<![CDATA[Deals Down Under]]>Deals Down Under is the podcast for aspiring and active acquisition entrepreneurs in Australia. Each episode, host Dimitri Nikolakakis sits down with founders, operators, and dealmakers who have bought, built, and scaled businesses the unconventional way — without starting from scratch. From first acquisition to complex roll-ups, we dig into the mechanics of deals, the realities of ownership, and what it actually takes to buy your way into business in Australia. If you're tired of startup culture and ready to build wealth through acquisition, this is the show for you.

Your Host:

Dimitri Nikolakakis is an entrepreneur based between Cape Town and Melbourne, with a background spanning digital marketing, business acquisitions, and deal structuring. After building and scaling a performance marketing agency, Dimitri pivoted to acquisition entrepreneurship — aiming to buy, structuring, and operate businesses rather than building them from zero. He has spent the past several years working on a roll-up and acquisitions in Africa. Deals Down Under is his effort to document and better understand the Australian acquisition landscape — a market full of opportunity that remains almost entirely undocumented — and to build the community of operators and dealmakers that should exist around it.

]]>https://riverside.comRiverside.fm (https://riverside.com)Fri, 19 Jun 2026 03:04:48 GMTThu, 14 May 2026 07:52:37 GMT60Dimitri Nikolakakis<p>Deals Down Under is the podcast for aspiring and active acquisition entrepreneurs in Australia. Each episode, host Dimitri Nikolakakis sits down with founders, operators, and dealmakers who have bought, built, and scaled businesses the unconventional way — without starting from scratch. From first acquisition to complex roll-ups, we dig into the mechanics of deals, the realities of ownership, and what it actually takes to buy your way into business in Australia. If you're tired of startup culture and ready to build wealth through acquisition, this is the show for you.</p><p></p><p>Your Host:</p><p>Dimitri Nikolakakis is an entrepreneur based between Cape Town and Melbourne, with a background spanning digital marketing, business acquisitions, and deal structuring. After building and scaling a performance marketing agency, Dimitri pivoted to acquisition entrepreneurship — aiming to buy, structuring, and operate businesses rather than building them from zero. He has spent the past several years working on a roll-up and acquisitions in Africa. Deals Down Under is his effort to document and better understand the Australian acquisition landscape — a market full of opportunity that remains almost entirely undocumented — and to build the community of operators and dealmakers that should exist around it.</p><p></p>episodicDimitri Nikolakakisdimitri.nikolakakis@gmail.comno<![CDATA[The Lazy Entrepreneur's Way to Buy 3 Businesses FAST! | Elisha Nuttall]]>
  • If you have bought a business, and are open to sharing your story on the show, please email ddu.dimitri@gmail.com
  • If you want to sell your business, I’m buying. Please email ddu.dimitri@gmail.com

    Connect with Elisha here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elishanuttall/

    • After ten years writing reports at PwC and Grant Thornton telling other people how to fix their businesses — and watching them do nothing with the advice — Elisha Nuttall decided to take his own. In 2022 he and a long-time friend bought their first company, a hand-built aerial manufacturer that was being run on paper. Three deals later, Talanton Holdings owns a group doing around $4M in revenue and over $2M EBITDA, and Elisha is involved in the first two businesses for about half an hour a week.

    Elisha breaks down every deal with real numbers: the multiples he paid, how he stacked vendor finance against bank debt, why he deliberately offered $100K over asking to win 0% vendor finance, and how he funded two more deals on internal equity and a bit of family money while keeping control tight.

    If you've ever wondered whether you can actually buy a business and step back to do it again (instead of buying yourself a 80-hour-a-week job), this is the operator-to-operator conversation that shows how the management-team-first model really works.

