39. Legacy to Leadership: Transforming a Mission-Critical Business with Ania Aliev
EPISODE 39
Ania Aliev shares her journey of entrepreneurship through acquisition, transforming Life Support Systems from a paper-based business into a digital operation with growth potential. Her story demonstrates the importance of careful change management and maintaining mission-critical services while modernizing operations.
Catch the Conversation
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Ania Aliev shares her journey of entrepreneurship through acquisition, transforming Life Support Systems from a paper-based business into a digital operation with growth potential. Her story demonstrates the importance of careful change management and maintaining mission-critical services while modernizing operations.
Ania, a Trinity College graduate, began her career in Institutional Equities on Wall Street before delving into entrepreneurship. While pursuing her MBA at The Tuck School of Business, she discovered the search fund model, leading her to launch her own fund in July 2023. After a 7-month search, Ania acquired Life Support Systems, a Boston-based company specializing in emergency preparedness. Their offerings include AED service, emergency oxygen service, first aid supplies, CPR/AED training, Active Shooter training, and Mental Health training, ensuring organizational safety and readiness.
You can connect with Ania on LinkedIn. -
0:00 Introduction to Figure Eight Podcast
1:04 Meet Ania Aliev of Life Support Systems
3:40 Buying vs. Building a Business
7:16 Managing Change in an Established Company
12:36 The Critical Importance of AED Maintenance
16:20 Advocacy in a Regulatory Environment
22:00 Entrepreneurship and Work-Life Integration
29:40 Surprising Discoveries on the Journey
32:26 Closing Thoughts and Resources
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Julie: 0:04
Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figure revenue. If you're in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you. Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb. I'm your host, Julie Ellis. I'm an author, entrepreneur and a growth and leadership coach who co-founded, grew and exited an eight-figure business. This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things, and that led to my book Big Gorgeous Goals. Let's explore the systems, processes and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights. If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help. Now let's get going.
Julie: 1:04
Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure 8. Today I'm speaking with Ania Aliev and she is the CEO of Life Support Systems. They do really important work in AED sales and maintenance. They also do a lot of advocacy in this highly regulated space. She turned her history in investment banking and MBA from Dartmouth into an entrepreneurial venture buying this business, and I'm so interested to talk to you today, Ania. Thank you for joining me.
Ania: 1:35
Thank you so much for having me Really excited to be here.
Julie: 1:39
It's so good. I want to dive right in about like what it's like to become an entrepreneur by buying a business?
Ania: 1:46
Yeah, that's a great question. It's definitely a little bit of a different path. When you think about entrepreneurship, you think about building something from the ground up, and I had previously done that, but not to such a scale. And when I went to get my MBA at Dartmouth, I had no idea that this model of private equity even really existed. And so I went to get my MBA and I thought I was going to continue to build that business that I had started or build another one, and I learned about this form of entrepreneurship while I was there and I was really intrigued by it.
Ania: 2:23
So I learned about it from the investors that came to campus, like Camelon, Archipelago, Lufu, Endurance, many of those that I've worked with throughout my search but they came and they did really informational sessions on like what this actually looks like, and at first I remember thinking this is cool, but there has to be kind of like a catch here, right.
Ania: 2:45
But the more I learned about it, the more I realized that it was just really, you know, kind of like under discovered and I felt like I would really regret not doing it. So to be able to align myself with amazing people who have done this time and time again and worked with many people who sit in my shoes and be able to go out and find a great, established business to buy, to own and to operate, I just felt like that was like the perfect opportunity for me and just something I could really see myself doing for decades potentially. So that's what kind of got me interested in it. And then, like I said, I just felt like this itch to do it and if I didn't do it I was going to regret it. So I ended up raising a fund and going out and searching for a business to buy and that's how I ended up at Life Support Systems.
Julie: 3:34
It's so interesting because I think you know, people think they have to start it in entrepreneurship. A lot of times, like, I've heard from people so many times of like oh well, you know, I didn't start it, and I don't think that that's actually really an indicator, because when you buy a business like you've bought a legacy business and so now you're taking this from somebody who's owned it for a long time, you're putting financing together so you have obligations to the people who have supported you and you need to set it on a growth path so that you can, you know, see it to fruition.
