Built to Sell Radio
Built to Sell Radio is a weekly interview show for business owners who are thinking about selling their company. Each episode features an entrepreneur who recently sold a business, explaining why they decided to sell, what they got right and which mistakes they made along the way. The conversations cover valuations, negotiations, buyers, and the emotional side of exiting. Hosted by John Warrillow, it serves as an insider's guide to preparing for the biggest financial transaction of an owner's life.
Episodes
Ep 566 From "Unsellable" to $112M, a Bootstrapped Sale to Intertek
Clean Energy Associates acted as the eyes and ears on the ground in China for solar and battery storage buyers, inspecting factories to make sure the products they ordered were built correctly before they shipped. In 2016, a banker sat down with founder Andy Klump in Shanghai and asked him three questions. How would he triple his business in a short period of time? Who was on his executive tea
Ep 565 He 10X'd His Money in 3 Years With a Painting Franchise
Zac Smith was a mechanical engineer who wanted more flexibility and upside than a corporate career could offer. He bought an existing CertaPro Painters franchise in North Carolina with three employees and under $1 million in revenue. He put down about 10% in cash and financed the rest with an SBA loan and a small seller note, backed by a personal guarantee. Three years later, the company was o
Ep 564 7x on Paper. Break Even in Cash. Adam Spector on Staying in the Game After a Sale.
Adam Spector co-founded LiftIgniter in 2014, which used machine learning to personalize websites the way YouTube does. Growth stalled, and with no way to prove the company was causing the results customers saw, it could never charge what the work was worth. The board brought in a new CEO to sell, and when Adam argued to keep building he was outvoted two to one. It sold in 2018, mostly for its eng
Ep 563 Heath Adams Said No to the Biggest Offer of His Life, Then Doubled It
Heath Adams bootstrapped TCM into a company with two revenue lines: hacking into companies' systems to expose vulnerabilities, and selling courses and certifications that trained others to do the same work. He owned every share, raised no outside capital, and never relied on outbound sales. Every lead came through a YouTube channel that grew to more than a million subscribers. A competitor the
Ep 562 Selling 20 Companies at 4x ARR, With Stuart Faught
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to build a company. Some entrepreneurs swing for the fences, spending decades building one big business. Others play for singles, building a series of smaller companies they can sell and repeat. Stuart Faught has made a career of the second approach. He has started and sold 20 software businesses, making him the number-one seller on Acquire.com. His mode
Ep 561 The $40M Earnout That Never Got Paid, and the One That Did - Rob Walling and Garren Hilow
Garren Hilow bootstrapped Abveris, an antibody discovery business doing $12 million in revenue, and sold it in 2021 for $150 million up front with another $40 million available in an earnout. His team came within one percent of the revenue target. The acquirer said they had missed it, refused to share the accounting behind that conclusion, and dared him to sue. Rob Walling sold Drip with 40 pe
Ep 560 Dane Pan Gave Up 4x to Get 100% Cash: Selling a $1.3M Amazon Brand
Dane Pan and his wife built Monet Brands to $1.3 million in revenue with two employees, selling a $24.99 skincare tool that cost them $6.10. When they took the company to market in 2025, nine buyers cleared the proof-of-funds screen and four of them wrote an LOI. The best offer came in close to four times SDE with a holdback attached. Dane countered for all cash at close, watched two of his fo
Ep 559 The Good, Bad and Ugly of a $2.1M Searcher Deal | Built to Sell Radio
One of the fastest growing groups of acquirers is the self funded searcher. A searcher is not a competitor nor a private equity group. A searcher is usually one person, often recently out of an MBA program, who puts ten to twenty percent down from personal savings, borrows the rest from a bank, often asks the owner to finance part of the purchase price, and signs a personal guarantee for the deb
Ep 558 $6M Wedding Marketplace Courted The Knot for 4 Years with Janessa White
In 2016, Janessa White and her business partner started Simply Eloped, a marketplace that planned elopements and small weddings for couples in 35 cities across the United States. They also decided, before they had a single customer, which company they wanted to sell it to. The Knot Worldwide, the largest wedding platform in the world. Over the next seven years, White told The Knot exactly tha
Ep 557 4 Types of Buyers Circling Your Business, and the One Now Doing 28% of Deals
There are four types of financial buyers who might make an offer on your business, and more often than any other type, the one approaching you is an independent sponsor. It is an unhelpful label for a group that raises the money for a deal only after the seller has signed an LOI, which is also when the seller's leverage is at its lowest. Travis Jamison runs Capital Pad, where investors fund in
Ep 556 How Decamillionaires Think About Money. The 3 Digit Rule, Mistakes That Cause Founders to Walk Away From Life-Changing Offers, and Why the Best Thing About Selling Has Nothing to Do With What You Can Buy.