    IN THIS EPISODE:

    • Why turning up sweaty and bleeding to the first seller meeting actually won the deal
    • The exact capital stack: 30% equity, vendor finance and bank debt split across the other 70%
    • Why he paid $100K over asking — and got 0% interest for 2.5 years in return
    • The brutal trade-off: not paying himself for two years to pay down debt faster
    • Turning a paper-run, no-systems manufacturer into a quality leader in 12 months
    • The three-tier reporting structure that lets him run multiple businesses remotely
    • How he de-risked a family business (husband, wife and daughter all in senior roles)
    • Surviving COVID, container-rate spikes and supply-chain chaos through every deal

    TIMESTAMPS:

    0:00 - The first deal: a paper-run aerial manufacturer

    0:15 - Showing up sweaty and bleeding (and why it worked)

    2:32 - The numbers: revenue, EBITDA and a 3.5x multiple

    4:00 - Building the capital stack: equity, vendor finance, bank debt

    5:12 - "I didn't pay myself for the first couple of years"

    5:53 - Why he offered $100K over asking price

    8:00 - Who is Elisha? From PwC and Grant Thornton to acquisitions

    12:31 - The childcare deal that fell apart at the last step

    13:04 - Day one of ownership: a hundred little decisions

    16:24 - The big levers: foundations, quality and QA test sheets

    22:59 - How a non-engineer ran a manufacturing turnaround

    25:15 - Building a management team through promotions

    28:40 - Can you really step away? Half an hour a week

    30:25 - Keeping customers happy without the owner in the room

    40:15 - Funding deal two with vendor finance and family equity

    41:10 - Deal two: a 60-year-old powder-coating business

    41:19 - Deal three: Signals NZ and the family-business red flag

    44:20 - Writing the daughter into the contract

    48:04 - The silent partner: his CFO with a day job

    49:41 - "Any oh-shit moments?" COVID, shipping and war

    50:33 - The lifestyle: $4M of businesses, ~30-hour weeks

    54:31 - Headline numbers and what he bought vs. what it's worth now

    ]]>    d9b4e1d3-f763-4d3f-8bcd-f5a07a2e8d90Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:00:00 GMT<ul><li>If you have bought a business, and are open to sharing your story on the show, please email <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:ddu.dimitri@gmail.com" target="_blank">ddu.dimitri@gmail.com</a></li><li>If you want to sell your business, I’m buying. Please email <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:ddu.dimitri@gmail.com" target="_blank">ddu.dimitri@gmail.com</a><p></p><p>Connect with Elisha here: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/elishanuttall/" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/elishanuttall/</a><br /></p></li></ul><hr /><p>After ten years writing reports at PwC and Grant Thornton telling other people how to fix their businesses — and watching them do nothing with the advice — Elisha Nuttall decided to take his own. In 2022 he and a long-time friend bought their first company, a hand-built aerial manufacturer that was being run on paper. Three deals later, Talanton Holdings owns a group doing around $4M in revenue and over $2M EBITDA, and Elisha is involved in the first two businesses for about half an hour a week.</p><p>Elisha breaks down every deal with real numbers: the multiples he paid, how he stacked vendor finance against bank debt, why he deliberately offered $100K over asking to win 0% vendor finance, and how he funded two more deals on internal equity and a bit of family money while keeping control tight. </p><p>If you've ever wondered whether you can actually buy a business and step back to do it again (instead of buying yourself a 80-hour-a-week job), this is the operator-to-operator conversation that shows how the management-team-first model really works.</p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>IN THIS EPISODE:</p><ul><li>Why turning up sweaty and bleeding to the first seller meeting actually won the deal</li><li>The exact capital stack: 30% equity, vendor finance and bank debt split across the other 70%</li><li>Why he paid $100K over asking — and got 0% interest for 2.5 years in return</li><li>The brutal trade-off: not paying himself for two years to pay down debt faster</li><li>Turning a paper-run, no-systems manufacturer into a quality leader in 12 months</li><li>The three-tier reporting structure that lets him run multiple businesses remotely</li><li>How he de-risked a family business (husband, wife and daughter all in senior roles)</li><li>Surviving COVID, container-rate spikes and supply-chain chaos through every deal</li></ul><hr /><p>TIMESTAMPS:</p><p>0:00 - The first deal: a paper-run aerial manufacturer </p><p>0:15 - Showing up sweaty and bleeding (and why it worked) </p><p>2:32 - The numbers: revenue, EBITDA and a 3.5x multiple </p><p>4:00 - Building the capital stack: equity, vendor finance, bank debt </p><p>5:12 - "I didn't pay myself for the first couple of years" </p><p>5:53 - Why he offered $100K over asking price </p><p>8:00 - Who is Elisha? From PwC and Grant Thornton to acquisitions </p><p>12:31 - The childcare deal that fell apart at the last step </p><p>13:04 - Day one of ownership: a hundred little decisions </p><p>16:24 - The big levers: foundations, quality and QA test sheets </p><p>22:59 - How a non-engineer ran a manufacturing turnaround </p><p>25:15 - Building a management team through promotions </p><p>28:40 - Can you really step away? Half an hour a week </p><p>30:25 - Keeping customers happy without the owner in the room </p><p>40:15 - Funding deal two with vendor finance and family equity</p><p>41:10 - Deal two: a 60-year-old powder-coating business </p><p>41:19 - Deal three: Signals NZ and the family-business red flag </p><p>44:20 - Writing the daughter into the contract </p><p>48:04 - The silent partner: his CFO with a day job </p><p>49:41 - "Any oh-shit moments?" COVID, shipping and war </p><p>50:33 - The lifestyle: $4M of businesses, ~30-hour weeks </p><p>54:31 - Headline numbers and what he bought vs. what it's worth now</p>no00:45:59The Lazy Entrepreneur's Way to Buy 3 Businesses FAST! | Elisha Nuttallfull    <![CDATA[Two Off-Market Acquisitions, Two Completely Different Seller Experiences | Matt Stevenson]]>Matt Stevenson started his career in Big Four M&A before moving into banking — watching businesses fail not because they were bad, but because their owners couldn't manage them. That became his thesis for buying his own. He's now Managing Director of Bizstats, a monopoly SME sales data provider, and NZ BizBuySell, New Zealand's leading business-for-sale platform — both acquired off-market from sellers who weren't looking to sell.

