About

I'm Rishi Sharma. I buy security companies, and I write about how it goes.

Where I come from

My parents built a video surveillance company out of nothing, and I grew up inside it. My first memories of work are warehouse aisles stacked with cameras and cable. I started in that warehouse, worked through sales and product, and eventually ran the business. We scaled it into a national brand, made the Inc. 5000 more than once, and sold it. That left me with a strong opinion about what happens to a family business after it changes hands.

The detour

After the sale I spent a few years at a venture fund looking at more than 200 AI and technology companies, and picked up an MBA at UCLA Anderson. Venture taught me how capital thinks, and how often capital is wrong about operations.

I came back because software is elegant and security is alive. Trucks, technicians, a monitoring center at 2 a.m.

What I'm building

NextGen Live Security is a holding company. We buy founder-led security businesses, keep the name on the truck, and hold them.

The part I care about is the handoff. Someone spends 30 years building a company where customers know his voice, then hands it to a stranger. I have watched it go both ways, and price is rarely the difference. How we buy lives on the acquisitions page.

The rest of it

I cook seriously and eat out constantly, and I have never understood why people treat those as opposites. Cooking is the only thing I do where the feedback loop closes in 40 minutes.

I read biographies, mostly for the decade nobody writes about. I follow UCLA and the Lakers, which lately is less a hobby than a test of character.

I write Mindful Capital every week, on buying businesses and the mental models I use to decide things. Around 1,200 people read it.

Get in touch

If you own a security company and have started thinking about what comes next, I would like to know you before there is a process. My inbox is open.