Dimitri Goikman
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So you end up going through these existential crises, and unless you can survive a crisis, you're done.
And so I kind of thought about it in retrospect.
I built this company, first of all, for resilience.
Because if you're funded by risk capital, it's somebody else's money at risk.
You go on, you fail someplace else, or you succeed someplace else.
I didn't want to fail.
So I failed sequentially in the same place, but I got reborn.
I had a co-owner, and I bought her out about 15 years ago.
I had a long, difficult negotiation, and eventually it just...
we went for a business valuation and they gave us a valuation.
What was the valuation?
I don't know.
It wasn't a lot at the time.
Like a million?
Not even, I think.
No, it was 500, 600 grand.
The idea was if the founder isn't in it, what's the business worth?
Very little.
Then I paid, I don't know, I paid like, I don't know,
120, 150, or 200 grand in cash.