Ania: 4:16
Yeah, exactly, it is a very different skill set than just getting an idea off the ground, and so it's an exciting opportunity to be able to take a business that has already done really well and just kind of operationalize it a little bit more and take it to that next level.
Julie: 4:37
Yeah, yeah, and I'm thinking about things like you mentioned. The business was entirely run on paper when you arrived.
Ania: 4:43
Yes, yes, that was a fun task.
Julie: 4:46
Yeah, updating technology, things like finding what the path is to growth right, looking for those opportunities and how you were going to capitalize on them.
Ania: 4:57
Yeah, exactly, Finding those growth opportunities is exciting and that's one of the things that we were really looking at when we were looking at different businesses and another reason why we loved this one so much. The industry is growing really quickly and there's lots of things that you can do to grow, but then also inside of the business, you have a lot of opportunity for change and a team that was really hungry for some of the changes, which made it really an exciting opportunity to be able to come in and do some of that work. Because sometimes when you come in to a team that's been operating one way for decades, there can be some resistance to change and people not being excited to go and do that kind of work of doing digitization and changing systems. But I was lucky in the sense that a lot of my team was really excited to embark on that. But you definitely can step into situations where people are just really resistant, which makes it much harder.
Julie: 5:57
Yeah, because it's not just a change in, like you know you at the helm, but it's like a whole cultural change within the company from really top to bottom Right, and so you know there are people who like how things have been and and those changes hard, it's hard for all of us.
Ania: 6:16
Totally. Um, there are definitely people who don't love seeing some of that change, but on the whole, I think our team was really excited about it. Um, which is great because, especially on the form side, right when you're going out near servicing, it takes away a lot of you know, having to carry all these documents with you and everything. And having a digital database helps um, helps the technicians enormously. So that was a project that everybody. I think there was some hesitancy at first because there was a lot of fear of like, okay, well, how are we going to know that the system's not failing us? And this is critical information. And then, once you see it coming to fruition, it's definitely like super exciting for everybody.
Julie: 6:58
Yeah, and you're definitely there to make people's jobs easier. Right, Exactly. But it is that piece of yeah. Can you trust it the same way, or is it going to work well? Is it going to like all of those questions that come up?
Ania: 7:10
Exactly that's always the initial pull, I think, for people is like, oh, I've done this one way for since I've gotten here, like how are we sure it's going to work? I like the idea, but are we sure this is going to work? And then, once you kind of put it in place, it helps.
Julie: 7:27
And have you had to think about that, like as the leader just in, like prioritizing how the change is coming down and how fast, and all of those kinds of you know pieces to what you want, you know getting from A to B and the things that you might want to do, but how to prioritize them?
Ania: 7:46
Yeah, I think that's a great topic because I think as leaders, sometimes we want to move really, really fast, but that might not be the pace that everybody can move at, which is completely okay, but you also don't want to overwhelm the team with five, six, seven, eight different initiatives at once. So my approach has always been let's focus on one thing at a time and picking you know point people that are spearheading certain projects alongside myself, so that it doesn't feel like I'm just saying this is what we're doing and now everybody do it. You don't want people to feel like they're just doing something because the CEO, or whoever it is, said to do it. You really want people to believe in why we're doing it, and so that's why I think it's so important to kind of pick a different person each time that spearheads each initiative with me.
Ania: 8:41
And then, in terms of prioritization, I kind of laid out everything that needed to be done and then started picking at which ones I thought would be one easiest to solve for but to also have the biggest impact.
Ania: 8:57
So something like getting the database over to a digital form versus out of paper. That would have huge impacts for everybody and if it worked it would have been a really great win across the board. And I felt like I wouldn't. It wouldn't it didn't have risk of having all these layers underneath it where, like you take something apart but you don't realize how it's interacting with another piece of the business. I feel like I really concretely understood what that was, so I felt pretty confident that I could take that as on as the big project first. But there are some projects that had to be deferred a little bit because of that, because when you buy a business that you didn't help build, there are things that, even as the team is being like super forthright about what they're doing and why they're doing it, they may not even realize they're not explaining something to you.
