Lay of The Land
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#120: Brendan Anderson & Donnie Bedney (ScaleCo)
Brendan Anderson and Donnie Bedney on their work at ScaleCo — a Cleveland-based entrepreneurship-through-acquisition organization that has invested more than $165 million in over 20 regional companies. In our conversation today, we explore what entrepreneurship-through-acquisition even is, the advantages of buying a business over starting one from scratch, ScaleCo’s unique approach to unlocking value in partner companies, and why Donnie and Brendan have double-downed in ScaleCo’s commitment to investing locally in the Northeast Ohio region A long-time student of emerging business, Brendan Anderson began his entrepreneurial career in 1995 when he formed The Mast Group to provide management services across various industries. Later in 1996, he formed the Heartland Companies to purchase a distressed industrial park, and in 1998 he purchased Stam, Inc., a manufacturing company which he lead until 2005 as CFO, VP Sales, and Director. Transitioning from the operating world, in 2006, he founded Evolution Capital Partners to provide capital to growing companies where he invested over $100 million in 16 platform companies across three committed capital funds, and most relevant to our conversation today, in 2018, he formed ScaleCo to support the Evolution Capital portfolio companies. Now serving as Chairman of ScaleCo, Brendan is also an active member of the Entrepreneurs Organization of Cleveland and Entrepreneurs Across Borders, in addition to serving on the board of SOAR, an organization that helps young adults with ADD & ADHD. Joining Brendan to represent ScaleCo, Donnie Bedney has spent his career across prestigious consulting and healthcare organizations, including Gallup and Press Ganey, as a workforce, human capital, and sales executive. Donnie joined ScaleCo in 2020 as an Operating Partner, taking on business development responsibilities in ScaleCo’s investment thesis around the human capital management business. In 2021, ScaleCo purchased PSP Metrics, Inc., a provider of employee assessment tools, where Donnie was named President. Please enjoy my conversation with Brendan Anderson and Donnie Bedney ----- Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users! This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm! ----- Learn more about ScaleCo — https://scaleco.com/ Connect with Brendan Anderson on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonbrendan/ Connect with Donnie Bedney on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedonniebedney/ ----- For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/ Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here. Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/ Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland https://www.jeffreys.page/
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