Built to Sell Radio
Episodes
Ep. 47 Why Was This Money-Losing Business Worth $10 Million?
08 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For most of its 17 years, Imaging Path was a successful IT services contractor that peaked at more than $16 million in sales. Imaging Path founder and...
Ep. 46 The Apple Acquisition
01 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Silbersky sold his facial recognition software company Polar Rose to Apple in 2010 for a reported $29 million. The negotiation was relatively smo...
Ep. 45 Raising Money Vs. Going It Alone
25 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Hague, co-founded ShopLocket in 2011 and sold her business two years later to PCH, a billion dollar Irish company. Hague was a prodigious fu...
Ep. 44 Multiple of What?
18 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Hart sold his advertising agency, Apex Media, for 7.1 times EBITDA. Selling for 7X sounds like a great exit but it disguises the complexity of ...
Ep. 43 The Ambush
11 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How much would someone have to pay you to buy your business today? That's the question Kris Jones was asked when billionaire Michael Rubin approached ...
Ep. 42 How One Email Triggered Seven Acquisition
04 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Ep. 41 The Fishing Trip
27 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When John Bowen received a $37 million offer to buy his business, he thought it was too good to be true. As it turns out, it was. Bowen had received a...
Ep. 40 Is Your Partnership A Ticking Time Bomb?
20 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
John Maddox co-founded the digital agency Ten Fast Feet in the depths of the financial crisis. Despite his timing, Maddox was able to grow the busines...
Ep. 39 A Brand That's Built to Sell
13 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If you have ever put a label on a sippy cup, chances are Julie Cole’s company, Mabels Labels, produced it. Cole and her three partners built Mabel’...
Ep. 38 Selling Your Company vs. Selling Your Product
06 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Natalie Susi started Bare Organic Mixers to supply low-cal cocktail mixers to bars and restaurants in southern California. Susi got her product into 3...
Ep. 37 $250K to $180M
30 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Aaron Houghton sold iContact in 2012 for $180 million. The first round of growth was financed by something called convertible debt, which Houghton rec...
Ep. 36 The $20 Million Expiry Date
23 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In eight years Ryan Born built Audio Micro, which began operations in his spare bedroom, into an Inc. 500 company. Born went on to sell his business f...
Ep. 35 Playing Chicken
16 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Hoffman sold Competitive Technologies, a business intelligence company serving the travel industry, to American Express in a nine-figure exit. Af...
Ep. 34 The Strategic
09 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most financial acquirers will arrive at an offer for your business by calculating the profit they expect you to make and deciding what they are willin...
Ep. 33 Identity Theft
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Yvonne Tocquigny built her Austin-based advertising agency up over 35 years working with clients like Jeep, Dell, Hitachi, USAA and Caterpillar. Then ...
Ep. 32 The Atheist Bible Salesman Who Sold His Company for 5X Revenue
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Trevor McKendrick had created the best-selling Spanish-language Bible app when he was approached about an acquisition offer. Salem’s original offer ...
Ep. 31 Cut Your Earnout
17 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Stephan Spencer went to sell his consulting business in the late 1990s but buyers all wanted him to sign up for a long, painful, and risky earnout. Ke...
Ep. 30 Exiting the Automatic Business
10 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Schoen built Two Tree International, up to $4 million in revenue before he sold it in a multimillion dollar exit in 2015. Despite only working in ...
Ep. 29 The DIY Disaster
03 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
I loved watching David Price pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays in last year’s pennant race, so I was sad to see him sign a seven year, $217 million co...
Ep. 28 The Shotgun Deal
27 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A shotgun deal is the most brutal form of capitalism. When you can’t stand your partner anymore, you offer them a price for their shares. They have ...
Ep. 27 The 9-Figure Exit
20 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Usually a nine-figure exit takes more than a year to complete but when Blackberry found itself behind schedule on the launch of its tablet, RIM founde...
Ep. 26 3 Hidden Factors That Impact Your Business Valuation
13 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When you get an acquisition offer your eye will immediately go to the offer price. That’s only natural. But — there could be two other negotiating...
Ep. 25 The Phantom Buyer
06 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When negotiating to sell your company, the single fastest way to spike your earnings is to introduce a competing offer. But you don’t always have th...