Ania: 9:53
So you don't know what. You don't know until you start ripping things out and then, all of a sudden, something over here isn't working quite like it was before. Of a sudden, something over here isn't working quite like it was before.
Julie: 10:04
And it's this like careful, like, like calibration of this big machine that you have to do. Because you're right, you're like no, we need to like here's the project, here's what we need to do, here's the. Oh wait, all those things over there broke because, because you're still learning about the big picture as well.
Ania: 10:22
Exactly so. I think that's the biggest risk for entrepreneurs who enter into positions like mine, where you haven't built it up but you have an understanding but at the same time you don't quite understand, as in the weeds, as everybody else who helped build the machine. So that's the biggest risk when you take on some of these initiatives, because if you take it on and it doesn't go quite to plan and it's one of the first ones it can be really damaging in terms of trust and credibility inside of the organization. But on the flip side, obviously you hope it goes well and it helps further build that trust and credibility with the team.
Julie: 10:58
Yeah, but it is really then for you also like leaning into those human skills of you know managing people, and like change management and all of the things, to really shepherd things along and really be listening, for you know the hiccups that are, that are going to come.
Ania: 11:17
Exactly. That's also why I think it's so important, like I said, to have a person who's spearheading each project, because they have, you know, a lot of times as you move up in leadership roles, people are honest but they hold back certain things. So it's so important to have peer level discussions open to them as well for channels, because sometimes people feel a lot more comfortable saying something to their peer than they do to their boss or the CEO or whoever it is. But it's so important to get those little tidbits because it can really help steer you away from a disaster in some of these implementation projects and help you know. It really helps you keep a pulse on everybody as well in terms of as you're implementing these, because if they feel like they can come and talk to somebody if it's not you, then you can at least have an understanding of where some of the hesitation might be coming from.
Julie: 12:15
Yep, and, and it's just like making sure. I feel like we always need to communicate more than we think we do as leaders. Different ways, number of times, all the ways that we need to, you know, really keep telling people things. I feel like it's often underestimated how long it takes for somebody to actually like absorb the message, process the information and then maybe come back to you with questions.
Ania: 12:41
Yeah, I think that's so important and that's something that I hear a lot and I consciously think about. A lot is how many times I say what I say, because sometimes you think you've said it enough times and really like you've really only said it like three times and that might sound like a lot, but it's really not. So I often I keep track of it. Anything really important I try to talk about at minimum 10 times before I'm like I think everybody knows what we're talking about and it's on everybody's radar. Now I've said it 10 times and across multiple different communication channels so verbally, email, repeated in meetings and agendas. So there's lots of different places to get the information.
Julie: 13:29
And what drew you then to the AED market? I mean, when you were sort of evaluating potential and promise and you said it's rapidly growing earlier in the interview what was it that you saw the opportunity in this business for?
Ania: 13:44
Yeah, that's a great question. So I knew nothing about AEDs really before I reached out to the owner and I remember reading about the business and I was like, yes, AEDs, those are important. I remember learning about them when I was my first job in middle school and high school was being a tennis camp counsellor. So you have to be CPR and AED certified for a lot of those camp counsellor roles. So I remember learning about AEDs and I was like, yeah, these things are important. This business sounds really interesting. Let me see what I can learn.
Ania: 14:18
And so, in a perfect world, I wanted to find something mission critical. But I knew, setting out on my journey to buy a business like that may or may not be the case. You can only influence so many factors. Right, and geography was a really important factor for me personally. So I knew that I may not be able to get everything and I feel really lucky in the sense that I did, but that was one of the reasons why I really loved this business was the mission critical nature of what it does, because what people don't realize about defibrillators is just buying them isn't enough.
Julie: 14:55
It's great to have one, not the end of the story. It's sort of the beginning.
