Episode 08: $400B AUA, PE-Backing, Co-Founder Bob Dorsey of Ultimus on Staying True to Your Roots | Why FinTech is a People Biz | How Handshakes & Phone Calls Can Build an Empire in Financial Svcs

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In this episode, Bob Dorsey and I discuss:

• His backstory: from butcher markets to financial markets

• Why FinTech is a people business 

• How the root of solving problems doesn’t differ based on your industry

• How to keep a “people first” culture as you scale

• An important lesson he learned about complacency from an old TV commercial

• Advice for people who are contemplating an angel investment venture or private equity

About Bob Dorsey

Bob Dorsey is the co-founder and Vice Chairman of Ultimus Fund Solutions. Bob has over 35 years of mutual fund industry experience.

Prior to co-founding Ultimus in 1999, he was President of Countrywide Fund Services, Inc. (formerly MGF Service Corp.), a registered transfer agent and mutual fund service provider. Prior to Countrywide, Bob was the Assistant Controller and Tax Manager at Carlisle Enterprises, Inc. He began his career in the tax department of Arthur Andersen’s Cincinnati office. He is a graduate of Christian Brothers University and a Certified Public Accountant (Inactive).

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Book: On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life by John O’Leary

Transcript

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

Stacy: It's amazing and it's such a great example. Of the idea that people do business with people,

Bob Dorsey: they do, and these guys were incredibly patient and in the long run it probably was one of the best investments they ever made. But honestly, when, uh, We started going, we were starting to be profitable. We actually were to the point where we were starting to make partnership distributions.

I remember they said to me, they said, Bob, we didn't think we'd see a penny of the investment we made. We just made it because we know you and we like you.

Stacy: Hey, my name is Stacy Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street.

I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow-on assets for investment boutiques, you could say, against the ads. Yeah, understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here, money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss.

Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion dollar Backstory podcast.

I find the most magical moments in a story are when things that don't seem to belong together, combined to make something uniquely special, something you couldn't have imagined until you saw it. And now that you've seen it. It makes all the sense in the world. That's certainly the case with my next guest, Bob Dorsey, co-founder of the Financial Services Powerhouse Ultimus Fund Solutions.

The Ultimus team represents over 400 billion in assets under advisement. Serves more than 450 investment management clients representing over 1500 funds, and has over a high. 825 employees. This is a story of startup to scale up of epic proportions. And it's interesting, you know, FinTech and finops and all the backstage elements of financial services have gone through a tech revolution.

It's about optimization and repeatability and scale. But whenever I spend time with Bob, I'm reminded that while all of that new school stuff is important, There's nothing more important than the old school. People. The people we serve as clients, the people we work with as colleagues, the people we collaborate with as partners and service providers.

From a butcher shop stall at Finlay Market to the halls of financial services fame, Bob shares the importance of putting your clients first and staying true to your roots. Bob isn't in the day-to-day trenches anymore, but anyone familiar with the Altima team knows that his people first Midwest, Values are alive and thriving.

The founder's legacy lives on in a firm who knows who they are and who they serve. Here's to culture. Without further ado, meet my friend Bob Dorsey. Bob, thank you so much for being here today. You and I have known each other for a very long time, and the conversations we've had over the years have been amazing, and I am so excited to invite people to be a fly on the wall or a fly sitting on the bookshelf as the case may be with that beautiful backdrop behind you.

Thank you for being here. Thank

Bob Dorsey: you for having me. I've been looking forward to this.

Stacy: Yes, as we were just saying in the green room, I mean, who knew the next phase of your career would be podcast star?

Bob Dorsey: It wasn't on my bucket list of things to do, that's for sure.

Stacy: Well, it is now. You could check it off, you know, add it to check it off.

Okay, so that's, that feels good sometimes. So I wanna start, of course, being that this is a, a podcast about story. And specifically about backstory, I'd love to start with yours and I have the benefit of knowing a little bit of that story. So I'm gonna suggest that you start at the butcher shop. Can you do that for me?

Okay.

Bob Dorsey: Yeah, sure. My dad was a second generation butcher at Finlay Market here in, in downtown Cincinnati. My grandfather started the business. My dad inherited it, and uh, I was the only boy out of four children and I

happened to be the oldest. So I was the heir apparent to be a third generation butcher. My mom saw my future a lot differently than, uh, my dad did.

So anyway. I worked there as a kid, started in the second or third grade, and grew up in that business. Was a wonderful business. It was hard work, but learned a lot, a lot of stuff that I still think about and do today, but as I was getting a little bit older, my dad's health deteriorated and it became pretty obvious to my mom that.

I was getting a step closer to being that third generation butcher, and my mom said to me, you are going away to college. We gotta get you out of town so that when you're away in college, we can sell the business to somebody else and you won't be that third generation to butcher. And I was all on board with that because I had different career plans.

