We Said Yes

We don't default to public appearances.

For most of the past fourteen years, we kept our heads down. We went to the conferences, stayed close to our capital partners, worked with our management teams, and let the track record speak. The idea of going on a podcast — putting our philosophy out there for anyone to hear — wasn't something we were eager to do.

That changed this year.

Earlier this month, we sat down with Will Smith, Niklas James, and Max Lummis on the Minds Capital Podcast for a conversation about where Pillsman came from, how we think about investing, and what we've built over the past fourteen years.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube.

Where It Started

Chris and I met in graduate school in 2002. Same cluster, same general background in finance, complementary perspectives on how businesses actually work. I was on the M&A side. Chris came from credit. We'd both done entrepreneurial things, both had private equity experience, and we'd both spent enough time at institutional firms to know what we didn't want to become.

The idea for Pillsman came together in my kitchen. Chris had been at an LBO conference, sat next to a senior partner at a law firm, and the conversation turned to pledge funds and search funds. We started doing research, started connecting dots, and landed on the independent sponsor model — still early, still carrying the stigma of "fundless sponsor" in those days.

What drew us to it was simple. We didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket. We didn't want to run a fund. We wanted a concentrated portfolio of businesses we could work closely with — no handoffs, no layers, just the actual work of finding good companies and helping them grow.

We launched in 2012. Our first website cost $500 and was built in India. We didn't update it for fourteen years.

The Bridge, Not the Operator

The line that opened the episode — and the one the hosts came back to most — is one we mean.

When we sit down with a management team, the first thing we tell them is that we are not operators. We want to make that very clear. We're not coming in to run their business, second-guess their decisions, or overhaul what they've built. What we're there to do is create the bridge — between the management team and the capital, between where the company is today and what it could become with the right partner.

We tested the alternative early on. For the first two years or so, we maintained a bench of operating partners — eight to ten industry contacts we'd bring into deals to add post-close value. In practice, it created friction we didn't anticipate. Founders felt like consultants were arriving. People who had spent decades building something felt like they suddenly had to answer to someone new — someone without context, without relationship history, without skin in the game.

We pulled back on the model and never returned to it.

The businesses we get most excited about already have strong management teams. Our job is to amplify what exists — help with capital structure, build out the C-suite when the company is ready, develop the M&A pipeline, and stay close without getting in the way. Our operating partner just happens to have owned and run the business.

Why No Fund

After fourteen years, the question comes up. We have the track record. We could have raised a committed fund years ago.

We chose not to — and we'd make the same choice again.

Managing a fund changes what you are. You become a firm manager. An asset manager. Your day shifts toward fundraising cycles, portfolio management meetings, staff careers. All of that is real and important work — but it isn't what gets us up in the morning. What gets us going is the businesses themselves. The management teams. The origin stories. The problems worth solving. You start managing a fund and those things become secondary by necessity.

We kept the institution lean by design. That lets us stay close to the work that actually compounds over time.

The Timing Was Right

Something shifted in the fourth quarter of last year. We got reflective. Chris came to me and said he had a friend who could help us build a new site. I said that was fantastic — because if you can believe it, we had been operating on a site we built before we'd done a single deal.

That kicked off a process that turned into much more than a refresh. We've written about it in depth here. But the short version is this: we stopped asking how do we modernize? and started asking who are we actually trying to reach?

The answer changed everything about how we wrote the site. Not the strategy — the strategy is the same. But the audience shifted. The new site speaks directly to business owners at an inflection point. Founders who built something that matters — to their family, their employees, their customers — and are trying to figure out what comes next. Not whether to sell and retire, but whether there's a partner who can help them build something bigger than they could do alone.

That's the conversation we want to have. It always has been. We just said it out loud.

What We Hope You Take From It

We're not trying to broadcast. We're trying to reach specific people — founders thinking seriously about their next chapter, and capital partners who want to back this asset class through someone who will actually do the work alongside the management team.

If that's you, the episode is worth an hour and change.