Menu
April 12, 2017 |
Subscribe:
Anthony Amos and his brother started HydroDog, an Australian mobile dog washing and grooming service. After revolutionizing the industry and growing to more than $10 million in annual revenue, Amos decided it was time to sell.
Anthony Amos and his brother started HydroDog, an Australian company offering a mobile dog washing and grooming service. For $10, the Amos brothers would show up at your door with a giant dog bath on the back of their trailer and wash your dog.
Amos re-imagined his trailer system and built a giant dog bath in the form of an over-sized blue dog that travels around city streets.
The giant blue dogs created a lot of buzz, so the Amos brothers decided to franchise the business. The company took off and grew to more than $10 million in annual revenue from 100 franchisees all across Australia.
That’s when Amos decided it was time to sell.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• The four types of franchisees.
• How and when to tell your employees (and franchisees) that you’re selling.
• The secret reason buyers perform due diligence.
• The surprising strategy for ensuring you get top dollar for your business.
After Amos sold his business, he went on a six-day bender followed by a speculative real estate investment that turned bad in the 2008 financial crisis. Amos lost all of the money he had made in the sale of HydroDog, forcing him to start all over again. Sadly, Amos’ experience is all too common when you don’t have a clear sense of what you will do with the profits from selling your business. That’s why the Module 12 of The Value Builder System™ is dedicated to helping you define a vision and a purpose for your life after you sell. Get started free right now by getting your Value Builder Score.
Are You the Entrepreneur’s Obi-Wan Kenobi?
If you advise business owners on driving up the value of their company, we want to talk. Our network of Certified Value Builders™ from around the world is a group of seasoned advisors who guide owners through building the value of their company. Each year, we certify only a small group of professional advisors. If you are a sage advisor owners turn to for advice, we should talk. Apply to be one of our next advisors here.
Anthony Amos started his career playing professional rugby straight out of high school in Australia. While playing football Anthony decided to use his down time to start his own business, so at 21 he and his younger brother founded a mobile dog grooming business. Their ‘prototype’ grooming trailer consisted of a secondhand hydro-bath (special dog bath) strapped on to the back of a box trailer! They put an ad in the local newspaper, rented a mobile phone and they were on their way! Within 5 years Hydrodog had grown to over 100 franchises across Australia. In 2006 the brothers decided and it was time to sell Australia and New Zealand.
One Bold Decision That Led to a 20X Growth in Revenue
In 2009, Raman Sehgal started a small marketing company called ramarketing. In 2015, frustrated with the company’s progress, Sehgal decided to analyze his business.
That’s when he discovered something interesting.
Ramarketing’s most valuable customers (low-maintenance, sticky, high gross margin etc.) were in the pharmaceutical industry. Sehgal immediately pivoted the company to solely serve clients in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
How One Pivot Doubled The Value of This Business
James Garvey grew Objective Loyalty from a standing start in 2005 to $2.5 million in EBITDA. When he and his partner decided to sell they were able to quickly double the value when they switched sell tactics.
Why Candy Banners Sold for a Mint
In 2014 Tim Grassin founded Candy Banners, which designs ads that show up along the top, bottom, and sides of a website.
Grassin built a remote team in the Philippines to minimize his costs. Hiring inexpensive developers allowed Grassin to charge lower rates to agency owners, resulting in rapid growth.
The business had grown to over seven figures in revenue in 2020 when Grassin received an acquisition offer from one of his clients, Native Touch. The offer valued Candy Banners at around five times EBITDA, and the deal closed in 2021.
How EBITDA Adjustments Impact The Value Of Your Business
Ari Ackerman started Bunk1 in 1999 to give parents a way to keep in touch with their kids while they were at summer camp.
In 2001, Adam Torres started Team Dynamix, a software used by colleges and universities to keep their IT department organized.
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.
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.
The Surprising Reason Ryan Kulp Sold Fomo
In 2016, Ryan Kulp launched Fomo because he saw marketers using aggressive popups on their websites.
Kulp reasoned that if he could show other people were shopping and interacting with a site, it would give new visitors confidence in the company.
Fomo allows businesses to show off real-time customer interactions (purchases, opt-ins, even pageviews) with a line of code the company installs on their site.
Jeremy Nagel started his entrepreneurial career teaching clients how to get the most out of Zoho, a popular CRM platform. Nagel began cultivating a small following on YouTube by sharing his advice for Zoho enthusiasts.
Given his status in their ecosystem, Zoho approached Nagel about creating an SMS plug-in for their application to allow users to text their clients while using Zoho. Nagel developed the application while keeping his day job. Despite only dedicating one or two days a week to its growth, the feature quickly became one of the top five applications in the Zoho marketplace.
In 2013 South African entrepreneur Jason Bagley started Firing Squad, a lead generation company specializing in cold emails.
In 2020 Firing Squad signed an agreement to be acquired by Southern Web and was later rebranded to SiteCare.
The deal was something Bagley would later come to regret.
In 2017, John Whiting started Digital Kryptonite with the goal of providing business owners with more leads. Helping his clients mine LinkedIn, Whiting quickly grew his company from zero to seven figures within a year. The company saw massive growth month-over-month when suddenly Whiting received a message from his credit card processor that his account was being shut down.
Although 98% of Whiting’s customers were happy, 2% were not, which led to a greater dispute rate than Stripe allowed. This ultimately led to Whiting being placed on the Match List, which inhibited his ability to process payments. Suddenly, the seven-figure business Whiting had built was in jeopardy.
With little faith left, John received an email from a friend asking to buy his company. In his own words, it was a “lifeboat,” and Whiting jumped on with both feet.
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.
