The Deal Podcast

What happens when a former musician with degrees in graphic design and public relations becomes the executive director of one of Louisiana's most important startup engines? You get Destin Ortego — and a playbook that's helped founders raise $116M in venture capital and drive over $2 billion in economic impact since 2018. In this episode of The Deal Podcast, host Joshua Wilson and co-host Scott Shea sit down with Destin Ortego, Executive Director of Opportunity Machine, the Lafayette-based non...

What if the same company could give you four bites of the apple? Steven Pivnik did exactly that — and nearly lost it all in between. In this episode of The Deal Podcast, host Joshua Wilson sits down with Steven Pivnik, serial founder, endurance athlete, and exit advisor who built and monetized the same software company four separate times before finally selling to a $4 billion competitor. Steven shares the real story behind the wins — and the gut-punch in the middle when he came back from a t...

What if the biggest mistake you're making isn't a bad deal or a wrong hire — but spending your life doing things you're capable of instead of things you were made for? Dominic Dupré grew up watching four cousins build successful companies in Louisiana's energy corridor. He graduated into the shale boom, swung sledgehammers on a workover rig, and had his entrepreneurial dreams derailed by the 2014 oil bust — only to be called back into the family business to turn around a failing crude hauling...

He was drowning in investor debt, swinging a hammer in Houston just to make payroll — and still found a way to build something worth fighting for. This is a story about grit, partnership, and what it really takes to grow a trade business from the inside out. George Boudreaux founded Pelican Roofing Company in Lafayette, Louisiana on July 4th, 2014 — not from a place of momentum, but from a burning need to survive. After a real estate venture in Houston went sideways and left him half a millio...

What happens when you hand the keys to an $850 million government operation to someone who thinks like an operator? You get fewer barriers, faster decisions, and a city that starts acting like it has a balance sheet to protect. In this episode of The Deal Podcast, host Joshua Wilson and co-host Jude David, JD, DCL, MBA and Managing Partner at FA Mergers, sit down with Mayor-President Monique Boulet of Lafayette, Louisiana. Monique walks through how she's running Lafayette Consolidated Governm...

What does it take to turn a family baking legacy into a viral sensation? Billy and Denny, aka "The Gingerbread Twins", have been proving that faith, hard work, and butter cookies can build something extraordinary. Billy and Denny are the identical twin founders of Gingerbread Twins, a Lafayette, Louisiana bakery rooted in three generations of baking tradition. In this episode, they share one of the most inspiring entrepreneurial stories we've had on The Deal Podcast — a journey that runs from...

He was the only survivor of a plane crash that killed five people — burned on 80% of his body, pulled from a coma, and given little chance of a full recovery. What Wade Berzas discovered in that hospital room became the foundation for everything he now teaches entrepreneurs. Wade Berzas is an EOS Implementer, business coach, and speaker who works with privately held entrepreneurial companies of 10 to 250 employees. After a decade as VP of Sales at Global Data Systems — a $40M IT company — and...

Before Scott Rainey owned a safety consulting company, he was getting bit by dogs in North Louisiana — knocking on doors as a landman, trying to convince hostile landowners to let oil companies onto their property. That pivot into entrepreneurship wasn't clean. It nearly ended in bankruptcy. Here's how he got out, started over, and built something worth selling. Scott Rainey is the founder and President of Quest Safety Solutions, a safety consulting firm serving oil and gas service companies ...

What if you could invest like the Hilton family — without having $100 million in the bank? Mark Miller has spent nearly 40 years making that possible, and in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how it works. The strategies, the philosophy, the network — and the surprising backstory of how the Hilton family fortune ended up in a foundation instead of the family's hands. Mark Miller is the Managing Director of the Hilton Family Office and CEO of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, bu...

He only buys companies everyone else is running from — and he's been doing it for 20 years. Nate Moore has built a 700-person operation by acquiring distressed childcare and home care businesses, walking into chaos where others see dead ends, and turning them around through leadership, structure, and a relentless belief in people. Nate Moore is a serial acquisition entrepreneur and founder of Moore Consulting & Investment Group. For over two decades, Nate has operated at the intersection ...

Scott Harkey put $750,000 cash down on an agency tuck-in — and turned it into $10 million in enterprise value inside his group. That's EBITDA arbitrage. And according to Scott, most independent agency operators grinding away at 17–25% margins have never once thought about it. This episode covers the deal math, the culture traps, and the billboard rollup opportunity most investors are completely missing. Scott Harkey is the founder of The Harkey Group, a multi-agency advertising platform with ...

Bubba Page watched a $50K investment grow to $200K on paper — then passed on the chance to cash out. A year later, that company went bankrupt. His position went to zero. That one decision — and the hard-won wisdom that followed — reshaped how he approaches every deal today. He calls it the cookie jar rule: when someone passes the jar, you take a cookie. Bubba Page is a 5x INC5000 serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of Influence.vc — a venture capital syndicate on AngelList built ...

What does an investigative journalist notice that most deal makers miss? Adam Daigle of the Acadiana Advocate has spent 15 years covering business, M&A, and economic development across Louisiana — and his pattern recognition for spotting winners and losers might be sharper than most investors in the room. In this episode of The Deal Podcast, Joshua Wilson and Jude David sit down with Adam Daigle, business journalist for the Acadiana Advocate, to explore what investigative reporting and de...