Ryan spent 30 years in corporate America running businesses for other people. Then he got fired twice — never for performance, always for politics. He decided to never build for someone else again.

He co-founded North Park Group with his partner Greg Topol and built a holding company designed around one rule: never exit. Since 2022, he's bought 6 businesses in manufacturing and industrial distribution. He plans to own them until he's 85.

❌ No 5-year flip
❌ No PE-style fund timeline
❌ No 7-year wait for investors to see a return

His investors got their first distribution checks in 2022 — the same year he closed his first deal. He pays them twice a year. Today, 8 out of 10 people he pitches say yes.
In this episode, Ryan breaks down why he'd rather hold a business for 40 years than flip it every 5, how he wins deals without being the highest bidder, and why his year-one operating playbook at every company he buys is "don't fuck it up."

◼️ Why holding for 40 years can make you just as much money — if not more — than flipping every 5
◼️ The "distributions as proof points" model that converts 8 out of 10 investors
◼️ How he wins deals without being the highest bidder (one was 10% below the top offer)
◼️ The pre-LOI diligence inversion that lets him walk away before lawyers get involved
◼️ The $250K he lost on the one deal that broke — and what it taught him
◼️ The SBA-stacked operator model he uses to scale past his personal $5M lending cap

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Jake spent 12 years selling data analytics software at SAP, MicroStrategy, and Informatica. Then SAP reassigned him from federal government sales to retail. He decided to take his career into his own hands.

He acquired a money-losing, 7-person government data analytics firm with 100% seller financing. Zero cash out of pocket.

❌ No playbook for buying a business
❌ No community or infrastructure around acquisitions
❌ Business was unprofitable on day one

10 years later, he sold it for $35 million at 11x EBITDA.

In this episode, Jake breaks down how he negotiated 100% seller financing on a deal nobody wanted, how he went from 54% customer retention to 95%, and why the hustle that saved the business early on was the same thing holding it back from growing.

◼️ The two-valuation trick that got both sides to agree on the price
◼️ Why the sellers financed the whole deal (and how to find sellers like this)
◼️ How he went from stuck at 5% growth to hitting 35-40% growth rates
◼️ The $35M exit and why his financial advisor told him to take it
◼️ The PE earn out nightmare — and how he eventually collected

Subscribe to the SMB Deal Hunter newsletter (200,000+ subscribers): https://join.smbdealhunter.xyz/

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Learn about SMB Deal Hunter Pro: https://pro.smbdealhunter.xyz/

Follow Helen:
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-guo-06674523/

Greg Geronemus went from Goldman Sachs to Harvard Business School, where he stumbled into the idea of buying a small business instead of starting one. He and his partner David Rosner raised $550K in search capital, built a database of 30,000 companies, and spent nearly two years searching for the right deal.
They signed one LOI. It was for a business that checked none of the boxes: an old-fashioned B2C tour operator sending baby boomers on group trips around the world. He bought it for $29 million at under 5x with a 50% seller note at 4%.
Four years later, he sold to a private equity firm. Nearly 50% annualized returns. Almost 5x net to investors. Today, he runs Footbridge Partners, investing in the next generation of searchers.