I always thought I wanted to go into public accounting, took some public accounting courses in high school and uh, That really helped me get started on, on my career. So I owe a lot of it to my dad who taught me a lot of stuff as a kid, but to my mom who really helped steer me in the right direction.

Stacy: Ah, I love that story and I'm gonna ask you some specific questions cuz there's always stories within the story, right?

And I, I know there's some gems in there from the butcher shop that I wanna come back to and I find it just so amazing and interesting how. People's journeys actually go, right. I mean, yeah. The fact that you knew in high school you wanted to be in an accounting when your dad was a butcher, like all of that sort of magic together makes you who you are.

All the threads, even though they seem so disparate and so disconnected, don't they?

Bob Dorsey: They do. But in addition to working at the butcher shop, With my dad, I would always sit with him at home, count the cash, do all the deposits, all of those types of things. So you worked real hard. Then you could see, did you have a good week or a bad week?

Yes. Was it gonna be a good week in the Dorsey house or, or not? And I'll tell you, if it snowed on a Saturday when market was open all day. The next week was not a fun week at the Dorsey house. We didn't make any money. Yeah. So as I think back on it, there were a lot of little steps along the way that I, I really learned to appreciate.

But at the same time, it also, I. Made me realize I can't take certain things for

Stacy: granted. Oh, I love that. Okay, so you're, we're gonna come back to the market, but, so you've decided this is it, I'm gonna be an accountant. So how did you go from accountant now to founding Ultimas Fund Solutions? I mean, take us all the way through.

Bob Dorsey: Sure. Sure. Well, when I was in high school, I took an accounting class. I went to an all boys Catholic high school here in Cincinnati, and I had this really great teacher my senior year and he taught accounting and I told him I was very interested in getting into the accounting profession. And we talked about some of the local.

Universities here, but he recommended I at least go and visit Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee because they were very well known for their accounting program and their engineering program. And my mom was all for it because it got me outta town. There were a number of good schools around, but that got me out of town.

So I ended up down there and Brother Larry, who had suggested I go there was absolutely right. The accounting program was top-notch and actually the course I took my senior year in high school. Was the same course they taught their freshman year in college. So it was a great refresher. I got to fix the mistakes from the first time around in that class and it really propelled me to having a good accounting career at Christian Brothers.

Stacy: And so now you're, you've got accounting degree in hand. You're not going back to the market. Mom said, no way. So how does it go from college to Ultima? Keep going.

Bob Dorsey: Sure they were successful in selling the business while I was away at college. That's good. And that worked out well. But I wanted to get in the public accounting.

I had worked while I was in college at a local c p a firm in Memphis, but I really wanted to come back. To Cincinnati, interviewed with all the big eights that I could and ultimately got a, an offer at Arthur Anderson to work in the tax department in Cincinnati. And so I came back, started, and. When I started, I thought, okay, if you're gonna be in public accounting, you gotta be a partner.

And if you're gonna be the partner, you might as well be the managing partner. So when I joined, I was like, what's the fastest anybody ever made partner here?

Who's the managing partner? How old is he or she? Yeah. And three and a half years in, I realized this is hard work. I really don't wanna work 80 hours a week.

And in public accounting, you tend to think. That ends on April 15th. No, the 15th of every month is a deadline. Oh. For different types of clients and stuff. So the busy season was all year long. And it took me a few years to realize that, but that's when I realized there's more to life than being a public accountant.

Yeah.

Stacy: Yeah. And I think, you know, oh no, I know. I know what part snacks I'm gonna have you go there. So basically, It's funny, I wouldn't have thought that until you told me this story because I, I associate that type of, you know, you hear it with investment banking and there's certain careers that are just known for like really late nights and all these things, and I, I agree with you.

I think most people think tax season is the thing for an accountant. So your next leap was to the fund side, right. No.

Bob Dorsey: What ended up happening, I had worked for one of my clients was in the construction industry. Oh, that's it. Had been working on their engagement the entire time I was there, and I was out at their office one day and the controller said to me, I.

Oh yeah, I need an an assistant controller and I need a tax manager. Do you know anybody or any of your coworkers who might be interested? I thought about it for a second and I looked at him. I said, how about me? And he said, you would be perfect. So we chatted. I had to go back and tell Arthur Anderson I was interviewing and that I was wanted to take this job and they said, congratulations and good luck, and we look forward to continuing to work with you in a new role, not as an employee, but now as a client.

Yeah, sure. So I got there and it was a great company, but after about a year and a half I realized working in the office of a construction company, you were overhead. And I really didn't wanna be in a job where I was overhead. I uh, and I get it. The guys who operated the cranes and the trucks and the bulldozers and all that, they're the money maker.

