Hi, I'm Garrett.

I grew up on the family farm outside Dodge City, Kansas, in a family of multi-generational farmers and door-to-door hustlers. My dad started driving for FedEx and bought his route. Over 20 years he, my mom, and my brother consolidated it into DCJ Enterprises, the family holding company, running more than 20 delivery routes a day at its 2020 peak and $2.5M in annual revenue. I was off building my own career while they built it, but when my dad passed, I came home as the family's advisor and led the 2024 sale. Buy one, build it, aggregate, exit. I watched that playbook run for years before I ever ran it myself.

My first business was selling tri-color sweet corn at the farmers market at the ripe age of 7. After I got pretty good at it and built it into a decent little summer business, my dad taught me one of the best lessons I've ever learned. The summer I was 12, out of $800 in gross revenue, he charged me $200 back: $100 for seed and planting labor, $50 for land rent, and $50 for water and utilities. He was charging me COGS and overhead on my own crop, and I was furious. But I learned the foundation of business that year, and I've been pricing in real numbers ever since.

Then I spent 30 years in digital media before I bought a single agency for myself, first at Yahoo and later at Basis, two different companies in two very different chapters of my career. I rode every technology shift hands-on, from digitizing a newspaper darkroom to launching some of the first behavioral-targeted ad inventory anywhere. At Yahoo it ran under the Newspaper Consortium banner, working with the biggest names in media, Hearst, the New York Times regional group, McClatchy, Cox, E.W. Scripps, and Tribune, where I built 127 white-labeled agencies for their markets. At Basis I rebuilt that program from the ground up and expanded the network myself, signing partners independently. I built 127 agencies for other people before I ever owned one.

From my years across Yahoo and Basis, reinventing how the publishing industry sells. At Yahoo it ran under the Newspaper Consortium; at Basis I rebuilt and independently expanded the network. I moved legacy media off boxes and airtime and onto digital audiences, and coached the publishers, CEOs, and sales teams through the shift, from compensation and sales strategy to seller training.

In 2021 I started consulting with a boutique PR and communications agency and earning equity the only way I trust, by performance. I doubled the revenue, went full time, completed the acquisition in 2023, and rebranded it. Over its two decades the agency had built a 400-client roster that included William Shatner, Lisa Loeb, Caesars Entertainment, and P.F. Chang's. Around that time I co-wrote Stories That F*cking Matter. It hit #1 on Amazon, landed in the Forbes Council Executive Library, and William Shatner wrote the foreword.

Then in 2024 I did it again. One cold email turned into a conversation that ended with me acquiring Born & Bred, a $3.5M brand and creative agency I now run as President. It had already been named one of Adweek's fastest-growing agencies twice, working with everyone from Pfizer and Visa to Discord, Grammarly, and Superhuman, brands backed by General Catalyst, a16z, Accel, Greylock, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator. I also sit on the DealCon Advisory Board, where I've emceed the CEO M&A Intensive and speak regularly.

When I decided to go all in on agency M&A, my mentor Tom Shipley told me straight that I wasn't ready for the room yet. I didn't have the momentum or the vision. He wasn't wrong, and I didn't argue. I was humbled, and I took the feedback as constructive.

I just decided that feeling ready wasn't going to be the thing that stopped me. I've done a lot of things before I felt ready or knew all the answers. That's the entrepreneur's way of being.

I paid in full for my seat at his Deal Boardroom and committed before it was comfortable, because the people who break through are the ones who commit first and grow into the room, not the ones who wait to feel qualified. It's the same decision I now sit across the table from agency owners and ask them to make.

Coaching isn't a side gig for me anymore, it's how I integrate the agencies I buy. Term sheets and LOIs are the math. The deal itself is about heart, motivation, and trust, and that's the part I'm best at. The credentials behind it:

Off the clock: potter, gardener, yogi, cyclist, and recovering perfectionist.

The bigger why

Underneath all of it is one belief: technology can and should make us more human, not less. It's the reason I chose a Master of Arts in technology, not a Master of Science. The math matters, but the heart is the most important part. This work is about people, their legacy, and what we can build together, not just in a deal or two, but as a species and a humanity. If we get the technology right, it should leave people better off. That's the future I want to help build.

There's a deeper layer beneath the deals, the philosophy and the mission that really drive me. Read the bigger why →