    The two deals couldn't be more different. Bizstats came from a deceased founder's children who had no idea what the business did; Matt fired the operator after one week. NZ BizBuySell was chalk and cheese — a founder who stayed on, taught him everything, and genuinely wanted him to succeed.

    In this episode Matt gets honest about twelve months of persistence on two separate proprietary deals, how he funded them, why vendor trust beats any financial metric, and why most people in ETA over-analyse everything and never actually buy anything.

    IN THIS EPISODE:

    • The year-long search for Bizstats — and why the sellers' ignorance of their own business was the biggest risk
    • How he transformed a Microsoft Access-era business into an automated platform and grew revenue 50%
    • Why he fired the operator after one week — and ran the business alone at 4:30am before his day job
    • Why vendor trust is his #1 green flag — above anything in the financials
    • How COVID house prices unlocked his first acquisition — and why funding is the real bottleneck for most buyers in their 30s
    • Why he took vendor finance on the second deal even though he didn't need it
    • Advice to his younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move faster

    CONNECT WITH MATT:

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-stevenson-53208493

    TIMESTAMPS:

    0:00 - Matt's path from Big Four M&A to business ownership

    2:55 - Discovering Bizstats: data gold behind a 70-year-old's inbox

    4:24 - Settlement date vs. C-section date

    4:57 - What Bizstats is and why it was worth buying

    7:17 - Multiple and deal structure for Bizstats

    8:18 - Proprietary search: wearing a seller down over 12 months

    10:06 - Funding the deal: COVID house equity, cash, and bank debt

    11:51 - Transforming Bizstats: from Microsoft Access to automated SaaS

    14:18 - How AI changed the economics of small business tech

    15:38 - Discovering ETA after already doing ETA

    18:00 - Finding NZ BizBuySell the same way he found Bizstats

    19:31 - Comparing the two deals: size, staff, sophistication

    20:28 - Deal structure for NZ BizBuySell

    22:16 - Going full time: the first Christmas break he didn't dread

    23:20 - Crap moments: misrepresentations and firing the operator

    25:37 - Owner trust: the #1 green flag in any acquisition

    26:23 - Vendor finance as post-settlement protection

    27:13 - How the NZ BizBuySell deal was funded

    29:02 - Monopoly positions and why they made both deals easier to back

    30:08 - On over-analysers in ETA who never buy anything

    31:44 - Synergies between Bizstats and NZ BizBuySell

    33:07 - What comes next

    34:53 - Advice to younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move faster

    Deals Down Under is the podcast about buying, selling, and growing businesses in Australia. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