Ep. 24 How a Non Compete Almost Derailed The Sale Of This $14M Business
16 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio John Warrillow interviews New York Times best selling author and serial entrepreneur, Kevin Kruse. As Kruse we...
Ep. 23 How to Sell Your Sweat Equity
09 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When you start a business from nothing, it can be hard to place a value on your “sweat equity”. This is where Phil Carson found himself when he de...
Ep. 22 Engineered to Sell
02 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow interviews Beate Chelette, the founder of a Beate Works, a creative company that she s...
Ep. 21 To Sell or Not to Sell?
24 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 co...
Ep. 20 - The $192M Exit
18 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
After starting and exiting BabyCenter.com, Mark Selcow built Merced Systems into a profitable business after year one. Ten years later he sold Merced ...
Ep. 19 The Question
11 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Ep. 18 Tied At The Hip
04 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rick Day built Daycom Systems into a $26 million dollar business over a 17-year run. Daycom sold phone systems but the company had a problem: it had b...
Ep. 17 The ADHD Entrepreneur
28 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Patey started Prodigy Engineering in 2010 to help companies leverage hybrid engine technology. Four short years later, Patey accepted a multi-mil...
Ep. 16 The Pivot
21 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Yang had built Manhattan GMAT into an $11 million business when Kaplan Test Prep, an 800-pound gorilla in the education business, threatened le...
Ep. 15 The Outsider
14 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Derek Sivers sold CD Baby for $22 million dollars and decided to do something interesting with the money. As an independent musician, Derek Sivers wa...
Ep. 14 The $10 Million Membership Model
07 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Small service-based businesses are typically not worth very much, but Walter Bergeron made one simple change to his business model that garnered a $10...
Ep. 13 The Boomerang Sale
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The first time David Phelps sold his dental practice, he ended up in a legal battle that cost him more than $100,000. Phelps eventually got his practi...
Ep. 12 The 26-Million-Dollar Regret
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Bobby Martin had built First Research up to $6.5 million dollars in revenue when he sold the business to a Fortune 500 company for 26 million dollars....
Ep. 11 Buy low, sell high
16 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
John Ratliff started Appletree Answers in a spare bedroom of his house in 1995 and by 2012 had grown it to 650 employees and 24 locations when he deci...
Ep. 10 The Hairy Deal
09 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Finding a buyer for Killer Shade was relatively easy. Closing the deal -- and getting paid -- was a whole lot harder. Mike Campion had built Phoenix-...
Ep. 09 The Zexit
02 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Ep. 08 A Scar Deep Enough To Make You Want To Sell
26 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Sullivan was riding high running one of Seattle’s largest printing companies when the 2008 recession hit. Within months, sales tanked and Sull...
Ep. 07 The buyer next door
19 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
Ep. 06 Earn Out, Flame Out
12 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, you’ll hear how Jason Swenk built up his digital advertising agency from nothing to thirteen million dollar...
Ep. 05 The downside of selling young
05 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
At the age of 27, Aaron Walker sold his business to a Fortune 500 company. He thought the money would make him happy, but life after selling was a lo...
Ep. 04 Avoiding the key man discount
29 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Built To Sell Radio, you’ll hear an interview with Jeff Davis, who sold his business Legal Artworks back in October 2014. Learn h...
Ep. 03 Business Exit Lessons Learned After Interviewing Hundreds of Entrepreneurs
22 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, you’ll hear the lessons Bo Burlingham has learned after interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs regarding th...
Ep. 02 The secret to negotiating a sale with a multi-billion dollar corporation
15 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Along with her father and brother, Laura Coe grew Litholink into a $10 million business with 50 employees. Then one day, a multi-billion-dollar busine...
Ep. 01 How to negotiate an extra $1M in the sale of your business overnight
15 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
After building his business for twenty years, Stuart Crane sold it for $43M, which includes an extra million he got by using this one simple technique...
Ep. 00 An Intro to Built to Sell Radio
13 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Built to Sell Radio is a weekly podcast for business owners. Each week, we ask a recently cashed out entrepreneur why they decided to sell, what the...