Ania: 14:59
Exactly it's the beginning, but we don't really talk about service and maintenance a lot. So people think that they're doing their part just by having one, which is great, but actually you need to do regular service and maintenance on these. So as I was reading about the company and learning more, I was like how amazing is it that we are literally going out and making sure that these work helping keep communities safe, raising awareness and it's always really exciting. I wrote about it when I submitted the letter of intent, but at the beginning I wrote I can't wait for the day that hopefully I get the call that the defibrillator was used and it saved someone's life, and to hear those stories. I know you've gotten so many of those over the years and I can't imagine like how exciting that is to know how many lives you've saved, etc. So I was really excited to get the first one, and now we have a wall of saves where we put up all of the lives that we've had. So it's a really cool feeling to be able to do something so mission- critical.
Julie: 16:09
Well, and I think there'd be nothing worse as a human in the situation where you tried to use a defibrillator and it did not work Like that would not be. You know, that would not be a good situation for anyone to end up in. So I think it's a really important message to carry as well.
Ania: 16:23
Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately, like we do get organizations that come to us in situations like that where they thought you know we have one, it's going to work. Maybe they didn't buy it from us or whatever and so or they weren't educated about service and maintenance prior to, and then they end up finding us afterwards. But those are always the worst scenarios and I really feel for people when that happens, because you want to try to do the right thing, but it's hard to do the right thing If you don't have the right tools. Like you wouldn't show up to do a surgery. Like you don't expect your surgeon to show up to do surgery with, like you know, kitchen scissors you can't show up to. You know a A situation like that with the wrong tool Without the right gear.
Julie: 17:12
, and so I mean it speaks to your view that ramping up the on-site maintenance side of the business was a huge opportunity.
Ania: 17:21
Yes, yeah, that's definitely been a majority of the business for a long time, but expanding on that is something that's really exciting to me and to our team. So continuing to get the message out and being a little bit more thoughtful around how we do sales and marketing and how we're speaking to people when they come and ask us for items. In the past it really used to be, you know, whatever they asked for is what the team would produce. So oftentimes you know you come and you don't really know about service and maintenance. So I'll just quote you for defibrillators, right. But now there's much more of a push to make sure we're talking about the service and educating around the service piece as well.
Julie: 18:08
Around how to keep it working in the best shape possible, exactly. So it's interesting because obviously it's a business that has a good amount of regulation around it. It's not sort of that all-encompassing amount of regulation you know, when you talk about that, people aren't aware about maintenance and those kinds of things.
Ania: 18:30
Yeah, no, it's a really interesting point because there's not a lot of federal regulation, which is what makes it challenging, and then it falls down to each state deciding what they would like to do, and some states are much more regulated than others. Some have regulations around venues any public venue that has capacity limits, so it can be as minimal as a place that has 300, a capacity of 300 to. The first place that regulation starts is in a building or office space that's more than 10,000 square feet, so it can be really varied state by state, which is, I think, what makes it really challenging to navigate as a consumer and as a business or organization, because you don't know exactly what you should be doing and it's kind of left up to you. And then a lot of people have a fear around the liability around it. So what happens if we do have it and it doesn't work? And now what for us? Because we weren't technically told we need to have this device.
Ania: 19:39
But now we have it.
Julie: 19:40
We voluntarily did this, yeah. Exactly, yeah, all the questions that would be normal to be asking.
Ania: 19:48
Exactly
Ania: 19:49
to that point I just do want to mention on the liability side, there are laws that protect people from, and organizations from, stepping in and helping. So there should not be a fear about having these devices, even if you're not regulated to, because you're protected by laws. And if you have, like a third party maintenance provider or you're doing the maintenance yourself and you're keeping inspection logs, that will also help you know on the liability side.
Julie: 20:17
Yeah, well, and it's important. And I mean, did you know when you bought the business that the advocacy work would be as important as it is?
Ania: 20:25
I had a feeling that it would be. I think it's really important to continue to connect within the community around these issues. That's the only way to kind of gain more spotlight on the topic. I think one of the most talked about events in the recent years was the DeMar Hamlin incident. Everybody saw that happen on national TV and that really sparked a conversation around some cardiac arrest and defibrillators and the importance of defibrillators.