One day, you're going to sell your business, and when you do, you'll experience a step function increase in your net worth. Navigating that moment is something Adam Katz has spent his career helping owners do. He spent twenty years at Merrill Lynch as a Private Wealth Advisor to ultra high net worth families before he and his team left in 2018 to build KORE Private Wealth, an independent firm th
Ep 555 How to Avoid an Earn Out and Get Your Employees to Sell Like You, Featuring the World's Leading Positioning Expert, April Dunford
If you own a company, chances are you're its best salesperson. Put you in a room with a prospect and you rarely lose. But listen to your employees try to tell the same story and something gets lost. You've tried hiring salespeople. You've tried training them. The selling keeps landing back on your shoulders, and when it comes time to sell, an acquirer will see it too. Expect an earn-out or an equ
Ep 554 $325M Exit After Coke Walked Away From Suja Juice | Built to Sell Radio
Jeff Church co-founded Suja Juice in 2012 with $300,000 and a green juice that had a four-day shelf life. Within three years, the company hit $70 million in revenue, and Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs invested $150 million at a $300 million valuation. Then, two weeks after Coke flew its entire North American management team to Suja's plant, they passed on the option to buy the rest of the business,
Ep 553 Why 17.5% of Owners Are Burnt Out and Want to Sell
More owners than ever say they are simply tired. A look at 10,255 PREScore™ assessments over six years found that 17.5% pointed to burnout, not retirement, as the number one reason they want out. So the question went to two people who spend their days on the buy side, valuing companies and deciding what to pay. Lee McCabe is a private equity veteran who advises PE firms on the businesses they
Ep 552: What to Know Before Selling to an ETA Buyer | Built to Sell Radio
What do you need to know before selling your business to an ETA buyer? Most owners have received the email. It usually starts with something flattering: "I love what you've built…" Then comes the ask: a quick call to learn more about your business. Increasingly, those emails are coming from ETA buyers — entrepreneurs using entrepreneurship through acquisition as their path into business ownership.
Ep 551 Cameron Passmore Sold Half an $8 Billion Firm—Then Acquired 5 More Businesses
Knowing what kind of seller you are turns out to be one of the most important things you can figure out before you ever take a meeting with a potential acquirer. There are three: the transactional seller who wants the money and the door, the transitional seller who wants to land the plane, and the transformational seller who sells to go bigger. Cameron Passmore built one of the largest indepen
Ep 550 The One Phrase That Can Ruin a $10 Million Business Sale
"When I sell the company, then I'll be happy." Psychotherapist Jo Swann says that one phrase is the most reliable predictor of a miserable exit. She would know. She made her money in the 90s, retired to an oceanfront apartment in Borneo, and fell straight into an existential crisis. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, part of our popular After the Deal series, Swann explains why the trap
Ep 549 How a $105 Million Business Sale Revealed the Second Most Important Number in an LOI
Every founder fixates on the multiple. Tim Hellebrand will tell you the (second) most important number on a letter of intent is the one almost nobody understands until it is too late: working capital. When Tim and his four brothers took their $105 million family appliance business to market, six letters of intent came back, and the spread between the lowest and the highest was 60 percent. Most
Ep 548 The Threat and Curse of AI
A lot of owners are losing sleep over AI right now. They watch search traffic erode, they see competitors automating, and they wonder if the business they spent twenty years building is quietly becoming obsolete. Jaryd Krause sees it differently. He's a buyer. And when he looks at a 20-year-old company run by an owner who is "scared of AI and selling because of it," he sees an acquisition oppo
Ep 547 How to Get Your Partners to Buy You Out
When Sean Kernan wanted out of the financial advisor support business he co-founded in Dallas, he didn't shop it to outside acquirers, and he didn't wait for his five partners to make him an offer. He engineered the buyout himself. Three and a half months from the first conversation to the wire hitting his account, $500,000 in cash, no earn-out, no holdback. In this episode, you discover how t
Ep 546 $14M Raised, A Car-Changing Exit