Yeah. But when I found out I was just overhead, that was kind of really disappointing to me. Yeah. So I ended up, Talking to my brother-in-law. We met when I started at Arthur Anderson and we were at a family function, and he

told me, and one of his best friends was the C F O of an organization in Cincinnati, named it Lesner Financial.

And he said to me, Sully's looking for a new controller. Anybody in your group? From Arthur Anderson who might be interested. I said the exact same thing. I said, how about me? And he said, uh, well call Sully and he'll talk to you. So I called Sully, went in one evening and chatted with him. He had me come back on a Saturday morning for breakfast.

We chatted. He offered me the job on uh, Monday morning. I took 24 hours, talked about it with my wife and decided, yes, I wanna go ahead and make that move. And that was the step that got me into the mutual fund business. That's

Stacy: right. Okay. I forgot the construction piece, which is an interesting one as we, as we continue along.

But my gosh, even at, at this point in your career, I mean, you can see the. One of my favorite mantras, which is people do business with people. I mean, you're seeing it so in so many ways. And so, okay, so you're now, you've made the leap from, so it's butcher to accountant, to control owner, construction company to now the fun business and it's so linear.

Doesn't this all make sense? It does,

Bob Dorsey: but it does. But you would've never put that group, no Industries side by side, by side, or would you Would've never projected that as your career path?

Stacy: No. No. So you're now, you're in the Fun biz, which is obviously where you're gonna make your career home. And tell us how it went from there now to Altima.

Bob Dorsey: Yeah, it was great. When I joined Lesner Financial, I was the controller and. At Leshner. Their business was investment advisory work, but they had one of the first money market funds, both taxable and tax-free money market fund in the country. So Bob Leshner was a real entrepreneur, a risk taker, and some of hi.

What I learned was him and a lot of it rubbed off on me. So ultimately I was able to move up to the CFO F position, and we were working, most of our effort wasn't so much at the corporate level. It was on our family of funds and getting

everything priced out and all the day-to-day stuff you do with funds and we grew that business, but.

One day Bob came to me and goes, this is a cost center. Is there any way we can take this cost center and turn it into a profit center? And I said, I don't know, but we'll, we'll think about it. Mm-hmm. Shortly thereafter that we did a small acquisition of a small fund group out of Florida. I believe they had four or five equity funds.

They converted into us and we were now servicing them. So in theory, we had our first outside client and they became part of us. And then we said, okay, if we're gonna do this, we really don't have. All the technology, everything else. And Bob Leshner told me, he said, go make friends, start going to industry events.

Yes, get yourself out there. It's not what you know, it's who you know. So start shaking hands, learn what's going on. Listen. And that's how I ended up really getting into. The business development side of our, our service company and the attorneys that represented the fund group we bought, I told them we wanna start doing this as a business.

And I said, do you have any clients or advisors who are thinking about getting into the fund business? And lo and behold, they did. And our first two clients were referred to us by that law firm. And then we were on our way doing mutual fund servicing. Wow.

Stacy: So you acquired the first, the first thing was an acquisition.

Were the other two acquisitions as well or was it a servicing contract?

Bob Dorsey: Those were servicing contracts. Ah, cause Ah, okay. Because now we had clients. Yep. One was somebody we bought, the other two we were now servicing it at Got Got it. And, and things like that. So, Also the accountants for that client. I got to know them.

They seemed to like what we were doing, and our own accountants were Arthur Anderson. I started talking to them and one thing led to a next, they would introduce me. To somebody in a different office of theirs who was doing mutual fund servicing or accounting for, for the mutual funds and stuff. So it was just the power of the network.

Yeah. What we did was simply reach out and, uh, Bob gave me plenty of space and he said, just go meet people. Mm-hmm. You can't sell sitting at a desk. You need to get out and meet people. And so I did. And our business crew quite nicely. Uh, so much so that a little bit down the road. Bob had the opportunity to sell Lesner Financial and our family of funds that were known as the Midwest group of funds to countrywide home loans, the big mortgage group out of California.

And they wanted to get into not only. The mutual fund space to offer products, but they liked the idea that we were doing the servicing because not only were they one of the largest mortgage originators in the country, they were one of the largest mortgage servicers Yes. In the country. And so they just thought this was a good fit.

Sorry to say it wasn't a good fit. No, but it was a great experience for us and I knew we were kind of doomed. We were the Midwest group of funds. And they were countrywide and we thought a lot differently than they did, and they thought a lot differently than we did. So it ended up being not the best of transactions, but it was what we really needed to try to take the servicing business to the next level.

Stacy: You know, it's such a great story and, and thank you for sharing that because the culture and the values and the people, again, are really where the synergy happens or it doesn't. And I was chatting about this with another friend. You hate to hear stories like this cuz of course every, you know, you think things are gonna work out perfectly and they, sometimes they're great and sometimes they're not.

