Ep 14: Grant Daunheimer of Diamond Willow: Expanding Financing Options for the Canadian Mid-Market

Chapter 1: Introduction

0:05 Welcome, Grant, to the MBA podcast. The MBA podcast is all about learning about finance, entrepreneurship, and anything to do with the world of business. We're trying to cultivate best practices, new insights, and the work that you've done at Diamond Willow is certainly going to be on par with some of the most interesting conversations we have around growing mid-sized companies here in Canada. By way of background, it's interesting — I like telling the story about how we met.

Chapter 2: Grant's background and Diamond Willow's mission

0:31 Yeah. Or do you want to tell it? No, you tell.

0:33 Yeah. [laughter] I was actually a client of Diamond Willow a number of years ago and I was in a biotech company that had managed to get themselves into — again, we were wildly successful. In fact, we were so wildly successful that our billion-dollar competitor sued us for patent infringement, which has interestingly since been resolved to the benefit of the biotech company. So it was a frivolous lawsuit, but it put that company into the penalty box for a good 5 years and, as a result, made financing that business very difficult, which is why we reached out to Diamond Willow in the first place. And so it was you and the team that were able to very successfully, in a matter of a couple of months, really bring private lenders to the fray and some term sheets to us and gave us options in terms of financing — we had working capital around the world at the time. And so, interestingly, spin forward a few years, I've retired now and I was still referring business your way, and you suggested that perhaps you and I should do some more work together, which brings us to where we find ourselves today.

Diamond Willow — why don't we talk a little bit about you and the origin story of Diamond Willow, and then we'll finish off the story at the end as to the role that I'm now playing with Diamond Willow.

1:43 Yeah. No, that was a fun deal. That was a very complicated transaction and you're right, [snorts] they did stall out cash flow for a few years, and we knew the lawsuits were a bit frivolous when a bunch of the patents had expired and they're still suing on them and you're like, well, yeah, I see what game is being played here. But Diamond Willow was built for that purpose. We're a bunch of capital markets background people that came from institutions and institutional-level service in capital raising, and we realized the mid-market didn't have the service that the big public companies had — that we served — especially in that mid-market capital raise and debt raise. And it's unregulated and a lot of it's very unprofessional and sketchy, and so our whole goal was: let's go help the mid-market and bring institutional-level service down to mid-market companies, both on an advisory and capital raising side. And so that's what we've done. We've assembled a team of experts that come from different backgrounds and bigger institutional-level service, and we're trying to help mid-market companies grow.

Talk about how you define — how you think about the mid-market — because certainly in Canada we think about the mid-market, and that's probably not the same definition they may use in the US. Define the mid-market.

Chapter 3: Defining the mid-market in Canada

2:55 The mid-market: $25 to $150 million in revenue. And it's a small percentage of the companies in Canada — it's only about 2% of companies — but they represent about 15% of the GDP. And so our theory there — and it really comes from a basis of being ultra-selfish — we all want our kids to stay in Canada, and we need to build a Canada where they want to stay. The last 10 years, Canada hasn't been delivering very well economically, and we're worried our kids are leaving. And so we sat down and said: where do we have the greatest impact to grow back Canada, build up Canada, and make it better? And for us, that's the 2% of companies that represent 15% of the GDP. And we don't have to do that many transactions — 15 transactions a year, we can easily generate a quarter billion dollars of value added for the Canadian economy. And so that's where we've chosen to play: that $25 to $150 million revenue spot.

3:47 Yeah. So they've obviously achieved a level of success in their business model. They've gone through the commercialization phase. They're now hitting that stage where they're starting to scale up, and again they could grow from, you know, $100 million and be a multiple of that. What are the sorts of challenges that you see in mid-market companies?

