Shortly after acquiring security-camera service ⁠EyeQ Monitoring⁠ nine years ago, Markus Scott had no way of knowing he’d eventually grow revenue by a factor of 24. He was too busy dealing with “a whole list of terrible things” that indicated the business was doomed. In an interview with Search Party, Scott says, before detailing these tribulations: “This is the place where I should be pouring bourbon.”

Scott’s path to profitable growth is an Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition (ETA) success story, but it started as a looming failure. The day the acquisition closed, the first-time CEO learned an employee had been accused of sexual harassment. Then the company’s servers contracted a virus. Then the bookkeeper quit. Then the seller tried to start a competing business. Scott says the deep relationships he built with his workers ended up improving team culture, which impacted customer satisfaction.

Scott grew up in a middle-class home in Gainesville, Florida. His father was a former San Diego Charger turned educator, with an entrepreneurial side business to supplement the family income. Scott says he, too, eventually wanted to build a lasting business. When he learned about the ETA model, Scott enrolled in business school at Kellogg, and eventually raised north of $300,000 for a two-year search. 

After a “devastating” month-fourteen deal collapse, Scott eventually found a very small business in a great industry. His investors, including Next Coast Legacy, encouraged him to structure the deal like a growth equity investment. Scott was a walk-on linebacker and fullback at the University of Florida. While his time on the field was minimal, Scott says the discipline of daily, grueling workouts prepared him for the roughness of entrepreneurial life.

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