There's an old idea in M&A called the Rembrandt in the attic. A company owns something valuable — a brand, a patent, a customer list, a data set — and nobody inside the business sees it for what it is. The right acquirer walks in, looks at the same asset through a different lens, and recognizes a masterpiece. Dori Yona spent six years and raised $14 million building what he thought was a price
Ep 545 $15M for 15 Employees — How Aaron Leibtag Structured His Pentavere Sale to HealWell
Aaron Leibtag was one of the most popular guests in Built to Sell Radio history. He sold his 15-employee bootstrapped healthcare AI company, Pentavere, for $15 million. Pentavere built AI to unlock patient data trapped inside PDFs and clinical notes years before large language models existed. The headline number was $15 million. What it did not reveal was the structure underneath. Part of t
Ep 544 Why He Regrets Selling for 3.5X EBITDA
Boris Berenberg bootstrapped Atlas Authority, an Atlassian partner that resold Jira and Confluence to mid-market companies and built apps on top of the platform, to high seven figures in revenue with 18% net margins, then sold to private equity in May 2022. A year later he wrote a blog post titled "I regret selling my startup" that went viral inside the exited founder community.
Ep 543 From $32M Valuation to Fire Sale — How Ret Taylor Sold Ned After an Apple Update Crushed His Margins and Re-Invented Himself as a Spiritual Guide
Ret Taylor spent his entire adult life chasing a number. First it was $30 million. Then $10 million. Then $6 million. Then he sat in a tent at 18,000 feet on Denali with two Arctic storms closing in and realized the number was never the point. He came down the mountain, sold Ned, his natural remedies company, and now guides people through life transitions on multi-day vision quests in the mou
Ep 542 The 15X Multiple That Let Him Walk Away in 12 Months
At some point every founder needs to ask a simple question: is it better to own a big slice of a small pie, or a smaller slice of a bigger pie? In this week's episode, we hear from someone who chose a smaller slice of a bigger pie. Simon Lorenz co-founded Klara, a patient communication platform for medical practices, and raised roughly $32 million across six rounds of outside capital before se
Ep 541 Mastering the Deal: 7-Figure Negotiation Mistakes Founders Make When Selling Their Business with MIT's John Richardson, Author of Never Settle
Most founders think they're not great negotiators. John Richardson thinks they're wrong. Richardson has spent decades teaching negotiation at MIT's Sloan School of Management and before that at Harvard Law, where he was an associate at the Harvard Negotiation Project and co-authored foundational texts with Roger Fisher and Howard Raiffa. His new book is called Never Settle. In this episode, you d
Ep 540 From $40K to 8 Figures -- How Murray Kent Sold His Electrical Conduit Business for 6.2x EBITDA
Murray Kent had no background in electrical conduit fittings when he paid $40,000 for a four-person business that, as he put it, looked like a bit of a crack den. What he did have was Value Builder's 8 drivers -- pinned to the wall next to his desk as a literal road map for every decision he made. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, you discover how to negotiate a clean exit with no earn-o
Ep 539 Deal Collapsed at LOI, Sold for 6x EBITDA Anyway
Jay Richards spent five months deep in an acquisition process. He had a letter of intent. He had mentally checked out. He was planning what came next. Then issues surfaced in diligence and the deal collapsed. This week on Built to Sell Radio, Jay walks John Warrillow through the full story of selling Imagen Insights, a qualitative research platform with clients like Visa, Google, and Amazon
Ep 538 How 2 Brothers Bootstrapped AppArmor to a $40M Exit — The Answer That Almost Cost Them $20M
David Sinkinson and his brother Chris built AppArmor over eleven years without taking a single dollar from outside investors. They bootstrapped it by running side businesses, plowing the profits back in, and staying lean through long sales cycles and compliance-heavy buyers. By the time they were ready to sell, they had over 250 universities on the platform and roughly $6 million in annual recur
Ep 537 Why this $5M Business Sold for $25M
When Sharon Gillenwater built Boardroom Insiders, she was doing something nobody else wanted to do: manually researching the personal work styles, business initiatives, and habits of Fortune 500 executives so that enterprise sales teams could finally get a meeting with the C-suite. It was hard, painstaking work — and that was exactly the point. After more than a decade of bootstrapping, consul
Ep 536 Mastering the Deal: 3 Types of Sellers, 3 Very Different Deals — Which One Are You?