    ]]>    bbc3e62f-ce18-4d35-b458-5fa4a52c8b8dWed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 GMT<p>Matt Stevenson started his career in Big Four M&amp;A before moving into banking — watching businesses fail not because they were bad, but because their owners couldn't manage them. That became his thesis for buying his own. He's now Managing Director of Bizstats, a monopoly SME sales data provider, and NZ BizBuySell, New Zealand's leading business-for-sale platform — both acquired off-market from sellers who weren't looking to sell.<br /></p><p>The two deals couldn't be more different. Bizstats came from a deceased founder's children who had no idea what the business did; Matt fired the operator after one week. NZ BizBuySell was chalk and cheese — a founder who stayed on, taught him everything, and genuinely wanted him to succeed.</p><p>In this episode Matt gets honest about twelve months of persistence on two separate proprietary deals, how he funded them, why vendor trust beats any financial metric, and why most people in ETA over-analyse everything and never actually buy anything.</p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>IN THIS EPISODE:</p><ul><li>The year-long search for Bizstats — and why the sellers' ignorance of their own business was the biggest risk</li><li>How he transformed a Microsoft Access-era business into an automated platform and grew revenue 50%</li><li>Why he fired the operator after one week — and ran the business alone at 4:30am before his day job</li><li>Why vendor trust is his #1 green flag — above anything in the financials</li><li>How COVID house prices unlocked his first acquisition — and why funding is the real bottleneck for most buyers in their 30s</li><li>Why he took vendor finance on the second deal even though he didn't need it</li><li>Advice to his younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move faster</li></ul><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>CONNECT WITH MATT:</p><p>LinkedIn: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-stevenson-53208493" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-stevenson-53208493</a></p><p></p><hr /><p>TIMESTAMPS:</p><p></p><p>0:00 - Matt's path from Big Four M&amp;A to business ownership </p><p>2:55 - Discovering Bizstats: data gold behind a 70-year-old's inbox </p><p>4:24 - Settlement date vs. C-section date </p><p>4:57 - What Bizstats is and why it was worth buying </p><p>7:17 - Multiple and deal structure for Bizstats </p><p>8:18 - Proprietary search: wearing a seller down over 12 months </p><p>10:06 - Funding the deal: COVID house equity, cash, and bank debt </p><p>11:51 - Transforming Bizstats: from Microsoft Access to automated SaaS </p><p>14:18 - How AI changed the economics of small business tech </p><p>15:38 - Discovering ETA after already doing ETA </p><p>18:00 - Finding NZ BizBuySell the same way he found Bizstats </p><p>19:31 - Comparing the two deals: size, staff, sophistication </p><p>20:28 - Deal structure for NZ BizBuySell </p><p>22:16 - Going full time: the first Christmas break he didn't dread </p><p>23:20 - Crap moments: misrepresentations and firing the operator </p><p>25:37 - Owner trust: the #1 green flag in any acquisition </p><p>26:23 - Vendor finance as post-settlement protection </p><p>27:13 - How the NZ BizBuySell deal was funded </p><p>29:02 - Monopoly positions and why they made both deals easier to back </p><p>30:08 - On over-analysers in ETA who never buy anything </p><p>31:44 - Synergies between Bizstats and NZ BizBuySell </p><p>33:07 - What comes next </p><p>34:53 - Advice to younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move faster</p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p><i>Deals Down Under is the podcast about buying, selling, and growing businesses in Australia. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.</i></p>no00:34:06Two Off-Market Acquisitions, Two Completely Different Seller Experiences | Matt Stevensonfull    <![CDATA[From Operator to Investor: How Pete Seligman Built a Portfolio of 10+ Acquisitions]]>Pete Seligman has been buying, running, and backing businesses since 2013. He started the way most acquisition entrepreneurs do - a mate, some savings, and a bank loan secured against their houses. Today, as the founder of EtA Forum and EtA Central, he's Australia's most active Search Fund investor, directly involved in 15-20 deals and having backed more than 20 searchers across the Asia-Pacific.

    In this episode Pete gets honest about what it actually takes to build a portfolio of small businesses. There's no ten-step framework and no passive income shortcut - just hard-won lessons on delegation, deal structure, earn-out negotiation, and the mental discipline required to show up for ten different businesses without losing your mind.

