This week on Built to Sell Radio, you’ll hear the story of Tad Fallows. Along with two friends, Tad co-founded iLab, a SaaS platform built to help universities and hospitals manage their research labs. They bootstrapped it to high–seven figures of recurring revenue and sold to Agilent Technologies for around six times ARR.
What makes this story so compelling is the tension along the way. Tad and his partners often had just weeks of cash left in the bank while managing 75 employees. They faced an early offer at 3× ARR that forced them to decide: take the deal or double down on growth. They ultimately chose to run a banker-led process, widening their total addressable market and attracting Agilent as the strategic acquirer.
In this episode, you’ll discover how to:
-
Use customer money to fund product development—without giving up the IP.
-
Expand TAM with international logos and add-on modules that change your valuation story.
-
Push valuation multiples higher by preparing properly with a banker.
-
Spot the systemic risks that make many earn-outs impossible to achieve.
-
Navigate the emotional whiplash of going from bootstrapped stress to an eight-figure exit.
-
Avoid spoiling your kids after a liquidity event—and hear what thousands of post-exit entrepreneurs actually do with their wealth.
P.S. If you’re thinking about your own exit, you might also want to download our free eBook, Inside the Mind of an Acquirer, to see how to make your business more attractive to acquirers.
Our philosophy was always whenever somebody is willing to pay us more than we think this is worth, we’re going to sell.
Deals
The Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), founded in 1960 at the University of Chicago, provides financial market data and indexes that serve as benchmarks for over $3 trillion in U.S. equities. The university is selling CRSP to Morningstar, Inc. for $375 million, a deal that values the business at roughly 7x revenue based on CRSP’s annual revenue of about $55 million.
