From Classroom to CEO: Judd Lorson '17 and His Journey in Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
On Friday, November 2, 2018 Yale SOM alum Judd Lorson jumped into the arena as a first-time entrepreneur by acquiring Ft. Lauderdale based Alliance CAS. Lorson graduated from Yale SOM in 2017 with the explicit goal of pursuing an entrepreneurial career by purchasing, rather than starting, a business. Lorson partnered with Boston-based Search Fund Accelerator (SFA) (https://www.searchfundaccelerator.com/), an accelerator designed specifically for aspiring entrepreneurs who seek to acquire a business. For approximately 18 months Lorson cold called target opportunities which met his defined selection criteria. “Searching for a business to acquire is hard work. There are too many false starts and broken conversations to count. The process, despite the challenge, was fun, exhilarating and a wonderful learning experience. It almost felt like MBA 2.0. SFA provided infrastructure, support systems and guidance to help me get to the finish line,” stated Lorson.
Ultimately, the right company for Lorson was Alliance CAS (http://alliancecas.com/), a business services organization with 23 employees. Alliance provides revenue management services specializing in the collection of unpaid assessments from delinquent homeowners for condominium associations. What makes Alliance unique is that the firm never charges the condominium association for services. Rather, Alliance is only paid upon collection success, not by the hour. This provides Alliance with an incentive to collect because fees are paid only by the delinquent unit owner or the bank, not the condominium association. What sets Alliance apart is its outbound call center reaching out daily to the unit/home owners that have money due to the condominium association.
Lorson and his wife, Lindsay, have relocated to Florida with their son Logan. Upon closing the acquisition, Lorson immediately became the CEO of Alliance. “I am absolutely thrilled and excited to be leading and running Alliance. I feel like I have the opportunity to use all of my Yale SOM training as a CEO at a pretty young age. This is a dream role for me! Yale was super supportive of my entrepreneurial aspirations. I picked up a bunch of tools on how to find a business to purchase and how to jump in as a CEO,” stated Lorson. SFA founder Timothy Bovard is delighted with Lorson’s success to date. “Judd was a great match for SFA and we hope to find more Yale SOM people to join our program. We are delighted to be financial and operating partners with Judd and are very optimistic about his project. We think Alliance has tremendous growth potential and Judd is the right entrepreneur to lead and grow the organization,” said Bovard.
Judd Lorson is a frequent speaker and guest at Yale SOM sharing his story and journey from classroom to CEO.