thing that I love.”
David Senra@davidsenra

My conversation with Patrick O'Shaughnessy (@patrick_oshag), founder and CEO of Colossus & Positive Sum. 0:00 The Joy of Championing Undiscovered Talent 2:21 How One Tweet Changed David's Life 5:07 The Upanishads Passage That Shaped Patrick's Worldview 8:34 Growth Without Goals Philosophy 10:40 Why Media and Investing Are the Same Thing 28:41 The Search for True Understanding Through Biography 31:04 The Daniel Ek Dinner That Launched This Podcast 34:28 Making Your Own Recipe From the Ingredients of Great Lives 39:11 The Privilege of a Lifetime Is Being Who You Are 48:25 Bruce Springsteen's Battle With Depression and Self-Worth 53:21 Clean Fuel vs Dirty Fuel: The Source of Your Ambition 57:03 Professional Learners: The Unfair Advantage of Podcasting 1:00:18 Relationships Run the World 1:06:30 The Origin Story of Invest Like the Best 1:08:05 Building Colossus: Why Start a Magazine in 2025 1:14:01 People Are More Interested in People Than Anything Else 1:17:32 Finding Jeremy Stern and Hiring Through Output 1:23:40 Learn, Build, Share, Repeat 1:30:07 The Daisy Chain: How Reading Books Led to Everything 1:30:32 Red on the Color Wheel: Sam Hinkie's Observation 1:37:13 Finding Your Superpower and Becoming More Yourself 1:42:57 Repetition Doesn't Spoil the Prayer: Teaching as Leadership 1:46:02 Life's Work: A Lifelong Quest to Build Something for Others 1:49:51 The Ten Roles Game and What Matters Most 1:57:03 Husband, Father, Grandfather: The Roles That Endure 1:59:48 The Kindest Thing: Tim O'Shaughnessy and Meeting Lauren 2:05:11 Conclusion Includes paid partnerships.

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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
Achieving "tail" outcomes isn’t necessarily the result of taking unduly risky bets. While risk & return do tend to be inversely correlated, one shouldn’t assume that high risk bets suggest the opportunity for higher rewards. Sometimes, risky is just risky. mineolasearchpartners.com/2025/12/11/har…
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Steve Divitkos retweetledi
Brian Halligan
Brian Halligan@bhalligan·
Pet peeve: when folks don’t do double opt-in introductions. 👿
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Sam Parr
Sam Parr@thesamparr·
Hosted Sh*t, I'm F*cked last night. 10 entrepreneurs telling 5 min stories of utter misery and failure. 100 other founders in the audience. 1 guy raised $100m and blew it in 2 years. Another had a 30m/year co and a lawsuit brought him down. One had 5 sandwich franchises and a preg wife and went bankrupt. Very cathartic to laugh at our miseries and feel less alone. Should we do this in more cities?
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Patrick OShaughnessy
Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag·
Today is the one-year anniversary of Colossus going into print Some things you might find interesting about year one… - to kick off issue one, I was scheduled to see @GrahamDuncanNYC in California, and I planned to ask him if he’d do this experiment with us as the first cover story. The day before I left, my team decided to make a mock physical magazine with him on the cover. That was fun to deliver. Graham trusted us to do two things we’d never done before (write a profile, and make a magazine). He was so patient and kind to us all. - everyone (I mean, everyone) told us this was a stupid idea. “A…magazine?!” The best opportunities seem like bad ideas but are good ideas. Seemingly bad ideas have very little competition. It seemed bad because most magazines are dead or dying. But it was good because people are craving things which are detailed and hard to make as we enter the slop era of content. Now we are wondering “what’s even harder to make?” - obsession is the most important attribute of a good story for Colossus: a writer obsessed with a subject, writing about a subject who is obsessed with something else. Or a writer obsessed with a topic on everyone’s mind, which hasn’t yet been fully explored. So excited to see what year two has in store, and to share some of the projects already in the works. Thanks for reading and for telling your friends.
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
The process of searching for, acquiring, & operating a #SMB is changing: Those who don’t know how to harness the power of AI may find themselves quickly falling behind those who do. To explore this, I spoke with Geoff Woods, author of The AI-Driven Leader mineolasearchpartners.com/2025/11/13/how…
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
@CTW_SMB Immediately after closing, what the Seller wants from the Searcher (namely transaction proceeds) has largely been received. What the Searcher needs from the Seller (context, introductions, help, etc.) hasn’t even yet begun. Proceed accordingly.
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Chris Williams
Chris Williams@CTW_SMB·
Heard a sad story of total search value destruction recently - a lot tied to just arrogance and not asking exited founder for help... Y'all! Regardless of their education, accent, etc, the person you're buying this biz from who has run it decently for 10+ years...KNOWS WAY MORE THAN YOU DO Build a good relationship with them Treat them well in the deal So you can ask for help when you need it. You will. Our MBA does not give you many if ANY answers in this end of the market More details: Founder sells to searcher, searcher kind of tanks the biz overtime, wants to move on (luckily no PG, etc), founder buys it back and is crushing it again! Ironically, founder now both hate and love search Have made a lot of money via search (sold to search, now making $ again via the cheap buy back) But also sad to see the destruction of the biz once they left - and need to rebuild it Key lesson from the founder? Searcher never asked for help, except when it was time to sell again Assumed all the problems were the founders fault. Took no responsibility. Blamed the founder when founder was gone in front of old EE who had loyalties to founder. Have some humility. Be kind to the builders. You can and should make a lot of changes. There may even be some super obvious stuff the seller never did that you can't believe But they still, I guarantee, have a ton of knowledge you can benefit from Use it
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Steve Divitkos
Steve Divitkos@divitkos·
This week, I was lucky enough to speak to Rob Markey, the *creator* of the widely-used Net Promoter (or "NPS") Score, and a longtime partner at Bain & Company, where he founded and leads their Global Customer Strategy practice. What a treat! mineolasearchpartners.com/2025/10/02/rob…
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Bryan Johnson
Bryan Johnson@bryan_johnson·
Health is forgotten until it’s the only thing that matters.
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Keşfet

@HRStacey @withkumo_ @Eli_Albrecht @WilsonCompanies @OwnedxOperated @thehvacjack @davidsenra @thesamparr