The Downside Of Being Upfront With Employees
In 2011 Josh Holtzman, the founder and CEO of American Data Company, gathered his employees into a conference room to announce “Fifteen Cubed”, a company-wide initiative to grow to $15 million in revenue by the year 2015.
The downside of accepting shares as payment from your acquirer
Doug Chapiewsky built CenterPoint Solutions Inc. into an Inc. 500 company with $5 million in revenue and more than $3 million in EBITDA before he sold it to Israeli-based Nice Systems.
How to Sell a 12 Employee Company for $17 Million
Rafael Zimberoff built ShipRush, an application that helps businesses streamline their technology, to 12 full-time employees when he sold it to Descartes for $14 million, plus a $3 million earn-out.
The Inside Story of Stripe’s Acquisition of Indie Hackers with Co-Founder Channing Allen
In 2016 Channing Allen and his brother Courtland founded Indie Hackers, a blog and forum that encourages founders to transparently share their ideas and stories.
After only eight months, the brothers had grown the business to $8,000 in revenue when they received an unexpected email from Patrick Collison (co-founder and CEO of Stripe), who was looking to acquire the company.
Although tempted to keep building, Stripe’s offer was too good to refuse. The brothers agreed to be acquired by Stripe in March 2017.
What 250 Owners Have to Say About Selling Your Business
It’s a big week at Built to Sell Radio as we celebrate our 250th episode. That’s 250 entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, and owners who have shared their stories and their time over the last 5 years.
To mark the event, Built to Sell Radio’s producer, Shawn McDonald, takes over the mic to highlight insights from some of the most talked-about, most popular, and most memorable episodes from the course of the show.
Sociopaths & Impostors: How To Sell Your Baby To A Giant
Jonathan Evans was an air ambulance helicopter pilot when he started to think about how drones could safely navigate the sky around him. Commercial pilots had rules of the sky, but there were no guidelines for drones despite companies from Amazon to Walmart beginning to experiment with using drones.
How to Get More Than 1 Times Revenue for a Company with No Hard Assets
Etienne Borgeat co-founded PCO innovation, an IT consulting firm, in 2000. By 2016, the firm had 600 full-time employees and offices around the world, which is when Accenture knocked on their door.
When to Tell Employees You’re Thinking of Selling
Lois Melbourne and her husband started Acquire Solutions, a software business that helped large companies manage their employees. After 18 years, they had grown to 85 people and received an offer from a private equity firm.
Cut Your Earnout
In this episode, Stephan Spencer details three strategies he pursued to withdraw from his business’s day-to-day operations. By 2010, he was able to take a six-month sabbatical which ultimately lead to a sale in 2010 with only a six-month earnout.
How to Sell Your Business to a Competitor
Alex Rink built 360pi, a software application that provided online retailers with competitive pricing information.
360pi grew into a multi-million-dollar company with 40 employees when Rink began hearing his business might be worth as much as 3-6 times revenue.
6 Lessons From Selling Your Company to a Growth Equity Investor
Despite starting with just $10,000 in 2004, Jon Morris built Rise Interactive, a digital marketing agency, to more than 100 employees before deciding to sell part of the business to Quad, a global marketing services provider.
Hacking Your Way to a $22 Million Exit
In 2015 Nick Santora founded Curricula, a cyber security awareness training program that helps companies defend themselves against hackers. Santora created fun, cartoon training videos in contrast to the dull content that existed at the time.
Companies happily embraced Santora’s approach. By 2021 he had grown Curricula to just over $2 million in annual recurring revenue when he accepted an acquisition offer from the cyber security giant Huntress for $22 million.