Chapter 4: Challenges faced by mid-market companies

4:05 Yeah, this is part of the failure of Diamond Willow — not recognizing the challenges the mid-market has versus the big public companies. I would say the biggest challenge we see is overcoming fear. These have been wildly successful entrepreneurs, usually one or two equity owners, not yet big private equity owned, and they've grown it to $40–$50 million in revenue and they need to take that leap. They see an opportunity to double in growth, do an acquisition, but to make that step, you're no longer the day-to-day operator. So it takes a big mindset shift — you've got to put in an org chart, I call it. You need senior management, you need structures, systems, processes. And there's a big fear we see in this group around trying to make those decisions: okay, I'm making $5 million a year — do I go and risk it all and double it on a growth opportunity or an acquisition, but now I'm not totally in control and I might have to give up equity? And so I think a lot of the challenges are that they need support in making those decisions. It's not just about the money — we can always solve money problems. The real issue we want to help with is solving that decision-making process and helping them understand the outcome, to get to the need for capital, which is further down the path when we work with them.

5:22 Why is it that in Canada we seem to have less of a risk appetite than, say, our neighbors to the south in the US, in terms of growing up these mid-sized companies?

Chapter 5: Risk appetite in Canada vs. the US

5:33 Yeah, great point. We work with a private equity company in the US and the market down there is just so business-centric — you're rewarded to take risk, and the tax system is rewarding you to take risk and get rich and win. And in Canada, we just don't have that culture from a human perspective of being rewarded to take risk. And I mean, you see it in the tax basis — be successful, you lose half to taxes. And so I think there's a cultural issue on that side. And you've worked with a few people we should talk about who didn't have that fear of risk and became massively successful — famous worldwide for their investment prowess.

But we feel those mid-market people usually get scared of that side and fear it. And I think we have another big problem: we have very few risk capital providers in this country. We're a small capital market. We've got an oligopoly of banks that sort of protect the fringes of capital in Canada. We have six banks; the US has over 5,000 — they're really fighting for business down there. We don't have the huge private equity side. Frankly, the government tried to set up risk capital with government institutions — BDC, EDC — but those aren't the leading-edge investors and risk-takers that we need in this country. So I think it's: one, a culture of being scared of risk and not being rewarded for risk; and two, not having the capital market system to support those risk-takers.

So I think it's a good segue to spend a moment educating viewers and listeners on what capital markets look like in Canada for those mid-sized businesses.

Chapter 6: Overview of capital markets for mid-sized businesses

7:06 Yeah, great point. For us on the debt side specifically, we have three buckets. You've got your banks — down to six. There's more, but generally your six and some regional banks. They'll pretend they operate differently — they're almost all within the same box. They have slightly different appetite for sectors and things at times, but generally they are very low-risk, not risk-taking capital providers.

Next, we've created a system of credit unions and crown corporations. So a couple hundred credit unions — a few of them are functional on the commercial side; lots do residential and personal financing. And then we've got the crown corporations and some regional banks like ATB — Alberta Treasury Branch, for example. They operate with a slightly more risk than the banks, but not a lot. It's pretty rare for us to get a deal at a credit union that a bank wouldn't do. They're almost the same risk tolerance — they'll maybe go up a little bit in pricing. Certain programs at some of the government ones will allocate a little more risk, but they're not reaching out there. They wouldn't have supported those huge entrepreneurs you had worked for in the past as their CFO.

And that leads to the third bucket, which is the private credit bucket. These are private credit funds set up by big pension funds, mutual funds, really big high-net-worth family offices. They raise capital and specialize in certain parts of the debt market in Canada. Maybe talk a little bit about the debt market that they're interested in — I know there are dozens of different products they offer, but what are the key categories you see most frequently?

8:36 Yeah, great question. I would say in Canada versus the US, in Canada it's very fragmented. We have about 400 private lenders we work with, and they've chosen — because they're all a bit earlier in their learning curve — to specialize in certain industries or certain types of lending. So we've got a big group that just does accounts receivable financing and factoring. Then you've got the ag lenders and the oil and gas lenders. You have the tech lenders — which isn't a huge thing, thankfully, seeing what's happening in the US. And then we have a suite of what we call cash flow lenders: they will look at cash flow forecasts for high-growth companies. But they generally don't overlap. If you need to go private and you need a working capital line, the term lender who might give you $30–$40–$50 million of term debt doesn't know how to run an operating line. So we often find ourselves having to bring in an operating lender and then a senior lender on the term side if we go private. They have to get along — and they do well in Canada. But it's still fairly immature compared to the US. In the US, you call them: "I need $80 million." And they're like, "Okay. Security?" "Nope, we're good. We'll find a way." Right there.

