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There’s a common misconception out there that entrepreneurs have to come up and execute a great idea from scratch. But the reality is that the person with the original concept might not be the right person to turn that idea into a viable, scalable business.
That’s where things like search funds come into play. Traditionally, a search fund is an investment vehicle that helps bring strong operators (typically those coming out of top MBA programs) into businesses through an acquisition.
The “entrepreneurship through acquisition” model was what brought Markus Scott into the CEO seat nearly a decade ago. After college, he ended up in public accounting at EY before moving over to work in mergers and acquisitions and private equity. He felt pretty confident that he could build a successful and meaningful career in that space. But as he started working more with startup operators, he found himself drawn to the idea of building a business. But crucially, he didn’t necessarily want to build something from scratch.
After earning his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, he raised a search fund that ultimately went on to acquire EyeQ Monitoring, a Marietta, Georgia-based business innovating the remote video surveillance space.
EyeQ, previously National Video Monitoring, piqued Scott’s interest because of the ability the technology had to make a real, tangible impact on people’s lives.
“If you’re protecting people and their assets…that’s a great way to spend your day,” Scott told Hypepotamus.
Evolving The Monitoring Space
Remote video surveillance is an important part of physical security since guards on a property at all times can be expensive. In 2014, when Scott started looking at EyeQ Monitoring, the industry was going through a massive change. Video surveillance was moving from analog to digital cameras, allowing for more opportunities around layering in emerging AI. Scott believed he could grow EyeQ Monitoring’s…
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