Welcome back to The Collision Vision, driven by Autobody News. I’m your host, Cole Strandberg.
There are people in this industry who build great businesses. There are others who have an incredible ability to identify opportunities, attract great people, and build organizations around them. Today's guest has spent his career doing both.
Jacob Tilzer is the Founder and Managing Partner of Accrual Equity Partners, but many in the collision industry know him best as the founder of Kaizen Collision, which he built from a single location into one of the industry's fastest-growing multi-shop operators.
But the Kaizen story is really only part of this conversation.
Today, Jacob is building again — investing in and growing businesses across automotive, assembling an incredible team at Accrual Equity Partners, and partnering with entrepreneurs and operators to build the next generation of automotive companies.
And this one is a little personal for me. Jacob is one of the guys responsible for bringing me into the organization I'm part of today, NBB, and I've had a front-row seat to one of the things I find most interesting about him: his ability to convince incredibly talented people to come build alongside him. His ability to create, and share, a vision.
We'll talk about his journey, the rise of Kaizen, what he learned scaling and ultimately exiting the business, and how those lessons influence the way he invests and builds today. We'll also get into the opportunity he sees across automotive, what he looks for in businesses and founders, how he thinks about talent, and what he believes the next generation of great automotive platforms will look like.
Because ultimately, building something great isn't just about finding the right opportunity. It's about finding the right people to build it with.
Let's get into it.