9:46 We're in 2026 here, and a lot of people are talking about private capital markets and some of the challenges — we're talking big dollars now. How does that market compare — similarly or differently — to the lenders that you're dealing with? Are they constrained by the same things we're seeing with some of the liquidity challenges, like redemptions?

10:08 Yeah, very timely. It's all in the news — private credit markets blowing up. The real issue in private credit is you're raising money from high-net-worth people or pension funds who think there's some liquidity — but generally there is an ability to recall your capital quarterly or semiannually — but you're putting out loans that last for multiple years. So it's just a duration mismatch: I'm an investor, I want my money back this quarter. Well, we don't have that many funds available if too many people ask for that. But it has been the fastest-growing asset class in North America for the last 10 years.

10:40 $200 billion a year in the US. BlackRock, all the big ones raising hundreds of billions of dollars, growing like crazy. And in the US, they have a huge software industry — and that's the real fear triggering all the talk now: the hundreds of billions of software loans that AI may be disrupting those business models. And so there's been a run on the banks, proverbially speaking, and now they're mismatching the duration of the loans to when investors are invested in private credit funds.

11:07 And they get cold feet or what have you. But when you're dealing with family offices and pensions, they don't have that level of impatience or demand for liquidity.

11:16 Yeah. And in Canada versus the US, we don't have a huge software industry. So this is one where we're winning because we're not concentrated in software. But we've really been in our own private credit crisis for at least two years — nobody's talking about it. It's called real estate. Over 50% of Canadian loan books are real estate. We've had the same problems: gated funds, not allowing redemptions, big issues and markdowns on the asset value of real estate, especially Toronto and Vancouver-based. So we've been in a credit crisis for two years. It's just that nobody's talking about it.

11:47 Yeah. And real estate, of course, is a huge part of the Canadian economy, and when that gets slow, the Canadian economy gets slow.

Chapter 7: Borrower profiles and uses of capital

11:54 Let's flip over to talk about the borrower side — the profile and the uses of capital. How do you segment the borrowers in this mid-market?

12:01 Yeah, we find — again we can't help everybody — so we've focused on three situations, and those are the ones where the banks are struggling the most. Some of our deals are bankable; a lot are a short-term bridge in private credit and then back to a bank. So our clients are usually in three buckets.

They're scaling — and we use the word "scaling," not "growing fast." Growing at 10–15–20–25%, the banks can do — they can get their heads around that. But if you have an opportunity to increase by 50%, 100%, 200% — and there's risk in executing on that growth opportunity — the Canadian banks do not finance the execution. They want you to go prove it and then they'll backfill it after. So we come in, usually leave the operating line with the bank, take out the private debt, allow them to execute on the growth plan. Once they've got that history — one year, two years — the banks take it all back. And we're not satisfied until it's back to a bank.

So really: high-growth, scaling companies. The second one is acquisitions — again, a big growth opportunity, not a little tuck-in but something big. The bank doesn't want to take the risk on that side, or it hasn't been structured in a way that the banks are willing to take the risk. Often, if we're in early enough, we structure them to become bankable — equity rolls, VTB, seller notes. In the US, it's just aligning risk to make those work. Then we can put them with a bank. Often we get brought in too late — got to take them to the private market, get it done, get it closed, then back to the bank.

13:37 Is there an element of management buyouts that fall in that category? Do you see many of those?

13:40 Yeah, we're seeing more and more. We write notes on the silver tsunami of businesses transitioning. The stats aren't — we're flat, we're not growing — but we are seeing more and more of that sort of legacy preservation and management buyouts. But again, it comes down to structure — the seller understanding the real price and value, understanding the legacy might cost a million dollars of company cash flow to actually buy out your stock over time. Yeah, love management buyouts and starting to see more and more of those.

14:14 What's the third category?

