Algorithm updates, Rand update, time for a reintroduction! Howdy, I’m Rand Larsen CEO and owner of @joinscalepath, a peer community of business owners. We’re sitting at ~100 members, ~70% of our community are successful acquisition entrepreneurs, we organize owners into peer groups of owners who share similar revenue sizes, business models, and personalities (Ambitious, wholesome, helpful, smart, and fun). We have peer groups in plumbing/HVAC, B2B local services, home services, holdco owners, manufacturing, and professional services. A quick timeline: 2019: started a business making documentaries about seniors to preserve life stories and legacy for future generations of people’s families. My grandparents all passed away when I was very young and I thought “how amazing would it be if I had a professional documentary made just for them I could watch and learn about who they were.” I made a documentary for both of my parents and then started making them for others. 2020: Covid crushed that business. So I got a landscaping job while I figured out what I was going to do next. 2021: I started learning about “the Silver Tsunami” and explored buying a business as a means to build wealth. Shortly afterwards I met and started working with @wilsoncompanies as an Entrepreneur in Residence, helped him acquire/operate businesses for ~1.5 years in a plumbing/HVAC trades rollup. 2022: I meet a business owner going through massive distress after buying a $20M HVAC business. He had no else to talk to about the challenges of business ownership (can’t talk to employees, W2 friends just don’t “get it”, etc.). So I started building peer groups to solve the loneliness problem so many business owners experience. Did this for free for over a year. Also started a ghostwriting agency, got it to $100,000+ in annual revenue. 2023: I start monetizing the peer groups and building more of them, working on it part time while the agency was my full time job. In October that switched and I went full time building more peer groups and started winding down the agency. 2024: Went on my first “SMB Road Show” or “Rand Run” for those of you who remember. I visited ~15 major cities in the Northeast and Midwest, hosted SMB/ETA meetups in each city, I met hundreds of people doing this and it all happened in ~5 weeks traveling full time. Twice I hosted 3 events in a single week. Tuesday in Detroit, Wednesday in Chicago, Thursday in Grand Rapids. In July I bought a campervan so I could travel more and experience van life. In total I’ve hosted nearly 50 events with >1,000 people attending across the country and met some amazing people and friends. 2025: Acquired Scalepath from @girdley and rebranded the business around their branding. In our community primarily made up of holdco owners and successful ETAers, I finally did my first acquisition! Also fun this year, we started making entrepreneur trading cards. These are fun gifts meant to celebrate entrepreneurs the same way we do sports stars. People love these things! Also, I was featured in the New York Times, which made my parents super proud of me. 2026: We’re still only halfway through, but I’m having a ton of fun, we’re making more entrepreneur trading cards, planning more events, building more peer groups, working with amazing people. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows but there’s certainly a lot of it. Follow me here for: - Anonymized stories of what business owners actually go through - Tactics and strategies I hear about that are genuinely great but never talked about publicly - Patterns I notice across hundreds of peer group conversations

I’ve heard 3 people tell me that Grok @bot is integrating deeply in their business and personal lives and that it’s absolutely amazing. If anyone’s using it, I’d be curious to hear what it’s doing for you that’s better/different that other LLMs

Hey @markedlercpa why didnt you tell me you were doing YouTube now? Breaking my heart ❤️‍🩹

Seen and met with a lot of people Michael works with, can confirm this is a pretty amazing role, gives the right person a ton of exposure into entrepreneurship and business

Had a super weird, crazy win this morning. I was added to one of our member’s “In Case of Emergency” documents. Like (god forbid) if he dies or is in a coma. It reads: [Redacted Name] has known Rand about four years. He runs [Redacted Name’s] small business owner peer group and the larger Scalepath peer group organization, and knows nearly everyone in the small business acquisition world. [Redacted Name] highly recommends reaching out to him, he can find the right person to help with almost any topic or problem that comes up.” 4 years ago I was not this person, just a guy getting business owners together. Today and especially this last year, I’m able to be personally helpful to a large group of people. Sorry if this sounds like bragging, this is just a really cool sign of personal achievement and “doing good things” over a long period of time without a clear payoff and through periods of doubt. Which btw, is what most business owners go through. BRB, I’m going to frame this quote and put it on a wall.

Business owners who have sold your data to these AI lab brokers: I would love to heave a conversation with you I want to get a bunch of anecdotal stories, ask a bunch of questions, and understand how the process works from first hand accounts of owners. Know which brokers pay the most, etc. I’m not sure exactly where this will go, but anytime I’ve gotten a bunch of owners to share information like this, especially early in a hype cycle, it’s usually been highly valued in an unexpected way.

