When Zach Krumholz and Rafa Caldas met in their learning team at Columbia Business School, they discovered more than just complementary skill sets. They found a shared vision that would lead them from classroom assignments to co-owning a thriving travel company in Los Angeles.

Their story began in the halls of Columbia, where fate placed them in the same five-person learning team. Zach brought his Goldman Sachs investment banking expertise and experience from Crestview Partners. Rafa contributed his engineering background from Boeing and Shell, plus strategic insights from Bain & Company. But beyond their impressive resumes, they discovered something more valuable: aligned values, work ethics, and ambitious entrepreneurial dreams rooted in their family histories.

Both grew up watching family members build businesses from scratch. Zach's grandfather immigrated to the United States and started a multifamily real estate business, while his brothers founded Delight Restaurant Group. Rafa's brother launched a real estate brokerage firm in Brazil, and his godfather started a restaurant. These childhood experiences shaped their desire to own and operate a business for the long term, not just flip it for a quick profit.

What set Long Horizon Partners apart from traditional private equity was their commitment to staying with their acquisition for decades. As they explained in their initial launch, "Unlike most private equity firms, which sell their portfolio companies after five to seven years, we would love to stay with our entity and build it for decades to become a market leader."

This long-term mindset shaped their search criteria. They sought businesses in growing industries with high barriers to entry, recurring revenue, and strong cash flow generation. Most importantly, they wanted a company they could be passionate about leading for years to come.

The search process proved more challenging than anticipated. As Rafa reflected in a recent interview, "I didn't expect there to be so many ups and downs. And I didn't expect it to be so difficult to close a transaction." He discovered firsthand "how much luck is involved as well because there are so many different ways that a deal can die."

Zach emphasized another crucial lesson: the importance of underwriting not just the business metrics but also the culture and people. "As soon as you close a deal and you move there, and that becomes your everyday life, your relationships with the leaders of the company, with the employees become incredibly critical."

The duo had to master multiple disciplines simultaneously: setting up search campaigns, conducting due diligence, building seller relationships, presenting to investors, raising capital, and navigating the countless ways deals can fall apart. As Zach noted, "You're really kind of using every skill set that you've learned and developed throughout your life."

After months of searching, evaluating opportunities, and weathering deal failures, they found their match: Premier World Discovery, a travel tour operator based in Los Angeles serving primarily customers aged 65 and older. The company checked all their boxes: stable recurring revenue, passionate employees with long tenures, and a meaningful mission of creating life memories for travelers.

The seller's motivation aligned perfectly with their vision. This wasn't a distressed sale or a quick flip opportunity. It was a natural transition for an owner ready to retire from a thriving business. Equally important, the seller was willing to stay involved during the transition and maintain some equity stake, showing confidence in the new leadership.

The transition from searchers to operators required careful navigation. "You want to change everything the first day you get there," Zach admitted, "but that's definitely something you don't want to do."

Instead, they focused on three critical priorities:

Their partnership dynamics, which they'd theorized about during their search fund launch, proved even more valuable in practice. Zach's drive to "move fast, get through the work as quickly as possible" balanced perfectly with Rafa's tendency to "take a step back, think about what are the goals for the next several years."

This push-and-pull dynamic created a leadership style that was both ambitious and thoughtful, tactical and strategic. As they noted, "Both of them (dynamics) are great and both of them are really effective. But especially when you combine them together, it works really well."

Today, Zach and Rafa are living their entrepreneurial dreams, leading a company whose mission resonates deeply with them: enabling people to create their best memories through travel. They've discovered that the most fulfilling aspect isn't just the business success but the people they work with and the experiences they help create.

Their advice to aspiring entrepreneurs through acquisition is both practical and philosophical. On the practical side: be prepared for an incredibly difficult journey that will test every skill you've developed. Don't underestimate the importance of culture and people in your diligence. And when you take over, move slowly and build trust before implementing changes.

On the philosophical side, Rafa's advice rings especially true: "Really think deeply about what else could you be doing? What other journey could you be pursuing that will be more fulfilling, more exciting, more compelling? Because ultimately, you can't get the time back."

For Zach and Rafa, success isn't measured in exit multiples or quick flips. It's measured in the team they build, the culture they create, the employees they empower, and the customers they serve. Their journey from Columbia Business School to company ownership demonstrates that with the right partnership, clear vision, and unwavering commitment, the entrepreneurial dreams that start in childhood can become reality.

As they continue building Premier World Discovery, they're not just running a business. They're creating a legacy, one memorable trip at a time.

They had the perfect resumes. Elite MBAs from Columbia. Experience at Goldman Sachs and Bain. A foolproof plan to skip the startup grind and buy an existing, successful company. They thought it would be easier than building from scratch.

They were wrong.

In our latest episode, Zach Krumholz and Rafa Caldas pull back the curtain on what really happens after you launch a search fund. No sugarcoating. No platitudes. Just raw, unfiltered truth about jumping onto a train moving 200 miles per hour without being the original operator.

"One of the things that people assume is that doing a search fund would be a lot easier than doing a startup," Zach reveals. The reality? "You're really kind of using every skill set that you've learned and developed throughout your life."

From setting up search campaigns to navigating seller psychology, from raising capital to managing post-acquisition transitions, buying a business demands mastery of multiple disciplines simultaneously. There are no shortcuts.

Want to know if a business has strong leadership or if it's a one-person show? Rafa shares his lightning-fast assessment technique: "You ask the employees: Who do you go to when you don't know what to do? If the answer is all one person, then you know that it's a one-man show."

This simple question cuts through the noise and reveals whether you're buying a business or inheriting a liability.

Zach breaks down three levers that directly impact your multiple:

Quality of Revenue: "The more that you can demonstrate that your customers are coming back every single year... the higher the multiple or the valuation is going to be for your business."

Scale Through Acquisition: "You might be able to do a bolt-on acquisition of a smaller company... but then when you combine them together, you have more customers, more diversification, more scale, better buying power."

Strategic Growth Timing: "Are there certain levers that you can pull that can really enable you to speed up your growth for a year or two, three years before you sell?"

Ready to explore your own acquisition journey? Listen to the full conversation for their complete roadmap, including rapid-fire insights on deal breakers, predictions for the future of entrepreneurship through acquisition, and the legacy they're building beyond the numbers.

Connect with Rafa and Zach:

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David Lovejoy

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