Most founders approach a sale with one goal: get the highest price possible. But Mark Ferrer argues that focusing only on price can lead to the wrong deal, the wrong partner, and a painful transition after closing. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow talks with Ferrer about what he has learned after moving from founder to buyer, and why every owner needs to know whether the
Ep 535 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: When Your Buyer Is Risking Their House
Most business owners assume their buyer will be a private equity group or a strategic acquirer. But if you run a smaller business in a niche category, the person most likely to buy you is an individual — someone who likes what you've built, can see a path to improve it, and is willing to put their own name on the line to finance the deal. This week on Built to Sell Radio, Joe Soelberg joins th
Ep 534 Why a "short list" of acquirers may be a trap
Andrew McConnell built a SaaS company that helped vacation rental managers price homes like airlines using dynamic pricing based on demand. He eventually successfully exited, but not before learning the hard way that building a company and selling one require two entirely different skill sets. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Andrew walks through the pivot that saved his business, why h
Ep 533 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: The Anatomy of a Failed Deal
This episode is part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series, and it unpacks the ETA (Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition) wave now flooding the market. For business owners, ETA is a double-edged sword. On the upside, more buyers courting you means more choice, more urgency, and more liquidity. On the downside, many ETA buyers are first-timers who lean on heavy leverage and seller financ
Ep 532 Is Your Business Worth More Dead or Alive?
We often think of a "successful exit" as handing over the keys to a perfectly oiled machine—a business that is growing, profitable, and operationally sound. But what happens when the machine starts to sputter? What if the margins are too thin, the operations are exhausting, and you are simply burned out? It is easy to assume that a broken business model means a worthless company. But as
Ep 531 The #1 M&A Mistake Founders Make with Nick Katz
acasa helps people run a shared home without the usual friction. It started as a simple way for housemates to track and split rent, bills, and groceries, then added payments and utility setup so households could manage recurring bills in one place. When Nick Katz tried to sell acasa on his own, the downside wasn't just a slow process. It created a setup where buyers had the leverage: they coul
Ep 530 $40M for a Big Fish in a Small Pond
Nick Telson-Sillett and his co-founder built what you could call "OpenTable for bars and nightclubs" in the UK. Instead of chasing the US (the move most founders are told to make), they went big fish, small pond: dominate their home market first. That focus helped them build DesignMyNight into a business that sold for more than $40M. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Nick shares what
Ep 529 The Personal Brand Trap and how to slash a 3-Year Earn-Out to 9 Months Without Giving Up Value
The fastest way to make a service company unsellable is building it around a personal brand. When clients hire you—because of your reputation, your name, and your specific expertise—you haven't built a business; you've built a high-paying job. And as Gavin Bell realized, you can't sell a reputation. Gavin was known as the "Facebook Ads Guy" in the UK. He was making good money, but he kne
Ep 528 The Dirty Businesses that Create Quiet Millionaires
Some of the richest founders don't run trendy companies. They run dirty ones. The kind of work you'd never brag about at a dinner party, but that quietly throws off real money because it's hard, risky, and most people won't do it. This Built to Sell Radio episode follows Shenar Wood, who built an underground power business by taking on personal risk, earning trust job by job, and eve
Ep 527 How to Avoid an Earn-Out (Even in a Service Business)
Most business owners hit a fork in the road. Stay "on the tools" and keep making great money. Or start feathering back your personal involvement so the business can grow beyond you. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Dr. Michael Filosi walks through how he made that shift in a dental practice, without jeopardizing cash flow. He didn't rip the band-aid off. He reduced his patient days one da
Ep 526 Best of 2025: 4 Moments That Change How You Exit
Built to Sell Radio just dropped a year-end special that pulls the strongest moments from 2025 into one episode. Across four formats (Exit Story, Inside the Mind of an Acquirer, Mastering the Deal, and After the Deal), you discover how to Choose exit value over lifestyle income before comfort caps valuation Spot the "founder-dependent" trap that scares off serious buyers See how buyers
Ep 525 How to Know When to Get Out: What to do when Shopify threatens, Selling vs. hiring a CEO. A controlled process instead of massive auction and getting your cash up front.
