Episode 235: Alex Bridgeman (@aebridgeman) is joined by Chris Hoffman (Chris-Hoffman).

My guest, Chris Hoffmann, is the President and CEO of Hoffmann Brothers, a home services business based in St. Louis. Hoffmann Brothers have scaled from $10 million in 2015 to over $100 million in revenue in 2023. We talk about how that journey happened, their experience building executive teams, investing in people through a training university they started for ongoing training, and investing activity for home services today.

We also talk about what perpetual non-private equity ownership enables them to do, including their unique strategy for managing cash investments and liquidity as a growing family office. This was a ton of fun for me and I hope you enjoy this conversation as well.

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Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

Links:

Chris on LinkedIn

Hoffmann Brothers

NexStar Network

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:39) - Hoffman University

(00:06:27) - Enabling scale and revenue growth

(00:08:56) - Differences in PE-backed company structures

(00:12:26) - Retention and morale-boosting tactics

(00:15:59) - Leadership team composition

(00:19:17) - Surfacing high-performers & evaluating management teams

(00:26:53) - Using Search Firms to find talent

(00:28:26) - Choosing an Executive Search firm

(00:31:31) - Financial sponsor interest in the HVAC and Home Services market

(00:34:16) - Reasons Consolidators are failing

(00:36:41) - Debt, Public Equity Strategies & Fund Investing

(00:46:01) - Goals for the family office

(00:47:48) - Building new locations from scratch vs. acquiring existing companies

(00:53:38) - Acquiring a school

(00:56:53) - Changing strongly held beliefs

(00:57:55) - Chris’ favorite business