Menu
August 19, 2015 |
Subscribe:
The pros and cons of selling to a partner.
Selling internally is not the first thing that comes to mind when an entrepreneur thinks about an exit strategy, but it could be the best fit. After all, who knows your business better than someone who is a part of it? In this episode of Built To Sell Radio, you’ll hear how Heather Osgood smoothly exited her business along with some ups and downs while selling her business to a partner.
Heather Osgood is a serial entrepreneur, with a passion for living outside her comfort zone and a system for continual self improvement. Starting her career in advertising sales she quickly learned what it meant to be a business owner, seeing the failures and successes of hundreds of small business owners. Her training and knowledge in sales and marketing created a strong foundation for the development of her trade show production company which she owned for over nine years and just recently sold. The sale of this business and the knowledge that she gained from the highs and lows of operating that company allowed her to intimately experience the challenges that every entrepreneur faces, wanting to do too much with too little money and too little time.
Dennis Hart sold his advertising agency for 7.1X. That sounds like a great exit but it disguises the complexity of the negotiations. Hart felt like he knew precisely how much EBITDA he generated until the buyer started questioning his math.
Would you rather have one million dollars in the bank today or a chance to have ten million a decade from now? It’s a philosophical question that comes down to the time value of money and your tolerance for risk.
The Surprising Story Behind PetSmart’s Acquisition of AllPaws
Back in 2013, on the heels of building a successful online dating application, Darrell Lerner decided to apply his experience in the dating industry to pet adoption. He built a website and mobile app called AllPaws which allows users to find a pet based on a variety of criteria important to people considering adopting an animal.
Rick Martinez is a military nurse who stumbled into the staffing business by accident and grew his company to 600 employees. Then, when he decided to sell his business, he took a surprisingly zen-like approach to negotiating the deal.
Finding a buyer for Killer Shade was relatively easy. Closing the deal — and getting paid — was a whole lot harder.
How To Get Acquired By A Partner
Adam Ochstein started an HR software company called StratEx in the depths of the 2008 recession. CEOs were asking HR managers to do more with less and Ochstein’s software promised to help HR managers do just that. Despite the challenging economic environment, StratEx was an early success and was particularly popular with restaurants. Ochstein decided to focus on the hospitality sector and forged a partnership with Toast, one of the fastest-growing Point of Sale (POS) providers serving restaurants. The collaboration was a success, and StratEx ballooned to 160 employees.
The One Question You Never Answer
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio you’re going to hear from Erik Huberman, who started Swag-of-the-month, a T-shirt business he quickly scaled from start-up to sale in 18 months.
Huberman considers the exit a success, but during negotiations there was one question the acquirer asked that Huberman wishes he had never answered.
How a Simple Strategy Led to a 35% Higher Valuation for Conversio
In 2014, Adii Pienaar started an email marketing platform for retailers, which became Conversio. By 2019, Pienaar had $2 million in revenue and 14 employees.
How to Package Your Service Into a Product
Michael Spinosa and Scott Greenwell started a digital marketing agency called Unleashed Technologies at the start of the 2007 financial crisis. Spinosa believes the recession helped Unleashed get started because their flexibility and lower fees enabled them to pick up business from larger rivals who were losing customers amid cost-cutting. By 2019, Unleashed had grown to over $6 million in revenue when they were approached by LINC Partners, a private equity-backed group looking to do a role up of digital marketing agencies.
How to Sell a 30-Person Consultancy for $162 Million
At age 36, Greg Alexander decided to start Sales Benchmark Index (SBI), a sales consultancy. Over the next eleven years, Alexander built the business to 30 employees who collectively generated about $30 million in consulting fees per year.
6 Lessons Ryan Moran Learned From a Seven Figure Loss
Ryan Daniel Moran built Sheer Strength, a supplements business, up to a run rate of around $10 million per year when he decided it was time to sell.