Has anyone ever cold emailed a prospect and offered to pay them $100 for 30 minutes of their time? I am so, so tempted to try this

When you walk into an acquisition, it’s SIGNIFICANTLY helpful if you already understand the business/industry to a degree. You can totally go out and buy something you have no experience in, many acquirers have done it successfully. But your learning curve is cut down considerably when you walk in with underlying knowledge of how to improve the business or notice when something is wrong.

I know everyone hates project based businesses but you can absolutely make a lot of money owning them.

Wishing buddy garrity good fortune in the battles to come

We've printed 433 entrepreneur trading cards so far. 121 Main Street Summit speakers
115 ScalePath members
197 from the ETA Class of 2025 DFW Professional Services is next, another 130. After that I'm making a card for basically everyone I've met and spent time with over the last few years. Probably 300+. Could be a lot more. Pretty sure we cross 1,000 in the next year. Here’s a handful of my favs

Hi, my name is Rand, I build peer groups for small business owners. Peer groups we currently have open seats for: Holdco owners over $10M annual revenue B2B local services ($1M - $5M) B2B professional services ($1M - $5M) Dallas professional services (over $3m+) Our peer groups are fucking amazing. Anyone in them will tell you we do a great job and have a really transparent process for making sure you know it’s a good fit for you before you join. Comment or DM me if you’re interested

The enormous value you get when you join a peer group, explained in a single tweet. Thank you Mark. Scalepath is where winners have a place to share their losses

distressed business acquisitions are so interesting to me Whoever gets good at this is going to make a shitload of money in the next decade - you can buy them for a severe discount compared to paying 3-4x EBITDA - there are almost no buyers, so terms and price are 100% negotiable - the market is sooo dark. I know a TON of SMB acquirers and investors. But when I see a distressed deal, I only know one person who is a fit to buy it. - some of them are actually run pretty darn well, they just owe an absolute crap ton of money - you can negotiate with creditors to take pennies on the dollar or extended terms on outstanding debt, because the alternative is bankruptcy where they might get nothing - if you can stabilize it fast, you can turn around and flip it for arbitrage or hold it. and on day one, you walk in and everyone's pissed at you, you're the bad guy who owes them money. vendors could be freezing service and demanding payment, lenders may be foreclosing, employees could be underpaid or unpaid for weeks. You have to walk in and immediately handle a lot of complicated, stressful and high impact conversations while being an outsider. If you know how to turn around distressed businesses, or you have an existing platform you can roll a distressed business into, you can make a killing. But it is risky. this is business on legendary difficulty. the key when doing this is finding companies that are operationally sound but financially screwed. Where money/capital/debt is the key problem. @Turnaroundartst @turnaroundsguy

Business owner I know has a severely aging workforce His best skilled employees 60+ years old NOT a traditionally trained skill (not HVAC, plumbing, electric) it’s niche and still requires comparable level of skill There has to be so many more of these little skilled trades at risk of a workforce aging out Beyond the normal advice of “document knowledge, hire apprentices, and train aggressively” what should this owner start doing?

Welcome to business ownership in 2026. - Diesel just hit a record $6.53 a gallon, up about 77% from a year ago - Your health insurance renewal came back up double digits - Tariffs keep pushing up what you pay for materials and equipment - The Fed just raised rates, and your variable-rate SBA payment goes up with it - Your wealthiest customers are asking for discounts - A competitor walks onto your job site and starts poaching your crew - Your driver heads out on his route at 8am, comes back at 10, drops his keys and card, and leaves without saying a word - A client approves every step of a project, then decides they don't like it and sends a ChatGPT-written email saying they're exploring other options - You land a 7-month project, won't get paid until month 8 or 9, and have to borrow $600K to $700K to float it - You invest in leadership training for your GM, he quits 30 days in - The $90K hire that you thought would change everything can't get along with the rest of the team - The seller of a business you're buying pulls out at the last minute, and $20K in legal and QoE fees is gone - It doesn't feel like a recession. But every few months there's a new reason to hoard cash. And through all of it, this is still a land of opportunity. Every problem on that list has an owner on the other side of it who figured it out. The client who walks teaches you who your real customers are and when to fire the bad ones. The deal that falls apart clears the way for a better one. The GM who quits makes room for someone who actually wants to grow. Sure, a lot of the time it feels like 2 steps forward 1 step back. But that's the game. Small progress is hard to feel day to day, until it adds up and years later you're looking at a totally different business, a different life. This game is challenging, but you can come out on top. You can build wealth. You can build a life for your family.