14:14 Yeah, third we call it turnarounds. Not necessarily distress, but a company that had an issue or the bank wants to exit the relationship. We're very specific on the word "turnaround." If your business is just on a steep curve of death, we can't save you. If there's acknowledgment that you had a problem, you've taken steps to identify and mitigate that problem, and more importantly, you're willing to hire advisers and listen to advice — we just solve the capital issue. We have to bring in lots of other people: bookkeeping, accounting, lawyers, real estate, leasing, insurance on those deals. So what we do is come in, understand the situation, figure out what the risks are, have we mitigated them, have we changed the business plan, how long is that going to take, do we need to go to private credit as a bridge temporarily to solve those things and buy time — and then of course get them back to the bank thereafter.

Chapter 8: Triggers for seeking financing

15:02 Okay. Talk to me about what's the trigger for a potential client to come to you. Like, they pick up their phone and give you a call — why have they called you?

15:12 Yeah, I'd say to sum it up: it's when growth is restricted by access to capital. They've gotten a "no" from a bank. They've used — or don't have enough — shareholder capital at their disposal to bridge to whatever growth plan they're doing. They're saying — I'm not going to call you a lender of last resort, but as it gets more and more challenging, that's where the conversation begins.

15:33 Yeah. I mean, you're an example.

15:36 Right. You talked to a number of capital providers, found out about us, had that call of: "I've tried the banks. I don't know what to do." Your situation was very complex geographically. So it was: is there a solution? Is there someone that can look at a global business and provide a working capital solution? So it was that trigger of: we've tried it on our own, we need this money — or we need to know what it could look like and if it's an option.

16:01 And should people think about you as just focused on one part of their cap table — I'm having a difficult time financing cash flow lending for an acquisition — or do you consider the full financing spectrum and provide advice on the other elements, like equity, term debt, mortgages? How do you interact with the totality of the financing situation?

16:30 There are certain circumstances where groups are so well organized and far down the decision-making path that they just need money. They've tried on their own, the banks have said no, and they are fully prepared to make whatever decision they're making. That's not as common, but we can just help them with the capital stack — understanding it and delivering the money. Most often we come in to help them understand the decision, the impact of that opportunity, and then reverse-engineer: okay, you have this opportunity to double. You need to spend $30 million to double your facility. Let's model that out to see how much debt could be supported by that — with you not being able to sleep for the rest of the year — how much should be equity, can we do a mezz piece on top of it? More importantly, we're here to educate that decision-making process, and then if that leads to raising capital, great. But let's make sure it's the right thing to do — not over-levering anyone, and putting the right capital stack in place — not just throwing money at a problem you don't even know you have.

17:33 And it sounds like you'll also bring in — even though you're a conduit to the private lending market — you're often working with the banks, often working with mortgages. Other people have seats at that table.

17:48 Oh yeah. A lot of our deals are often dual-lender. If you're with the bank, we keep you there as much as possible. Take some of it private — the private lenders don't have bank accounts. They don't have deposit accounts. You've got to bank somewhere.

18:02 That's an important nuance — it's not that we're competing against the banks for capital. In fact, it's complementary.

Chapter 9: The role of private capital

18:08 Oh yeah. First thing we ever ask when a bank calls us with a referral: what do you have with them? And if not, what can you do? And if not, what other services can you provide to help them along this journey of entrepreneurship? Like — they need deposit accounts, they're dealing in the US, we need FX management, hedging — could you guys do that if we go solve this capital problem over here temporarily? And then we work with the bank on one of the trigger points for when they'll do the whole thing. We like — private capital is a short-term bridge to a bank in Canada. It is not a solution. You do not want to stay in private credit.

18:43 So with that in mind, maybe describe what private capital is and why I wouldn't want to stay in it all the time.

18:50 Yeah, good point. They have different mandates — they're there to satisfy the execution of acquisitions, growth, or turnarounds. Their money isn't meant to be out there for five or ten years. They have different return hurdles and different pools of capital. So they're usually charging you somewhere from 12 to 18%. You can get some really high deals, but we don't deal in many of those. 12 to 18% — to solve a problem, to buy you time, to mitigate a risk that a bank can't price. In your case, for example, we had lawsuits still to be settled, international operations, a manufacturing facility to set up. And it was pricing those risks while all that got executed and solved — and then the bank would come in and take it back.