    IN THIS EPISODE:

    • How Pete manages board positions across 10+ companies (and the Bill Clinton trick he uses to stay focused)
    • Why you should never assume you can just "install a CEO and walk away"
    • Why delegation - not deal-finding - is the real reason most small businesses never break through the $20-30M revenue ceiling
    • How Search Fund deals are structured: equity splits, vesting, and IRR hurdles explained plainly
    • Funding options for solo acquirers in Australia without a Search Fund
    • How Australian sellers really feel about earnouts, including a seller who turned down a free $1M
    • Whether keeping the seller involved post-close actually works

    CONNECT WITH PETE:

    Website: www.peteseligman.com.au

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peteseligman

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeteSeligman

    TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@peteseligman

    TIMESTAMPS:

    0:00 - Managing multiple businesses: plate spinning vs juggling

    2:52 - The Bill Clinton brain compartmentalisation trick

    6:46 - The myth of "buy a business, drop in a CEO, walk away"

    10:16 - Delegation: the #1 ceiling for small business owners

    13:55 - Running two businesses at once

    15:52 - Pete's shift from operator to Search Fund investor

    18:34 - How Search Fund deals are structured

    21:46 - Funding an acquisition without a Search Fund in Australia

    24:26 - Earnouts and vendor finance in Australia

    27:58 - Should the seller stay on after the deal closes?

    Deals Down Under is the podcast about buying, selling, and growing businesses in Australia. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

    ]]>    cefe64ea-a3ec-4142-8d97-2529f4e1dfb9Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:51:23 GMT<p>Pete Seligman has been buying, running, and backing businesses since 2013. He started the way most acquisition entrepreneurs do - a mate, some savings, and a bank loan secured against their houses. Today, as the founder of EtA Forum and EtA Central, he's Australia's most active Search Fund investor, directly involved in 15-20 deals and having backed more than 20 searchers across the Asia-Pacific.</p><p></p><p>In this episode Pete gets honest about what it actually takes to build a portfolio of small businesses. There's no ten-step framework and no passive income shortcut - just hard-won lessons on delegation, deal structure, earn-out negotiation, and the mental discipline required to show up for ten different businesses without losing your mind.</p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>IN THIS EPISODE:</p><ul><li>How Pete manages board positions across 10+ companies (and the Bill Clinton trick he uses to stay focused)</li><li>Why you should never assume you can just "install a CEO and walk away"</li><li>Why delegation - not deal-finding - is the real reason most small businesses never break through the $20-30M revenue ceiling</li><li>How Search Fund deals are structured: equity splits, vesting, and IRR hurdles explained plainly</li><li>Funding options for solo acquirers in Australia without a Search Fund</li><li>How Australian sellers really feel about earnouts, including a seller who turned down a free $1M</li><li>Whether keeping the seller involved post-close actually works</li></ul><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>CONNECT WITH PETE:</p><p>Website: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://www.peteseligman.com.au" target="_blank">www.peteseligman.com.au</a> </p><p>LinkedIn: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/peteseligman" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/peteseligman</a> </p><p>YouTube: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/@PeteSeligman" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/@PeteSeligman</a> </p><p>TikTok: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@peteseligman" target="_blank">https://www.tiktok.com/@peteseligman</a></p><p></p><hr /><p></p><p>TIMESTAMPS:</p><p>0:00 - Managing multiple businesses: plate spinning vs juggling </p><p>2:52 - The Bill Clinton brain compartmentalisation trick </p><p>6:46 - The myth of "buy a business, drop in a CEO, walk away" </p><p>10:16 - Delegation: the #1 ceiling for small business owners </p><p>13:55 - Running two businesses at once </p><p>15:52 - Pete's shift from operator to Search Fund investor </p><p>18:34 - How Search Fund deals are structured </p><p>21:46 - Funding an acquisition without a Search Fund in Australia </p><p>24:26 - Earnouts and vendor finance in Australia </p><p>27:58 - Should the seller stay on after the deal closes?</p><p></p><hr /><p><i>Deals Down Under is the podcast about buying, selling, and growing businesses in Australia. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.</i></p>no00:53:45From Operator to Investor: How Pete Seligman Built a Portfolio of 10+ Acquisitionsfull