However, It's also oftentimes the spark for a new business idea, right? You get these breakaways, you get these spins. It happens in the asset management space with portfolio managers, and as it turns out, it happens behind the scenes as well, because that's basically what happened with you. So now you're there, you realize it's not a good fit.

And that was the spark, correct? To go and start. What became ultimate

Bob Dorsey: it. It was. And, uh, When we started the firm, we ultimately hired, he became my partner, John Splain, who worked in the legal department and Mark Seger. I hired to be the controller after I got promoted to the C F O position and one day mark.

Came into my office and, uh, he said, this is probably career suicide. He goes, I really like you, but I hate it here. And I said, mark, I'm not real keen on what's going on here either. I had lunch with another employee. Earlier in the week and she's not happy. And he goes, well, that's good because I had lunch with John Splain, he's not happy.

And I said, okay, we can all agree we're not happy. And he goes, yeah, what are we gonna do about it? So the other woman decided not to pursue it, but Mark, John and I. Started meeting on Saturdays, on Sundays, trying to put together a business plan, and we spent a lot of our time in Mark's Den or living room.

He, he was the best typer of the group, so he got. To do all the typing. John and I were belting out ideas and things like that, and we came together with a business plan and we didn't know if it was gonna work or not, but we kept working at it because it was really something we wanted to do. We got to the point where we were finally ready and we.

Collectively, and actually the person who didn't join us, she knew that we were going to leave. So the four of us resigned simultaneously and said, we want to go do this

Stacy: ourself.

So now you've got this business. You mentioned that you, you had some angel investors. Can you share with us that story? I know the story and it's such a good one. I, I want people to hear how this came to be.

Bob Dorsey: Sure. Well, we talked to lots of different folks trying to get loans or money and have them invest with us and we were pretty much striking out.

And then, uh, a good friend of mine, Called me and said, what are you doing? And I told him, you know, we're starting this business and here's what we want to do. We need some investors to help out. And I, he said, well, explain it to me. So I did. And uh, he goes, I really don't understand it, but I'm willing. To meet your partners.

And he said, uh, you know, I've got another friend who you know that might be interested in, in investing with me into your business. So we all got together, we spelled out our business plan. I think they just shook their head the whole time. I got, we really don't know what mutual fund servicing's all about, but we know Bob and, uh, we'll go ahead and, uh, Help him and his partners get started.

So they made the initial seed investment in, uh, Altimas.

Stacy: I love that. And what industry were they in?

Bob Dorsey: One was in the construction industry and one was in the, uh, building materials industry.

Stacy: I mean, is this coming full circle for anybody when you're hearing this story? Right, because we, I mean, it's amazing and it's such a great example.

Of the idea that people do business with

Bob Dorsey: people they do, and these guys were incredibly patient and in the long run it probably was one of the best investments they ever made. But honestly, When, uh, we started going, we were starting to be profitable, we actually were to the point where we were starting to make partnership distributions.

I remember they said to me, they said, Bob, we didn't think we'd see a penny of the investment we made. We just made it because we know you and we like you. But I mean,

Stacy: that's venture, that's Angel, right? I mean, you don't it know it is. And my gosh, look how far. You've come look at the company you've built.

It's so great. Thank you so much for sharing that cuz I, I think for people who are. Starting something, entrepreneurs, whether they're in the the investment space or not, uh, it's just very inspiring to hear how you started. There's one other piece I wanted to go back to, and I hope people, before I go back to it, let me just pause and say, I hope that people see that when you share a backstory, you don't necessarily have to.

Just list all the bullet points and you don't pause, you don't take a breath. You just say, I was here, I was here, I was here and I did this. Then I did that, and then here and now I'm here. Here I am, and you know, whatever. There's so many opportunities to have conversations along the way of that backstory, and that's what we're doing.

And I wanna go back to, The market, the butcher. Yeah. Again, because target market, maybe not something you'd think about if you were a butcher, but you probably should. And actually you did Bob, and you've shared with me how youdifferentiated your dad's butcher shop, for lack of a better phrase. And how you really developed a niche clientele, and I was hoping you could share that with

Bob Dorsey: us.

Sure. Well, when we worked down at Finlay Market, Finlay Market was an indoor market that had 32 different vendors and they sold ev all sorts of meat, cheeses, delicacies, everything, and then outside the market were fruit stands and it was, there were dozens of them, so it was really the ultimate.

Competitive business because we could only get our meat from the same five or six meat packing houses and sausage makers and stuff like that. So you had to at some point distinguish yourself and for years these people would come and. Market was open from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, all day Saturday.

And it was only open two other mornings during the week, half days. And so we made 95% of our money on Saturday and people started showing up early because they wanted to get all the fresh, the freshest meat, the freshest sausage, all of that. And probably by two o'clock on Saturday we made probably 80.

