How Mainspring Went From a Valuation of 1 to 5 Times Revenue

In 2014, Hank Goddard got an offer of one times revenue to buy his software company, Mainspring Healthcare Solutions.

Goddard said, “No, thank you”.

A year later, the acquirer came back and doubled their offer to two times revenue. Again, Goddard declined.

It wasn’t until the acquirer came all the way up to five times revenue that Goddard agreed to sell.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to get an acquirer to quintuple their offer
• How to structure employee stock options (structure vesting, etc.)
• The biggest mistake to avoid when hiring “C-level” leaders
• The definition of a preferred share and how venture capitalists use them to wipe out founders
• How to get employees to buy in when you need to pivot your business model
• When to strategically ignore acquirers

Goddard shifted Mainspring from selling perpetual software licenses to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model that enabled him to maximize the proportion of Mainspring’s sales that were recurring—a key driver in getting five times revenue for their business. Have you figured out your recurring revenue model yet? If not, you’ll nail it in Module 5 of The Value Builder System™. Get started for free by completing Module 1 now.

About Our Guest

Hank Goddard is an entrepreneur and investor based in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the course of his career, Hank has designed jet engines, made a living flipping houses, acquired and sold multiple companies, and built companies from scratch. Hank’s most recent operating role was the CEO of Mainspring Healthcare Solutions, one of his portfolio companies that had been under performing. He took the company through a restructuring and turnaround, grew the business five-fold, and sold it in early 2016 at a very healthy multiple of revenue.