If you're feeling a little queasy about the pace of change, you're not alone. AI is accelerating competition in almost every market, and it's making some business models feel irrelevant almost overnight. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow talks with Ryan O'Leary, who saw a similar wave coming in payments when Shopify started bundling merchant processing into its plans. O'Le
Ep 524 3 Non-Negotiables to Walk Away Clean, Turn Your Expertise into Recurring Revenue, and Avoiding a Deal-Killing Clause.
Most experts who start a practice or studio end up trapped by their own success. The schedule is packed, the waitlist is long, but every dollar still depends on them showing up. In this week's episode of Built to Sell Radio, John talks to a physical therapist who turned a fully booked, owner-dependent practice into a boutique fitness business with recurring revenue, a second-in-command, and a
Ep 523 15 x EBITDA for a Service Firm
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow sits down with Ujwal Arkalgud, who built the same company twice. Chapter one was a classic problem: a profitable, founder-heavy services firm with impressive EBITDA but a ceiling on valuation. Chapter two began when he turned that service into a productized offering, transformed how customers bought his work, and ultimately sold for more than
Ep 522 The difference between 4x vs.8x EBITDA, Customer Concentration Discounts, PE Re-trades with Eric Wiklendt on this special edition of Inside the Mind of an Acquirer
For many owners, private equity feels like a black box: a buyer shows up with a multiple, some debt, and a term sheet, and it is hard to tell whether you are getting a fair shake or being set up for a painful re-trade later. In this Inside the Mind of an Acquirer episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow sits down with Speyside Equity managing director Eric Wiklendt.
Ep 521 10x Outcome Selling Tiny to Private Equity and how to make the 'Cruise vs Double Down' Decision
Andrew Roberts spent two decades turning a bootstrapped family company from Brisbane into one of the most widely used text editors on the web, then faced the hardest call of his career: keep a comfortable, profitable business or push for a bigger exit with venture capital and private equity in the mix.
