Alex Glasner·May 18, 2023

How to Go From Buying a Business to Leading It | Alex Glasner Interview

Alex Glasner is a British-born, Harvard Business School-educated former investment banker who completed a self-funded search and acquired Workpiece (also referred to as 'Workpays' in the transcript) in September 2021 — a UK-based employability and skills training provider that helps unemployed people find jobs and upskills workers already in employment through government-funded contracts. This episode is a 16-month check-in on his first interview, and Alex reflects candidly on the gap between his expectations and reality: while the business is fundamentally sound and still winning contracts, growing the organization from 80 to 140 employees during his tenure created enormous management complexity for a first-time operator of a large team. He describes the 'blue years' phenomenon common to searchers — the honeymoon period followed by 18 months of grinding struggle and frequent mistakes — and discusses the challenge of implementing professional HR and operational processes in a people-heavy, government-contract business. His co-managing director Anne, a legacy leader who stayed on from prior ownership, has been essential to operations and acquisition due diligence. The buy-and-build strategy he envisioned has progressed slowly due to bandwidth constraints, and a near-miss deal fell apart from moving too cautiously. Macroeconomic headwinds in the UK — low unemployment reducing program demand and delayed post-Brexit funding replacements — created additional pressure, though Alex remains optimistic about the industry and the business's trajectory.

Deal facts

financing structure: self-funded search
notes: LOI signed June 2021; deal completed September 2021. Business grew from ~80 to ~140 employees under Alex's ownership. Self-funded search, investors and a board involved. No acquisition price, multiple, or SDE disclosed.

Why this business

Workpiece is an employability and skills training provider — helping unemployed people get skills and jobs, and upskilling employed workers. Alex was drawn to the business's ability to change people's lives and its stable, government-contract-based recurring revenue model, as well as its potential as a platform for a buy-and-build roll-up in a fragmented sector.

What's working

Strong KPIs relative to industry: completion rates in the high 80s versus an industry average of ~64%
Co-managing director Anne (a legacy leader from the prior ownership) has been a strong operational partner, handling operations and DD on acquisitions while Alex focuses on growth
Continuously winning new government contracts through a dedicated director of growth/bid writer
Investors are engaged and supportive; Alex speaks to a different investor every couple of weeks
Business is performing well enough that some contracts are close to exhausting available funding, indicating strong throughput

What's hard

Scaling management and HR processes across a 130-140 person organization is far harder than expected for a first-time manager of large teams
Rapid headcount growth (80 to 140 employees) during his ownership created cultural and operational strain — harder to maintain a 'family' feel, harder to police new processes
The first 18 months were described as 'blue years' — constant struggle, frequent bad decisions, personal life impacted significantly
The buy-and-build acquisition strategy has been slower than anticipated: doing deal origination while running the business is extremely difficult, and one near-deal fell apart due to moving too slowly
Macroeconomic headwinds: UK's low unemployment reduced demand for employability programs, and post-Brexit EU fund replacements were delayed by political instability, temporarily shrinking the addressable funding pool
Imposing structure and discipline across a large team with different incentive structures than finance/consulting environments proved much harder than anticipated
Being too eager to be liked as a new owner/boss was a management pitfall identified early on by Anne

Notable quotes

I think I said that I think work pays is the best company in the world and I still believe that I believe that for very different reasons to what I believed it then.

The business you thought you were buying is different than the business you actually bought.

My first two years we called them my blue years because my wife and I just said she's like you just used to come home so unhappy and he said that is normal for when you're doing a search — it's your first six months are honeymoon, the next year and a half after that is just day after day after day of struggle.

There are three in our marriage — there's you, me, and Workpays.