One Company, Two 8-Figure Exits
Ed Buckley started Peerfit, which allows companies to offer fitness classes as part of their employee benefits package. The company grew to more than 150 employees before receiving an acquisition offer for almost $100 million from a major fitness brand widely reported to be Peloton. Buckley retained some of the IP, which, in a strange twist, he was able to sell in another eight-figure exit months later.
A Small Giant Makes a Great Exit
Tyler Tringas maintained his independence from beginning to end, starting with bootstrapping his SaaS company and then ultimately navigating the sale alone.
Raising Money Vs. Going It Alone
Katherine Hague co-founder of ShopLocket was a prodigious fundraiser in the two years from idea to exit. Hague describes some of the landmines to avoid when raising outside capital and why she still has one regret about the sale to PCH.
5 Lessons from growing a startup to a 9-figure exit in 2 years
David Yaffe was working at Google when he spotted an opportunity to connect advertisers with smaller publishers competing for online advertising dollars. He and two friends started Arbor, raised more than $2 million in seed capital and built a prototype. Two years later, Arbor had grown to 25 employees when LiveRamp acquired them for more than $100 million.
How Two Co-Founders Stopped One Thing To Change Everything
The two founders of Stelligent were burnt out running their consulting business until they agreed to stop doing one thing that changed just about everything.
Startup to Exit in 18 Months
Building a sellable business doesn’t have to take years. Drew Kraemer received his first acquisition offer nine months after he started Marketplace Strategy.
Identity Theft
Yvonne Tocquigny built her advertising agency up over 35 years working with clients like Jeep and Dell. Then in 2015, she got a call asking if she would consider selling. The problem was that her agency had become part of who she was.
How To Increase An Acquisition Offer Without Appearing Greedy
In 2012, Gabriela Isturiz co-founded Bellefield Systems, a company offering a timekeeping application for lawyers. Over the next seven years, Bellefield grew to 45 employees when Isturiz decided to hire an advisor to find a strategic investor. Given Bellefield’s growth and success, Isturiz was hoping the process would garner a valuation of 5-7 times Bellefield’s Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).
Multiple Of Earnings Vs. Revenue
Glenn Grant always assumed he would sell his company for a multiple of EBITDA… until private equity firms started talking multiples of revenue. He decided to learn more.
How Mike Winnet Sold His E-learning Company for Around 4-Times Revenue
In 2015 Mike Winnet started U.K.-based Learning Heroes after recognizing that most e-learning programs were long and boring. Winnet saw an opportunity to transform the industry by creating short, engaging, animated training courses.
Winnet started by trying to sell his courses to job seekers, but when his efforts failed, he pivoted to selling to companies. Instead of a few hundred dollars a year from job seekers, selling to companies meant he was getting a few thousand dollars a year.
Libsyn’s Acquisition of AdvertiseCast: The Tell-All
In 2016 Trevr Smithlin and Dave Hanley founded AdvertiseCast, a marketplace connecting podcasters with advertisers. The company experienced tremendous growth, doubling revenue year-over-year until 2020. That’s when the uncertainty triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic caused Smithlin and Hanley to consider their strategic options.
In March 2021, Smithlin and Hanley signed an acquisition agreement from Libsyn for $30 million.