Ep 520 How Chris Hutchins convinced Google to buy Milk—and Wealthfront to acquire Grove—despite not generating much revenue (and no EBITDA)
A strategic acquirer is a company buying to advance its own roadmap, distribution, or capabilities—unlike financial buyers (private equity, family offices) who buy primarily for cash flow. To a strategic, value may sit in what you've built, not what you've earned. Chris Hutchins' story makes the point. He co-founded Milk, acquired by Google, and later founded Grove, acquired by Wealthfront. Bo
Ep 519 How to Avoid the Unforced Errors That Can Wipe Out Your Equity
Spencer Dennis was an elite golfer whose playing career ended with spine surgery in his teens. He became a tour-level coach, running high-performance programs for juniors, college players, and pros. Managing parents, trainers, and recruiters through texts and email was chaos, so he built CoachNow to guide athletes between sessions. CoachNow caught on quickly with busy coaches. Then a run of de
Ep 518 Growth Equity, Control, and When Rolling Equity Fails — John Ruffolo (Inside the Mind of an Acquirer)
If you're considering your endgame, you're probably looking at private equity. Most PE firms use a familiar formula: buy a majority stake and ask the owner to "roll equity"—re-invest part of the proceeds—into the newco they're building. The downside: you become a minority shareholder in a business you no longer control. There's another path: growth equity, which lets you take chips off the ta
Ep 517 The Surprising Truth of a 9-Figure Exit — and How Not to Lose $23 Million (After the Deal)
If you've ever noticed those ads inside a mobile game, you have Zain Jaffer to thank. He co-founded Vungle and helped popularize rewarded video ads—the ones that revive your character or hand you in-app currency after you watch. In this Built to Sell Radio episode, Zain explains how he rode the smartphone wave to a $780M all-cash exit to Blackstone—and why he personally took home more than $10
Ep 516 How Joyride Fetched 7x Revenue for a Business Selling Abandoned Cars (Exit Story)
Most cities have a problem: what to do with cars that get towed and never picked up. They pile up in impound lots—taking up space and tying up cash. Stan Markuze helped solve that problem by co-founding Joyride Auto, an online auction platform where repair shops, scrap dealers, and car enthusiasts can buy those abandoned vehicles directly from the lot. In this episode, Stan shares how he and h
Ep 515 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer with Valtech's Randy Woods
After a 23-year journey building Non-Linear Creations into a marketing giant with more than 120 employees, Randy Woods sold it in 2017 to Valtech. Valtech is a distinguished digital agency offering marketing, digital technology, and business transformation consulting services. Post-sale, Woods now serves as the SVP of Strategic Growth Opportunity at Valtech, a role dedicated to identifying potenti
Ep 514 Why the Old Private Equity Playbook is Dead - Inside the Mind of an Acquirer with Lee McCabe
Today's episode of Built to Sell Radio is part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series. John Warrillow interviews Lee McCabe, a former Meta and Alibaba executive turned private equity investor—now an advisor helping PE firms modernize how they create value. McCabe argues the old model of buying cheap, piling on debt, and hoping for multiple expansion is over. Interest rates are up, LPs ar
Ep 513 Exit Story: How Dave Sifry Lost $100 Million, Lessons from Starting 9 Companies, the Dangers of Raising Money, and Why He's Doing It Differently with Warmstart
Dave Sifry has founded nine companies, including Technorati and Linuxcare, raising more than $170 million along the way. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, he reveals how he went from being worth more than $100 million on paper to watching that value disappear — and what he'd do differently if he had the chance again. Despite those scars, Sifry has built an extraordinary career. He has fo
Ep 512 Exit Story: Selling iLab for 6× ARR, Choosing Strategic Over PE, and Life After an Eight-Figure Exit
In 2006, Tad Fallows and two friends spotted a problem inside Harvard's cancer labs: researchers were spending more time managing freezers, fruit flies, and mice than actually doing research. They built iLab, a SaaS tool for universities and hospitals, bootstrapped it to high–7-figure ARR, and eventually sold to Agilent Technologies for roughly six times revenue. But the journey wasn't smooth.
Ep 511 Exit Story: Why Ronan Berder Walked Away from Techstars and Sold Wiredcraft for 67 Million Euros
Ronan Berder built Wiredcraft to 140 people, then sold to Publicis for a reported 67 million euros. This Exit Story traces the moment he walked away from Techstars and a product dream to double down on services—and why that decision paid off.
Ep 510 Mastering the Deal: Earn-outs, Equity Rolls & Seller Notes—Risk or Reward?
Most owners want 100% cash at closing. Most acquirers want the opposite—they try to hold back as much as possible and tie it to future results. That tug-of-war defines the negotiation. In this week's episode of Built to Sell Radio, you discover how to turn common transition structures from potential pitfalls into opportunities for upside.
Ep 509 Mastering the Deal: 4 Buyer Types — Private Equity, Strategics, Hybrids & Acquisition Entrepreneurs
What happens when it's time to sell? Every acquirer looks at your business differently. In this special episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow breaks down the four most common buyer profiles and explains how each thinks about acquiring a company. Along the way, you'll hear clips from past guests from our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series.
