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May 4, 2016 |
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Back in 2011, Nathan Latka started Heyo, a social media company that helped businesses advertise on Facebook. By 2016, Heyo had raised $2.5 million in seed and venture capital financing and, by all accounts, it was a successful business.
Then Latka sent an unusual email that would ultimately garner him seven offers to buy his business – with the winning bid amounting to an incredible 11 times revenue. Listen to Latka describe the content of the email.
Latka garnered seven offers because he knew what would make his business attractive to a buyer. Find out how acquirers would view your business by getting your Value Builder Score.
Nathan Latka (@NathanLatka) is the founder and CEO of Heyo. After selling $70,000 worth of Facebook campaigns from his dorm room, he dropped out of college and has since raised over $2.5 million from a Forbes Billionaire while supporting over 250,000 small business owners as they look to capture emails and drive sales from Facebook. Latka is a frequent contributor on Inside Facebook, All Facebook, and Social Media Today. His content is taught in the best-selling book, Facebook Marketing for Dummies. He is an expert in Facebook marketing, social analytics and social selling. Latka doesn’t care about big business and is focused on supporting 500,000 small business owners and entrepreneurs by 2017.
Built to Sell Radio Q&A Feature
This week on the show, we tried something a little different.
Instead of interviewing an owner about their exit, we canvassed founders for their questions about building to sell and asked the host of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow, to answer them.
In this episode, John draws on his experience interviewing more than 300 founders on Built to Sell Radio to answer five essential questions.
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.
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.
Looking Smaller to Make Your Company Bigger
In 2008, Gavin Hammar started Sendible, a platform that allows companies to manage all their social media accounts from one place.
The company grew steadily until 2016, when Hammar hit a sales plateau. Challenged to combat a high churn rate, Hammar took several unique steps to humanize his business.
Becoming a more approachable brand worked. Sales increased by 30% year-over-year and by 2021, Sendible had 47 employees when they were approached by ASG with an acquisition offer Hammar couldn’t refuse.
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.
Brighter Vision's Niche Strategy Leads to $17.5 Million Acquisition
In 2011, Perry Rosenbloom started the web development company, Brighter Vision. After a few years of jumping from project to project, Rosenbloom had a breakthrough. Instead of doing web design for everyone, he decided to focus on creating websites exclusively for therapists.
His decision to niche down worked as revenue soared.
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).
How to Get One Million More from PwC
From an agile SMB to the big, corporate environment of one of the Big Four auditors – this business owner learned negotiating a price is only half the battle.
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.
The ‘Sell Your Business Before It Starts’ Mindset
When is the best time to start thinking about an acquirer? For one company, they had it on their agenda since day one.
Selling Your Business vs. Getting Acquired
In 2012, Ryan Coon started Rentalutions, a platform to help landlords manage and communicate with their tenants more effectively.
The business showed steady growth, but Coon wasn’t satisfied.
Five years in, Coon rebranded the company to Avail and focused his marketing to target DIY landlords with under ten rental units to manage. The changes proved successful as Coon grew the business to around $7 million in revenue before selling to Realtor.com in 2020 for approximately five times revenue.
How to Sell a Service Business Without an Earn-Out
In 2011, Jodie Cook started an eponymously named social media agency, JC Social Media. Over the next nine years, Cook built the business up to 16 employees. Then, she decided to sell at the end of 2020 and thought her company could be worth in the 5-7 times EBITDA range.