Percent of what we were gonna make for the week, but these people started showing up at three o'clock and three 30. A lot of them were. Nurses who worked in Cincinnati, Finlay market sits at the bottom of the hill and up on top of the hill is the University of Cincinnati, but also the major hospitals and medical centers.

And so every Saturday afternoon they would take the bus down. Get dropped off at Finlay Market and this one lady who kept coming to us every week, her name was Mrs. Lewis, she said, oh, do you have any fresh spare ribs left and we're gonna have this big cookout for Memorial Day weekend? And I said, yeah. I said, we got plenty left.

And showed her. And she said to me, she said, I remember telling her if you want this week after week or holiday after holiday, just let me know and we'll set it aside for you so you don't have to rush here. She goes, would you do that? I said, sure. It's easy, you know, we've got it. If you want it, we'll save it for you.

So this went on for about a year and then she started telling her other nursing friends about it. And every time she came in, she introduced me to one of the her other nurses who were in the same boat. Long story short, years later, We

would probably have a dozen or more people say, Bob, next week, can you set aside this?

We're gonna have big picnics, we're gonna have stuff like that. So my dad, on Saturday mornings, as I was wrapping up all the stuff and setting it aside and putting into bags and tagging it. He goes, you took that many orders. I said, yeah. I said, they just tell me the week before what they want. I wrote it down, I packed the orders.

He goes, well, that's great. Well, it was word of mouth. All I did was try to be nice. To one of our customers because she was so frustrated. It was hard getting off work, getting on the bus, getting there. Yep. And competing with all the other customers for all the fresh meat. So, and it was fun because not only did they.

Tell us what they wanted. That was, you know, fresh. They also started buying all their other stuff from us. So, yes, and, and really just gets back to trying to do something nice for one of your customers. And I'll never forget, Mrs. Lewis, she was always so nice to me and whenever she introduced me to one of her nurse friends, she goes, this is my friend Bob.

He'll take care of me.

Stacy: Love that. Yeah, it was. I love that. It's such a great story, and even as you're talking, I'm like, you could literally take out the fact that this was your dad's butcher. Mm-hmm. Shop and insert Ultimus fun solutions, as crazy as that sounds, you just described what you do today, what your team does today, because Mrs.

Lewis and her friends had a problem. And it wasn't a problem that you might think she had, wasn't just that she needed spare ribs, it was that she was a nurse who took the bus who was rushing to try to get to the market before it closed, and she didn't wanna get like, you know, just the drags of what was left.

And you solved that problem for her. You made her life easier. And in so many ways, that's what you do when you're a service provider of anything, solve problems and make people's lives easier and

Bob Dorsey: better. You're absolutely right. And by her introducing us to her friends. Yes. Once we started Altima and once we started working with our clients, our clients and our business partners were our best referral network.

Stacy: Well, you've shared with me that you've never made a cold call in your life. You've never written a resume. Cuz of course you kept saying, how about me to everybody you met, right? Who had a job, which is brilliant. Um, so there's a career tip for anybody who's looking for a job. How about me? Works really well.

Ask Bob Dorsey, and you never made a cold call. Right. Yeah. And so talk about that.

Bob Dorsey: Well, when we started Altimas, and even a little bit before that at at Lesner Financial, I would try to build a network. I started talking to the accountants, the attorneys that we were working with, and asking if they knew anybody that would benefit from our services.

And so they usually made the introduction and some of those introductions were going to industry conferences being there, and then, Having those people introduce me to a, a prospect or whatever. But then as we continued to move forward, I thought the best way to get involved was one, get on I c I committees, two.

Go to these events, listen to what people say and share knowledge. And so I really think we were successful in building our business, not because we were good salespeople. I think we were good spokesman and we could answer their questions. And so we did that and. My partners would always laugh. I'd come back from conferences with some pretty large bar bills and dinner bills and breakfast, paying for breakfasts and lunches and dinners and stuff like that.

But we got to know our clients and got to know them. Yeah. Well, and I was always a, a big fan of the fact that if your friends ultimately hire you, Friends won't fire friends. So it put the burden on us to do a really good job above and beyond, so that a friend would never have to reach out and say, you guys aren't doing the job.

I gotta fire you. It really is, it's, uh, building relationships, allowing these people to be your friends. You are their friends, and it's why I think so many of our relationships are still in place from even before we launched Altimas to even the first year of Altima. A lot of those clients are still with us.

Stacy: Isn't that amazing? And I think this is an interesting topic actually, because a lot of people might challenge and say, you know, The asset management industry is becoming more commoditized. Certainly the back

office is commoditized. They might challenge and say, you know, it's just like it's mutual fund in a box.

You know, hi, I want a mutual fund. Here you go. There it is. And we know there's so much more to it than that. There were other players and there are other players that do the things that you do, just like on the fun side where there are lots and lots of of funds. So why did the world need. Another back office provider.