Julie: 20:56
And somebody young and healthy and-.
Ania: 20:59
An athlete and since that incident there was a lot of momentum afterwards, but you know, now that's been two years, so it's important to continue to stay involved and talk about it and speak to you know, local lawmakers speak with organizations that are working to raise awareness because they're doing the work of continuing to try to keep it in the spotlight.
Julie: 21:26
And I mean your background to get here was interesting too, right Like you're doing institutional equities trading, working, you know, working in private capital, those kinds of things. And then obviously, MBA school, which gave you also a deep business kind of education. What about it? Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur? Like was it? Did you feel drawn to it? I mean, you talked to me a little bit about the small business that you started before COVID, so you obviously had entrepreneurship on the mind.
Ania: 22:00
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So both my parents have always been extremely entrepreneurial and I grew up in a household of entrepreneurs. So my parents when I was younger I didn't appreciate it as much, but my parents were the parents who were always at every event and everybody else's parents, would you know, sometimes make it, sometimes not, and I'd always be like, how are you guys able to literally be at everything? And when I was a teenager, sometimes it was a little annoying, but looking back on it now I'm so grateful for that. And when I thought about flexibility and like what would allow me to do that?
Ania: 22:43
I have a son now, but I, you know, maybe one day I'll have more, more than one child, but what would allow me to do that for my family and my children and entrepreneurship was really that I am one of those people. But I wanted to have flexibility to you know, make my schedule and do what needs to get done and also show up and be there for my family. But, as anybody who is a working parent like, it's always a give and take. There's no perfect balance.
Julie: 23:14
Yes, but I do. I really agree with you. I mean it's why I started my business. It was around having the flexibility Flexibility doesn't mean you like take the afternoon off and go to the play. It often means you're working later at night or early in the morning and you probably work more than you would in a traditional career. But it's. It does give you the ability to put down things when you need to do something, and it's important. I mean it was great for my family.
Ania: 23:48
Exactly and to your point exactly. It's like it's okay to work at those odd hours, because sometimes, when you're in more traditional roles, it's like that's frowned upon oh, you're not at your desk by 8am or 8 am or whatever it is Right, or you're not sitting there at five o'clock, like that's not OK, whereas when you're operating in an entrepreneurial environment, you can can be working from 4 am to 7 am and then you know going to do drop off or like a parent teacher event and then go back and pick up where you left off.
Julie: 24:27
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's just one of those pieces of like you have to decide what works for you, but I definitely think that that culture of not clock watching but being really, really pointed on delivering of results is a really key differentiator that you can lean into and allow. Like, nobody wants to be told they were late when they come in at 9.01. Yes, exactly Because traffic was a little worse than they thought. And, as a leader, those aren't the things you want to be watching for.
Ania: 25:04
Exactly that's. Nobody likes being in an environment that's like that and that's not the environment that you want to create. And as a working parent, I have a lot of working parents that work for me too, especially a lot of working moms. So affording everybody that flexibility is really important. Because, again, nobody wants to feel like someone's like waiting for you to step foot into the office you know two minutes late one day, so you can get docked for that.
Julie: 25:33
Yeah, yeah. And setting up your life in a way to that makes it, you know, so that you have the support on the home front that you need to be able to work the way you want to work
Ania: 25:45
Exactly.
Ania: 25:46
That's super important, making sure you have the support at home too, because it's really hard when you don't have those systems. I'm lucky to have those systems. My husband is definitely. He also works and he understands like the way I function and the best ways that I function work-wise, so he's really flexible with me as well, which I really appreciate, and we both have our families nearby, so that helps with a lot when it comes to emergencies exactly all those emergency doctor's visits that you have to go to once they start when you have a toddler Exactly, which is exactly where my son is today. So we had a month period over the summer where it was like every week we were at the doctor's.