Ep 508 Exit Story: The Surprising Math Behind a $100 Million Exit
Dan Berger built Social Tables into a SaaS success story with $20M in recurring revenue and more than 6,000 customers. He sold the business for $100 million. But after raising $27M in venture funding and navigating liquidation preferences, his personal payout was just under $20M. In this week's episode of Built to Sell Radio, Dan reveals the surprising math behind his deal and shares the em
Ep 507 After the Deal: Why Adam Rossi Wanted to Undo His Exit
Adam Rossi built a 250-employee software company serving law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They routinely beat Lockheed Martin in head-to-head bids. Then a banker came back with five acquisition offers — each at the "absurd" number Adam and his wife had thrown out as a hypothetical. The winning bid came from SRA International, a publicly traded defense contractor, for a price that cre
Ep 506 Exit Story: $50 Million Was His Number—Here's How Josh Payne Got There
Unlike most tech founders, Josh Payne never dreamed of a billion-dollar valuation. His goal was simpler—and harder. He wanted his equity stake to be worth $50 million. To get there, he skipped the usual playbook. No blitzscaling. No VC treadmill. He raised a small seed round, built a profitable company, and avoided dilution. By the time he sold StackCommerce, Payne still owned 75%—and hit h
Ep 505 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Why David Hauser Walked Away After a $175M Exit to Become a Disciplined Buyer
Most founders measure success by the price they get for their company. David Hauser did that—he built Grasshopper to $30M Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and sold it for $175M – almost 6 times revenue. He and his partner owned the majority of the shares so the deal was life-changing for Hauser. But what makes this interview different is what Hauser did next: he crossed the table to become an in
Ep 504 Exit Story: One Founder's War with Private Equity—and the $500M Ending
After selling When Rich Galgano was 25, he left a sales job in wire distribution to start Windy City Wire. Within nine months, he was doing over $1 million in sales—while fighting a lawsuit from his former employer. Fast forward 30 years, and Galgano had built the dominant low-voltage cable distributor in the U.S., sold it for just under half a billion dollars, and stayed on as CEO.
Ep 503 How to Land an 8-Figure Deal Without Running the Business Day to Day
When Ryan Atkinson sold CORE Resources to 24 Seven, it wasn't his first exit. After selling Redwood Global in 2014, Ryan played a different role in his next venture—injecting $2 million of his own capital while his partner ran the business day-to-day. The model worked. They grew CORE Resources into a go-to firm for specialized technology talent solutions and ultimately sold the company to 24 S
Ep 502 The Body Language of a Deal with Christopher Hadnagy
Negotiating the sale of your company may be the highest-stakes conversation of your life. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, part of our Mastering the Deal series, you'll learn how to stay composed when everything you've built is on the table. Christopher Hadnagy, author of Human Hacking, teaches elite military units and Fortune 500 companies how to negotiate using psychological insights.
Ep 501 Mastering the Deal: Andres Lares on Avoiding the Rookie Mistakes That Kill M&A Outcomes
Ep 500 After the Deal: Ben Leonard on Watching His $6M Business Fall Apart After the Exit
When Ben Leonard sold Beast Gear—a strength and conditioning equipment brand he built from his spare room into a business generating $6 million in revenue—he thought he'd made the deal of a lifetime. He got 80% of the proceeds up front, agreed to a small earn-out, and became the face of Thrasio, the acquirer. Then things started to go sideways.
