Millions of small business owners are approaching retirement, yet most have no clear succession plan. What if these businesses were acquired and what happens to the employees when the founder steps away? Today we’re looking at a company aiming to solve just that problem at scale through technology, acquisitions and employee ownership. I’m joined by Michael Brown, CEO of Teamshares. Michael, welcome to the Watchlist.
Michael: Thank you.
Ricki: So, Michael, for investors discovering Teamshares for the first time, can you briefly explain the business model and the market opportunity that you’re addressing?
Michael: Absolutely. So Teamshares is a tech enabled acquiror of small to mid-size enterprises. That means we buy companies with half a million to $5 million of EBITDA from retiring owners. And we’re a consolidated operating company. We’re not an investment fund. So today we’ve got over 90 companies with approximately half a billion in consolidated revenue. So why Teamshares matters in the market opportunity is that four and a half million or 75% of all small businesses in the US are owned by baby boomers or Gen X, most of which we’ll need to sell over the next 20 years. And so we see this opportunity in a very tangible way with over 75,000 actively for sale businesses in our software every year. And so that’s the underpinning that will allow us to grow from $19 million of EBITDA last year in 2025 to a hundred million in 2027.
Ricki: And it’s a fascinating time to be pursuing that strategy because we’re seeing a massive generational transition amongst small business owners with millions of founded companies expected to change hands over the next coming decade. So, with your upcoming NASDAQ listing, why is now the right time to enter the public markets and what does becoming public mean for Teamshares’ the next phase of growth?
Michael: So, I think it’s not only the generational transition that we’re the market leader of, it’s also that Teamshares, the platform is built and it’s working. We’ve got 92 companies; we’ve shown and publicly disclosed very strong financial performance on investor materials. The second part is that we’re at this financial inflection point where we achieved really strong, positive consolidated EBITDA in 2025 and have a plan to grow EBITDA by five times over two years. And most importantly too, we’re public company ready and that’s a very serious operating advantage for us to take small businesses and be able to get them into public company standard financials. So, the interesting thing about Teamshares compared to most public listings is that most companies when they go public, they don’t have a direct benefit to the business or their growth from going public. Whereas financing is the raw material of how we grow. And public companies have faster and cheaper access to acquisition financing.