Julie: 26:36
And it's hard, right, it's really hard. I remember when I started working with my coach, one of the early things she did was sort of sit me down and say, okay, yeah, what's the village, how are you doing it? And my kids were older, like, like in their you know, eight to 12 kind of age and you know, okay, so how, what's your backup if you can't drive them somewhere, if you get called away for something at work? Do you have a taxi, chit? I mean, I'm dating myself a little bit, but, but you know, like those kinds of things where you know you have backup plan where your kid could still get from A to B, you can, you know, feel comfortable about how they're getting from A to B.
Julie: 27:15
So is that a family member? Is it a? You know, do you have a nanny or somebody after school housekeeping that helps them? Do you have? You know, and I mean the reason that you think about a taxi instead of an Uber or something like that is really about bonded and insured, right, yeah, so you know, like, just what are those things that you put into place and how do you consider safety and how do you consider the right way to do it?
Julie: 27:39
But you need all of those kind of infrastructures to help you.
Ania: 27:45
Yeah, exactly, they're so important and having those conversations with your partner or your support system, whatever that may look like, to understand that so everybody's on the same page. Because I also feel like a lot of times we carry a lot more mental load and so you get exactly. So, you get exactly. So you get kind of bogged down by this like, oh well, what is the plan? Only they know, only you know, mom knows the plan, or whatever. So, making sure everybody's well versed on the plan, so in case something happens, maybe you're getting the notification about it or whatever you can delegate more simply, so that it's not as burdensome as like trying to figure it out in the moment or really everything in that moment.
Julie: 28:27
Yeah, picking the important things right and definitely I think like easing the mental load is a big piece of it, for sure.
Ania: 28:34
Yes, exactly, Sometimes it can feel like when you're, you know, obviously running a business and then trying to manage a household and everything, sometimes it's like all right, I just need five minutes to just think about nothing. I think sometimes we, you know, when we have like nothing on our minds or we're just relaxing, we don't appreciate it enough and like really enjoy that it's the constant running to-do list.
Ania: 29:05
Exactly, but really like taking time to actually like do those, I think is so important. It helps you recharge too, because if your mind's always going 24 seven, you're never going to get a break or get a moment to calm down, and those like five minutes of truly nothing can mean so much for your energy and your productivity.
Julie: 29:25
It's true, it's true. So you are, what about two years into this journey?
Ania: 29:32
Yeah, about two years in from the search phase.
Julie: 29:38
Search LOI closing. And now here we are. What has been the most surprising to you in this journey?
Ania: 29:47
That's a great question. I think what has been most surprising is people. Honestly, because I think, coming into this, I don't want to say I was cynical, but I was a little more apprehensive maybe. Yeah, I think I was more like people aren't going to want to be as helpful as they are, people aren't going to be as excited to jump into whatever it may be. So when I was looking for a business, I was like people aren't going to want to talk to me unless they really are interested in selling their business to me. But I had so many people that were just so interested in just being helpful, just to be helpful, which I found so refreshing and unexpected.
Ania: 30:41
Once I started operating, one of my biggest worries was okay, how am I going to get people to actually be excited about these, like, work related tasks and items? And, surprisingly, like and part of it is due to the fact that I'm an amazing team but everybody was really excited to do a lot of these structural processes and changes and all of that. So every time, I feel like I've been really surprised by how wonderful everybody is and that I think, coming into it, I did not expect, because I expected to have to, like you know, pull more teeth and potentially, you know, potentially you know I hate micromanaging I'm not a micromanager but potentially be like a lot deeper in the weeds on certain tasks and initiatives to make sure they were moving in the right direction. But that has not been the case at all.
Julie: 31:34
That's really great. So you know really. It's like, don't be afraid to ask
Ania: 31:39
Exactly.
Ania: 31:40
I think people on the whole surprise you in positive ways than in negative ways, and I think for a lot of people it's the fear of the what if that stops them from doing things. But what I've learned is just rip the bandaid off and just do it and then see what happens, and I found, honestly, most of the it's surprising in a positive way and not a negative way.
Julie: 32:04
I think that's such great advice, so good. Well, Ania, I can't wait to follow you along and see what the growth looks like and how you manage it in the future. I wish you all the best, and thank you so much for joining me today.
Ania: 32:20
Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome to be a part of it.
Julie: 32:25
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