19:37 Yeah. And so the expectation is: don't expect prime-plus pricing. It's an echelon above that, but it's — we're not talking payday lenders here. We're talking about something still very reasonable to manage for that period of time during transition.

19:53 Yeah. And more importantly — okay, the interest rate, say it's 15%. But if your bank was going to give you a 5-year loan at 7%, we might go get you 15% money, but we might do a 15-year amortization on it and 6 months or a year of interest-only — and you can refinance it. Because the private lender is not there to get paid down nice and smooth over time. They're there to help you solve that problem, then make their return, and get you back to a bank.

And they realize: we're not going to get paid down in a nice orderly fashion. The question is: how do we maximize the reinvestment of this company so it can grow and deliver on its promises so the bank will take it back? So we've done deals — very distressed deals that were with a bank — and we took them private and cut their debt costs by 30–40–50% in the first two years. Now, if you went past two years, you had screwed up and the whole restructuring plan failed — and then it was going to be twice as much. But the private lender is like: "No, I understand the business model. I want you to reinvest everything. We don't want all the money coming to us — we can take our return at the end." So it might cost more from an interest rate perspective, but when we structure it properly, it's usually way less cash out the door, and it's allowing these huge transformative events — you're doubling, tripling EBITDA, you're acquiring companies. So one year at 15% interest-only with a bit of a return at the end — that's amazing economics for you to deliver on that growth and go back to a bank.

21:12 So I think this almost brings us full circle to where we began the conversation around the confidence that entrepreneurs in Canada have. You know — if I talked to the six chartered banks and they all say no to me — do I just give up and throw my arms up and say that's it, I can't do it? But this is kind of an unlock. If I can tap into the private credit market for a couple of years to get to a situation where I can go back to the bank — yes — and unlock it there. So maybe just talk about that — I know that's a big part of the philosophy of why you started Diamond Willow.

Chapter 10: Supporting businesses through their growth journey

21:48 Yeah. It's about supporting these businesses on their journey. It's not raising capital for them once and leaving. It's supporting them through that lifecycle. Education and knowledge upfront on that decision — is this worth it? How do you structure that capital? Okay, we've got to take you private because the bank won't take the risk on your execution. We take you private — we're not going to leave you hanging. We're going to report to that lender. We're going to help you with the forecast. We've built all these models — we're going to keep them up. We're going to identify why things aren't going according to plan. Okay, you need support in XYZ area — we have a full suite of experts we bring in to help solve those problems. Let's make sure you're executing on your plan and have all the support around it. Now we've been reporting — we identify, okay, we think you're bankable. We take you back to the bank, help you with that reporting structure for a while. By then, we've usually got better bookkeeping, better accounting, better legal, better IT, better sales involved.

And frankly — it sounds a bit selfish — but once you're boring, I don't care anymore. Once everything is working smoothly and you've gone from that 50–100% growth curve down to 10–20%, and I know your books are pristine and all your advisers are amazing — I'm out. I want to go grow Canada, not sustain it at 10%.

23:07 Well, and I think that's perfect, because what I'm going to ask you is about the support network that you bring around this. You're bringing private lenders to these growth companies or turnaround companies, whatever the situation may be. But obviously as you're going through this "tweener" stage — perhaps the processes, the people, the systems aren't as evolved as they are in a large-cap company. So talk about the network of providers you've brought together and how they work with you and your clients to navigate this period of transition.

Chapter 10: Supporting businesses through their growth journey

21:48 Yeah. It's about supporting these businesses on their journey. It's not raising capital for them once and leaving. It's supporting them through that lifecycle. Education and knowledge upfront on that decision — is this worth it? How do you structure that capital? Okay, we've got to take you private because the bank won't take the risk on your execution. We take you private — we're not going to leave you hanging. We're going to report to that lender. We're going to help you with the forecast. We've built all these models — we're going to keep them up. We're going to identify why things aren't going according to plan. Okay, you need support in XYZ area — we have a full suite of experts we bring in to help solve those problems. Let's make sure you're executing on your plan and have all the support around it. Now we've been reporting — we identify, okay, we think you're bankable. We take you back to the bank, help you with that reporting structure for a while. By then, we've usually got better bookkeeping, better accounting, better legal, better IT, better sales involved.

