What’s next?
More Than a Business Podcast.
Northstar is a podcast about building, buying, operating, and eventually deciding what happens to a business—and the life built around it.Hosted by Jake Knopfler, Northstar goes deep on healthcare, business ownership, M&A, sales, succession, relationships, ambition, discipline, and everything else that comes with building something that actually matters.
What We Talk About
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Building & Buying
Buying a business is more than buying a P&L. We talk about what makes an opportunity worth pursuing, what owners should understand before they buy, and what it actually takes to become the person capable of operating what you acquire.
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Selling & Succession
An eventual exit should influence how you operate today. We get into selling a business, business succession, valuation, preparing for a transaction, and the decisions that can materially change the outcome long before a buyer ever shows up.
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Healthcare & Ownership
Healthcare is its own world. Northstar explores healthcare businesses, healthcare M&A, ownership, operations, acquisitions, and the realities of building companies in an industry where the stakes are high and the details matter.
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Sales & Relationships
Business is built by people. We talk about sales, trust, negotiation, partnerships, relationships, and the uncomfortable conversations that can make or break an opportunity.
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Ownership & Entrepreneurship
You’re either a buyer or a seller. Northstar looks at ownership from that lens—how owners think, how they make decisions, how they create value, and what happens when growth stops being the priority.
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Grit & Discipline
Doing difficult things changes you. We talk about discipline, running, personal performance, resilience, ambition, and the less glamorous parts of becoming the person your goals require you to be.
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Life Outside the Deal
A business doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Neither does an owner. Family, relationships, career decisions, identity, ambition, and the life you’re building alongside the company are all part of the conversation.
Why Northstar
Because Experience Changes the Conversation.
There is a difference between talking about business and actually being in it.
Jake has lived across healthcare operations, business brokerage, healthcare M&A, acquisitions, selling businesses, relationships, and entrepreneurship.
He’s seen deals work. He’s seen them fall apart. He’s seen things get accepted, rejected, negotiated, walked away from, and completely rethought.
That experience shapes how he looks at ownership.
Northstar isn’t built around pretending every problem has a clean answer. It’s built around asking better questions.
What are you actually building?
What will it look like five years from now?
What does a buyer see that you don’t?
What are you avoiding?
Are you operating like someone who intends to own this forever—or someone who may eventually sell?
Because buyers are the market.
And one buyer is no buyer.
The conversations on Northstar aren’t designed to end in a neat takeaway. They’re designed to make you think differently about what you’re doing now.
Every episode is different.
Sometimes the conversation is about a deal, an acquisition, a healthcare business, or an eventual exit.
Sometimes it’s about sales, relationships, discipline, ambition, or something that has almost nothing to do with business on the surface.
But underneath it, we’re usually talking about the same thing: How people make decisions when something they care about is on the line.