Ep 499 After the Deal: The Hidden Cost of Generational Wealth
You've built a valuable company. Maybe you're even thinking about selling. But what happens after the wire hits? In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Alex Bean, co-founder of Divvy, shares what it felt like to sell his company for $2.5 billion—and why the real challenges began after the deal closed. This conversation will help you think more strategically about what you're really building—and
Ep 498 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Understanding the Buyer Who Pays 100% at Close
Most acquirers want you to stick around. Roll equity. Hit targets. Train your replacement. But there's a different kind of buyer out there. One who wires 100% of the money at closing—and lets you walk. Dan Mytels represents this type of buyer. Through his firm, Salt Creek, he's acquired 100 businesses—most of them mature, profitable, niche companies where the owner was ready to move on. The
Ep 497 Exit Story: How $1M in Profit Changed Doug Lowenthal's Life Forever
When Doug Lowenthal discovered that $1 million in EBITDA was the minimum threshold acquirers looked for in his industry, he had a goal. Then he learned that managed service providers—businesses that offer outsourced IT support—were trading for 6–8× EBITDA. That's when he realized he was building something truly valuable. But getting there required more than just strong financials. Doug had to
Ep 496 After the Deal: CK on Selling for $510M, Taking a Sabbatical, and Redefining Success
Chang Kim—friends call him CK—sold his company Tapas for more than $500 million and walked away without an earn-out. Instead of jumping into his next venture, he did something few founders have the nerve to do: he took a year off. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, CK opens up about what life looks like when work becomes a choice, not a requirement. From cross-continental travel to diffic
Ep 495 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Brent Beshore on the Private Equity Trap and Being Long-Term Greedy
Private equity firms are the most likely buyers for your business—and some do a fine job preserving what makes a company great. But many are financial engineers. They offer a generous multiple, then lever up the business, cut costs, and flip it within a few years. Longtime employees get let go. Culture erodes. You walk away with a check, but it can feel like selling out.
Ep 494 Exit Story: Building News Sets for TV Stars—and a Business Worth Millions
Ep 493 Exit Story: Selling a 20-Person Agency for 5.5x EBITDA
Most stories we cover involve eye-popping multiples or headline-making exits. They're fun—but not always realistic. Jeff DeGarmo's story is different. No private equity windfall. No tech hockey stick. Just a well-run, 20-person service business built over 16 years and sold for a solid 5.5x EBITDA.
Ep 492 Mastering the Deal: How Greg Alexander Got $162M for a 30-Person Firm—and What He's Learned from Watching 50 Other Exits Up Close
Greg Alexander sold SBI, his 30-person consulting firm, for $162 million. Since then, he's had a front-row seat to 50 other service firm exits through his peer group, Collective 54. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Greg breaks down what separates firms that sell from those that stall. This is a Mastering the Deal episode of Built to Sell Radio—designed to help you punch above your weigh
Ep 491 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: The Case for Unsexy
What makes someone want to buy an "unsexy" business? Jon Pole has acquired 19 traditional radio stations. On paper, it's an industry many assume is in decline. But for an experienced buyer like Pole, these deals are less about media trends and more about community, cash flow, and culture.
Ep 490 Exit Story: How a Middleman Built and Sold a $19M Distribution Business
Sean McAuliffe didn't invent anything. He was a distributor. If you lost your car keys and went to a locksmith to cut a new set, chances are your locksmith got the replacement key from Sean's business. He bought cheap keys from Asia and sold them to locksmiths. Nothing fancy. Like so many businesses, Sean was a middleman. He'd never really thought about selling—didn't think anyone would want t
Ep 489 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Sequoya Borgman on How Independent Sponsors Buy Companies, Structure Deals, and Spot Pretenders
What do acquirers really want? Sequoya Borgman has acquired 19 companies and exited two. He's raised capital on a deal-by-deal basis, working outside the traditional private equity model. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Borgman explains how "independent sponsors" operate—and why more wealthy individuals are now pooling money to buy lower middle-market businesses. You discover how to
Ep 488 Exit Story: Garren Hilow on Selling for $190M, Taking Stock, and Missing His Earn-Out
When Garren Hilow helped start Abveris, he didn't have much—just a background in sales, a co-founder with a Harvard PhD, and a stock option representing 16% of the company. Eight years later, he bought out his co-founder, bootstrapped the company with bank debt (collateralized by his house), and sold it in a stock deal that peaked at $190 million.
Ep 487 After the Deal: How the Ultra-Wealthy Invest After Selling Their Business
What would you do with $20 million? That's the minimum amount required to join Tiger 21, the exclusive network where ultra-high-net-worth entrepreneurs learn how to preserve and grow their wealth. Michael Sonnenfeldt founded Tiger 21 after selling two companies and realizing that the skills that made him a successful entrepreneur didn't translate into smart investing. He built the group to
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