And frankly — it sounds a bit selfish — but once you're boring, I don't care anymore. Once everything is working smoothly and you've gone from that 50–100% growth curve down to 10–20%, and I know your books are pristine and all your advisers are amazing — I'm out. I want to go grow Canada, not sustain it at 10%.

23:07 Well, and I think that's perfect, because what I'm going to ask you is about the support network that you bring around this. You're bringing private lenders to these growth companies or turnaround companies, whatever the situation may be. But obviously as you're going through this "tweener" stage — perhaps the processes, the people, the systems aren't as evolved as they are in a large-cap company. So talk about the network of providers you've brought together and how they work with you and your clients to navigate this period of transition.

Chapter 11: The importance of a strong support network

23:40 Yeah, we frankly can't do this alone and we realized that very early. We are really good on the finance and capital side — the modeling, the forecasting, all that goes with financial strategy and execution. We're really good at that. I'm not a lawyer, not a bookkeeper, not an accountant. I don't know how to negotiate your rental lease. I don't know how to fix your IT — my IT is bad because I don't know how to do it.

And so we've deliberately gone into every major city we operate in and found the best of the best in all those areas — and we refer them and bring them in. The only rule we have: we will never accept a referral fee for it. This is about fixing these companies, not profiting off bringing in the right advisers. If you have your hand out always wanting a kickback, you're not part of our club. But yeah — two deals we're on right now: new bookkeeping, fractional bookkeeping, new accounting, new lease, real estate lease negotiation, and a new lawyer on one. The other one: new insurance provider, new accountant, new tax, new law. We even did a website build on one of them.

Our whole idea is to de-risk — I call it de-risking the entity as a whole. Private credit is not going to fund a mess if they don't believe the numbers. So I can't take this broken financial company and just give it to private credit and say "good luck." And then they're stuck there forever, right? And I want to work with those private lenders for 20 years — we can't deliver them awful products. So we need to bring in all these experts to fix companies in their relative area of expertise, so that we can execute on the capital side until they're back to a bank and boring.

25:13 It's like a graduation of sorts. You've got the systems, the processes, the reporting, the financing — and your graduation present is you get cheaper capital.

25:22 Yeah. And you get me to leave — and go help the next person who needs all those challenges.

Talk about the process — what Diamond Willow does, how it differentiates, the timeline, expectations — just a behind-the-scenes look at what a financing solicitation entails.

25:39 Yeah. I mean, often we're doing that consulting piece upfront — helping them decide and understand what it should look like. That really depends on the information and the opportunity in front of them. So one to three months, if they need that support. Once we understand the decision, we're happy with the outcome, we know what the debt is going to look like — $25 million at 12% with a 7-year amortization and one year interest-only that allows us to double our EBITDA — execute on it, go back to a bank. Then we hit go on our process.

We build customized, lender-friendly models — three-statement iterative models. We give the lenders everything they need: ratios, sensitivities. We build what we call a CIM — confidential information memorandum — 25 to 35 pages. The first four are sort of an executive summary: lenders read this, you're a yes or no after that. We spent years customizing our product to be essentially a lender's credit memo — so each page is specialized, they copy and paste it into their system to get quick approvals. We also have a full data room with all the backup. We don't go to market until all of that is done.

Once everything is created, we already know our lender list because we're in contact with them all constantly. We run very competitive, quick processes. Two to three weeks on our side — usually within two if we have everything we need. We go to market, make it competitive. We know everyone, their inbox, who the individuals are. That process is usually three weeks to get term sheets — so you're now four to six weeks in. Depending on the complexity and sophistication of the deal, we help them negotiate the term sheets. At that point, we open the door of communication — we believe business is about people, so we don't sit there with our elbows up. We want the lender and client to build that relationship. Due diligence from there is usually another month. Stack legal on the end — that's another month. So you're at three months, start to finish. If we're very confident in the process, we'll stack legal into diligence — it costs more and you're taking a bit of a risk, but we've given lenders 95% of what they need out of the gate, so we're very confident in closing on that timeframe.

