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Steve Stagner (00:10):
I think that Crete Professionals Alliance, we call it Crete pa, was founded in 2023, and it was really founded on the vision of we think that we could provide a better path or a better option for those professionals and those firms that were seeking to grow and thinking about growth or thinking about succession or thinking about really what's next and how to get there. And I think the nuance is really in the why we exist. And we exist because we really firmly believe in the entrepreneur. And so how is that? What we've done is we've created a different unique structure than a, we're not just like a traditional PE rollup, like another PE rollup model. What we've done is we've created a structure where the individual partners can co-invest with us in their firm, so they get access to the enterprise support that we have, and they get access to the community of all the brands and partner firms that we partner with.
(01:21):
But at the same time, they're really betting on themselves. And so we're enabling them to get talent access to talent, technology, and tools, while also maintaining their complete independence, their identity, and their culture. And that's what we see as kind of a subtle nuance, but a difference between some of the other traditional PE firms. And there's many great options out there. But when you co-invest at that level, what happens is your outcome is going to be the average of the total platform. And here, if you believe in yourself at Crete, you have an opportunity to really maximize the future. And then I think one other thing makes us really different is we've partnered with Thrive Capital. And Thrive Capital has invested over a billion dollars directly with open ai. And we all know that the accounting profession, and candidly, the world is really in a new era of AI transformation and tech transformation. So we feel like it's really powerful to have Thrive Capital helping lead us through this very rapidly changing world. And it's a great asset to have their engineers kind of directly tied with us and access to us. And I think if you're a small to medium sized regional firm, to be able to get access to some of the best talent, the best technology and the best tools out there is really a game changer.
(03:03):
Yeah, one piece of advice is just alignment. Alignment on the vision. When you're partnering or you're growing, as growth happens, the stakes change and you start to add complexity. And if you're growing alone or you're growing with partners, really getting your team aligned on what are the big rocks? What is the vision that you're really trying to accomplish? Because you're not really going to have an endless amount of capital or an endless amount of resources to pull it off without being super efficient and super focused. So going through my career growing organizations, I have found that really just gaining alignment with your partners and alignment with your team is really the game changer.