Why did the world need Altimas when you launched it? I'm not sure the world cause you were an

Bob Dorsey: underdog. I'm not sure the world needed another mutual fund service provider. They just needed a different service provider because our approach was mutual fund services. Is a professional service. You need accountants, you need attorneys, you need shareholder service reps, you need compliance people.

All of us were providing some level of professional service, and that's what we focused on early on. Wanted to answer questions. We wanted to be, you know, a real consultant to 'em and we wanted to solve their problems. And back when we started, and I was just looking at some statistics the other day, there were about 20 companies that did what we did.

Okay. Probably the 12 to 15 biggest were big banks, trust departments, some IT companies who did this. Many were public or part of public organizations, and there were a lot of mutual funds starting at that time, and those mutual funds couldn't afford to hire the biggest and best because they couldn't even afford their minimum.

So there was a market there, but more importantly, if we help those people succeed, we get the share in their success. Yeah, and that's really what happened. A lot of our clients that joined us in the first five, six years, not all of them were raging successes, but we had quite a few people who kept going up and up and you knew.

You were doing something right because then your competitors started calling your clients because now they were big enough. Yeah. To be clients of the big guys. So the world didn't really need another one. I think they just needed something different,

Stacy: you know? I love that. And so another one of my favorite things is the world.

It's not about better. It's not about like, well, I'm better than, than them, or we're better or this or that. It's different. And you, you nailed that and it's how can we be different so that ultimately you kind of get into this category of one and you can differentiate by who you serve. Which is what you described, right?

We saw a white space in the market, a gap, startups, younger, smaller, newer fund companies that were just not getting the attention, the service, the help that they needed. And oh, by the way, when you stepped into that, you were who you were. You were Midwest, nice. You were real people. You were a person on the other end of the phone, and the relationships were great.

So you grew together. How amazing is that? It's not better. It's different. It's serving someone special.

Bob Dorsey: It it is different. And one day, one of our newer clients called me and uh, I answered the phone and he goes, you answer your own phone. I said, yeah, it's pretty simple. The phone rings, you pick it up, say hello.

He goes, oh, I was really calling just to talk to your administrative assistant to get on your calendar. I said, well, one, I don't have an administrative assistant. Two. That's my direct number. You can call me anytime you want. And I said, what do you wanna talk about? Do you have time to talk about it now?

Because I do. He goes, well, yeah, let's talk about it. Oh, that's so good. I think that was different because back then in big organizations, you'd call and you might have to call multiple times, get somebody to take your call, and then they had to run it up the flagpole to somebody else to get the answer that they were gonna share back.

So that phone call. I shared a l time and time again with our new employees, shared it with existing employees. I said, you cannot hide behind voicemail, and then you cannot hide behind email. Uh ah. They're hiring us. You have to answer and you have to be responsive.

Stacy: So that's a perfect segue because I think one of the things I love about Altima is exactly that vibe, that it's people first, you put your clients first. It's also people first at the company. You put your employees first, and you have just this incredible people first vibe to you, and that's great. It's also, I would imagine very challenging because you're not a small boutique shop anymore.

You serve a lot of boutiques. You also serve a lot of big companies, but you've grown significantly and you have private equity, which I think there's a perception that when private equity comes in, they come in for one reason. Efficiency, money, liquidity event. And you'd think there might be people who think if I put myself in their shoes, that all of that would go away.

You know, you take private equity money. This is, this is a new game now. How have you managed as a company to keep that culture and that vibe? I. Yeah, as you scaled.

Bob Dorsey: Yeah. We actually did this twice. Back in I, I guess it was probably 2012. John Ling came to Mark and I and said, this has been a great run. I think I'd like to cash out, but before you cash me out, I wanna move to Florida.

My kids are grown. I want to go down to Florida and I still wanna work. I just don't wanna be a partner anymore. So we use that as an opportunity. To go look at in the marketplace, and we went to our angel investors and said, would you guys like to be bought out? So we were able to work out a deal where we would, we bought John out, we bought our angel investors out, and Mark and I still got to own 50% of the company.

And we had a new partner. It was a private equity firm out of Philadelphia named L L R Partners, and we talked to a lot of people. Every PE firm wanted to have control, whether it's 51% or more. These guys came to the table and said, we will be your partner. And we said, we want you as our partner and let's work together to grow the business.

And we did. And they didn't focus on so much the financials. They looked at our business plan and said, why are you doing this? Why aren't you doing this? Have you considered doing this? Ah, yeah. Have you, why don't you hire more people over here? And so we took this company that was, I guess maybe about that time, 11 or 12 years old.

And said, okay. This was a good first step. Yeah. How do we get to that next step? And L L R really helped us get to that, that next step. They came in challenged Mark and I, they really wanted us to get out of our comfort zone a little bit. And like I said, they were great partners. And I think at the end of the day, we wouldn't have had the second transaction if we had not had the first transaction.