General deal: three to four months from start to finish on the financing side. We've done factoring ones in four or five days.

27:53 The deal you came to us with took a little longer to get ready for market — it was about a month and a half in and we had term sheets in our hands.

28:01 Yeah. We like to be a little faster. But the global nature of your company — there are complexities, especially on the legal side, that slowed things down.

So it's usually a one to three month process on the financing side. Again, we stick around after to make sure you're comfortable with the lender and understand what they need for reporting. And that process — from private to bank — banks want to see at least one year of bankability. So it depends on the growth opportunity and how quickly you can execute on it, but they want a year of bankability, and then you're back to the bank.

28:37 How would that compare to somebody doing it on their own?

28:41 Yeah, I know the answer but I want to hear from you.

28:44 Yeah, the banks' incentive structure is set up on net new deal generation. Every banker I've ever met says yes to everything — because why not? And if you're not fully prepared for that, they don't want to hit you with the 80 things they need to make a yes or a no. So they feed you about 10 at a time. Get information. I need a few years of historical financials, AR/AP. Okay, this looks alright — now I need your equipment list, insurance, forecast, I need to understand this. So they can drag that out for four, five, six, seven weeks of information gathering.

29:14 I was going to say months, but — no, I mean it can take longer. We're giving clients the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it can be a couple of months. But again, they're just trying to get the information they need and then they go to their credit people to get approval. Yeah — we've seen two to four months for clients on their own. And to be clear, almost everyone goes and chops the banks on their own first. And then four months later they come back in a panic: "Oh, now can you get us money in a week?" So yeah — it's usually a multiple-month wasted process.

Chapter 12: The GAS Club and its mission

29:44 Very good. All right. Well, let's see if we can bring this in for a landing here. I know we'll finish off the story I began with — how you and I have come to sit here today. Here we are in Calgary, and I was still referring you clients on the east coast, and you said, "Well, how about you consider joining us here at Diamond Willow?" So now I guess you're technically my boss.

30:09 We have no bosses at Diamond Willow. We have partners. That's it.

30:13 What attracted me — I was retired, I've been a CFO many times in my career — to working with you is that we obviously have a strong alignment in values. And I can't underestimate or underemphasize the importance of values at this stage of my career. You talked at the outset about the professionalism that you're trying to bring to this industry, and I was also impressed by the fact that you are purpose-driven. You have this thing called the GAS Club — and I don't know if you want to get into it — what is the GAS Club and how does anybody join?

30:44 Yeah, it's in its infancy. You would be a founding member, of course.

30:48 Oh yes. I want membership card number one.

30:51 Number one. Yeah, we can make that happen.

We're working on it. So again, it comes back to a lot of the failures we made early on — not understanding the support the mid-market needed. When I used to get called by a public company needing half a billion dollars — great, let's go do it. And now we realize mid-market groups don't have those giant teams of finance people. They need way more support and help making these decisions. That's legal, tax, accounting, bookkeeping, capital — you name it. They need that support.

But we found often in this lower mid-market, the adviser level isn't as high as we'd like at times. And I know it now because it's really hard — these people have never hired advisers, and if they have, they've likely been disappointed. They've never paid for advice. They've never paid to raise capital. So it's a very different world we're operating in.

But our unique value proposition is: we really give a GAS — give a damn — and we're trying to build a system across the country of mid-market advisers whose fundamental principle is giving a damn about helping mid-market companies. And the root of it is to build up Canada.

And selfishly, I want my kids to stay around. My wife's going to travel to see my kids wherever they are — and again, I'm cheap. I don't want to be flying around the world. I want them to be in Canada. And so we're going to build a club — I call it the GAS Club — and an ecosystem of advisers that give a damn. And I know you do, and that's why we're working together.

32:18 Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast, and I look forward very much to working with you and the team here in Calgary.

32:24 We're honored to have you as part of the team. Thanks.

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