But nothing culturally changed? No. When L L R came in and we had 20 years of building that culture, so that when G T C R came in and bought us, the culture was already there. We'd been living and breathing that culture for 20 plus years, and everybody bought into the culture. Yeah. Uh, all of our employees, we talked about answering phones promptly, returning calls promptly, all of that.

I don't know if you remember years ago there was a commercial. On tv and it was a guy, he walks out of his office and he's got a bunch of papers in his hand. He goes, I just got off the phone with a, a longtime client. Then they fired us and he said, we got complacent. It was an email, it was a text, it was this and that.

And he said, A friend fired us. Uh, so then as he told the story, the people were sitting there and he starts handing out airline tickets, and he said, we need to go spend some time with our friends. And at the end of the meeting, they said, oh, Where are you going? And the guy in the commercial said, I'm gonna go visit that friend that just fired us.

Oh, well, there's one more piece to that. One, if you've got friends and you treat your friends well, friends, don't fire friends. Friends will allow. A mistake. If you fix it and grow from it, they'll be part of your growth, but they don't wanna be neglected. And that's what that commercial was all about. Yeah, and I think I thought about that a lot was every time you know, something was happening.

I'm thinking, oh, last thing I once a friend firing a friend.

Stacy: I love that. What a gray anecdote and I think you know, and great advice. For people who are building no matter what part of their evolution they're in, right? Because I think this wasn't private equity. People standing next to you with a stopwatch timing, how long it took you to do stuff, right?

This is a totally different, totally different environment, and so, Maybe that's a good place to segue as entrepreneurs and certainly as entrepreneurs who are scaling, whether it's asset management or FinTech or whatever. What advice do you have for people who are contemplating either an angel investment venture, private equity, like what did you learn through those experiences that you could share with people listening?

Bob Dorsey: Well, I've always been big on storytelling. I was never the smartest man in the room. And the day I would've become the smartest man in the room, we were doomed. So, uh, always had, when potential clients came in,

always had the team there to show that it just wasn't Bob Dorsey or Mark Seger or John Splain, that there's a big team of people behind us.

And I would always tell the team, don't be afraid to speak up. And even as we prepped for things, I would tell new employees, staff, whatever. Whenever we were in meetings, I would always tell 'em, don't be afraid to ask questions. There are no dumb questions, just dumb answers. And I could give plenty of dumb answers.

But what was important was you answered the question. And so when we be. Having client meetings or whatever, they would come to the table with lots of good questions, and I didn't have to answer 'em all because we had really good people who could say, yeah, I can take that and would explain, yeah, what was going on.

So in a small organization, you think maybe there's just one center or two of influence? I will tell you, if we could get a prospect to come in and visit us, we would win the clients because it wasn't Mark or I. It was, yeah, the employees that they were gonna hire to do the work day in and day out, so I love that.

In that world. I usually made the introductions and I tried to step away quickly because they all were smart, they were service minded. And they were the ones having to deal with the clients day in and day out. And it was always refreshing when a client would call me and say, I just want to tell you how great he is, how great she is, how they went out of their way.

I never got tired of getting the compliment calls. No.

Stacy: Oh, you never do. And what about on the other side? What about when you were dealing with private equity? So that's great as you're building your business. What about when you were sort of saying, Hey, we should get some capital. What advice do you have for people who are considering that in terms of picking a

Bob Dorsey: partner?

Well, we interviewed quite a few back in 2012, and it was pretty evident in the first round of interviews. They, a lot of them had their own agenda. Here's what we're doing, here's how we do it. Take it or leave it. And we left it. Others came and said, we really wanna be your partner. Yeah, we really want. To help you grow.

How can we help you grow? And there were more than one firm that we narrowed it down to, but in the end, that's why L L R got the business was they listened to us and they were very interested in everything we did. And they weren't micromanaging it. They would ask, is that the best way to do that? Is that industry standard?

Was that homegrown or are you using some purchase software for that? And they really wanted to understand our business and that's what made them good partners. Some people just want the money and have, that's what I was gonna say. The private equity firms sit on the side. L l r was a great partner for us and helped us get to that next level.

And so if anybody's gonna go out looking for private equity, I would recommend getting, you know, somebody to lead that search for You get somebody who knows the market, knows the private equity firms in that market. There's lots of private equity, but not everybody understands the mutual fund business or the mutual fund servicing

Stacy: business.

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think you, you hit it that as you were talking, I was like, ah, it's kind of a, do you just need the capital I. Or is it more than that? Right. Because some people, to your point, I just need the money. I don't really want the advice, I don't need the strategic help, I don't need, I just want the capital.

And that's much different than what you described your relationship. Yeah. With your private equity firm. So that's great. That's awesome. Okay, so this has been amazing. I love the stories. I love the. The commonalities between so many different parts of your journey, Bob, from, you know, the butcher shop to construction, to the fund business, and I can see all those.

Lessons and values today in Altima, and it's just amazing getting the backstory of the business you've built. I end with some questions. It's a playoff of Bruce questionnaire and nobody seems to remember one of my favorite shows here inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton. It was a fabulous show.

Mm-hmm. Um, did you ever watch it? I didn't, no. See, yeah, I did. That was the only one. It's so, okay. Well, so basically he would interview actors, talk about their, so their journeys, their backstory, their career work, and at the end he would ask him some questions. So I have a couple of his and couple of my own, but just helps us get to know you a little better.

So here we go. Start with an, an easy one. Okay. Okay. What book inspires you?

Bob Dorsey: The one book that probably inspired me the most was a book called On Fire. It was written by, uh, John O'Leary, and I heard him speak at, I believe it was one of our business partners client Summit a number of years ago. And it's about a guy who, when he was nine years old, was burnt a hundred percent of his body.

Oh geez. And he survived. And what he was able to overcome, But what he was able to accomplish was incredibly amazing. Wow. Wow. No matter how bad a day you have, I think about John O'Leary and everything he overcame. I'm thinking, wow, it's really not that bad of a

Stacy: day. There you go. I love that. I have not heard of that book.

That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us. Okay, so staying with inspiration, changing it up to what place inspires you, what's your happy place?

Bob Dorsey: If you asked me that as a kid, I probably would've said summer camp or things like that. The place that we're the happiest now is, uh, we have a condo in Longboat Key Florida, and that is a wonderful place to go.

It's a wonderful place to recharge. It's a wonderful place to relax. So long boat key,

Stacy: and knowing you, are your grandchildren there when it's this, this happy place. Because I know it is.

Bob Dorsey: Yeah. And thankfully it's big enough we can get all of our kids, all of our grandkids currently in. I got a feeling we might be bulging at the seams in five or 10 years.

Stacy: That's awesome. Um, okay, so now we're gonna, we're gonna switch gears. We're gonna pretend that. Okay. You are a rockstar, which is what I always say to everybody, but now, like you're a little, you're a literal rockstar. You're, you're gonna perform to a sold out stadium wherever you want it to be, right. And as you walk out onto the stage, they're gonna play some hype music for you.

Okay. And so what song do they play? What's your walkout

Bob Dorsey: anthem? Well, we did do this at a client summit a few years ago. You did?

Stacy: I must have seen it then.

Bob Dorsey: I don't know. But it could be any ac dc song. But the one that I walked out to was You Shook me all night long.

Stacy: That is amazing. Any ac dc song in that one is just, that is awesome. So good Bob. Okay, here we go. What profession, other than your own, this is gonna be interesting. Would you like to attempt professional

Bob Dorsey: golfer? I know I couldn't do it, but I'd like to attempt

Stacy: it. I love that. Okay. There's a lot of people probably nodding their head on that one.

I thought you were gonna say butcher.

Bob Dorsey: No. No.

Stacy: Okay. You've already done that.

Bob Dorsey: What professional. I sliced the tip of my thumb off already. I don't, I don't need any more scars from butchering.

Stacy: What profession would you not like to

Bob Dorsey: do? I don't think I'd wanna be a professional bull rider.

And the, the reason I say that was years ago when Urban Cowboy came out, everyone started to have those mechanical bowls. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, I did one night I was out with some friends. We tried to do it. I was sore for a week. I can't imagine how those professional bull riders get back up week after week, week after week.

It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Stacy: Papa, that is so good. Okay. Okay, so this is actually a really interesting question for you, given that you have retired. Yeah. What do you want people to

say about you after you've retired or left the industry? I mean, you're still in the industry, but what did, what, what do you want people to say about you?

Bob Dorsey: Wow. I, I guess there's a couple things. One, I hope they would say he was never too busy for me to take time out to chat, to answer my questions, and more importantly, care what I had to say. Secondly, you know, I hope people would say, good guy, honest, and somebody I wanted to have dinner with or breakfast with.

It was never a job. Hanging out with Bob Dorsey. It was a lot of fun. Ah, so I, I would hope our clients, our business partners, all of the employees and everybody else I know in the industry would say he was a good guy.

Stacy: I would say that I vouch for that. You are so much fun to be around. Your stories are wonderful.

You've built an amazing business with some very, very special people. I am proud to know you and I have really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you so much for being here. Bob.

Bob Dorsey: Stacy, thank you. I really enjoyed it. And quite honestly, as I was prepping for this, I'm thinking how are we gonna squeeze this into an hour?

Because yeah, most people would tell me, When Bob calls, you better have a couple hours ready for a lot of conversations and stuff. So I'm glad we were able to stick to your timeline as best we could. Aw. But thank you very much for having me. You did a great

Stacy: job. Oh, thanks for being here, Bob. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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