Built to Sell Radio

By John Warrillow author of Built to Sell and The Automatic Customer, and The

Technology Education Business

What's Built to Sell Radio about?

Built to Sell Radio is a weekly podcast for business owners interested in selling a business. Each week, we ask an entrepreneur who has recently sold a business why they decided to sell their business, what they did right and what mistakes they made through the process of exiting their business. Built to Sell Radio is the ultimate insider's guide to approaching the most important financial transaction of your life.

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Ep 281 Andrew Gazdecki - Ho...

04.09.2021

Andrew Gazdecki was born in Detroit and lost his father as a young boy. He and his Mom grew up using food stamps. In College, Gazdecki created an online marketplace for freelancers (think a tiny version of UpWork). He sold ...

Built to Sell Radio episodes:

04.09.2021 Ep 281 Andrew Gazdecki - How a Cold Email to Apple’s Tim Cook Led to an 8-Figure Win Andrew Gazdecki was born in Detroit and lost his father as a young boy. He and his Mom grew up using food stamps. In College, Gazdecki created an online marketplace for freelancers (think a tiny version of UpWork). He sold ...
04.01.2021 Ep 280 Darrell Lerner - The Surprising Story Behind PetSmart’s Acquisition of AllPaws Back in 2013, on the heels of building a successful online dating application, Darrell Lerner decided to apply his experience in the dating industry to pet adoption. He built a website and mobile app called AllPaws which allows users to ...
03.26.2021 Ep 279 Jim Estill- 10 Things Most Celebrity Entrepreneurs Won't Tell You About Building a Business Jim Estill is one of the most successful entrepreneurs you've probably never heard of. In 1975, Estill started EMJ Data, a technology distribution company, from the trunk of his car and grew it to $350 million in sales before taking ...
03.19.2021 Ep 278 Matt McGowan - One Bold Move That Can Make Your Company More Valuable Henry Hyder-Smith and Steve Denner started UK-based Adestra in 2004. Adestra is a digital marketing software that helps big companies handle email campaigns, among other things. The company grew nicely. By 2016, it had around $9 million in revenue and ...
03.12.2021 Ep 277 Frank Cianciulli - A $30 Million Bird in Hand Before Zoom, when you wanted to meet with a group of people remotely, you used a teleconferencing service. If you lived in Canada during the early 2000s, you probably used one of Frank Cianciulli's lines.
03.05.2021 Ep 276 Jason Flick - The Story Behind Jason Flick's $100 Million Sale to WarnerMedia These days, you're just as likely to watch a football game on a mobile phone as you are on an old-school TV. The technology that enables you to watch your favorite show on whatever device you have handy was made ...
02.26.2021 Ep 275 Adii Pienaar - How a Simple Strategy Led to a 35% Higher Valuation for Conversio In 2014, Adii Pienaar started an email marketing platform for retailers, which became Conversio. By 2019, Pienaar had $2 million in revenue and 14 employees.
02.19.2021 Ep 274 Cesar Quintero - How to Sell When Everything Is Broken In 2004, Cesar Quintero started Fit2Go, a meal delivery service in Miami. The business delivered healthy meals to office workers in South Florida, and by 2017, Fit2Go was earning 12% profit on $3 million in revenue. That’s when Quintero decided ...
02.12.2021 Ep 273 Mike Malatesta - Re-Occurring Revenue vs. Recurring Revenue Mike Malatesta built Advanced Waste Services, a company that helped businesses dispose of their industrial waste, to $45 million in annual sales before a fateful lunch changed his life forever. It was with a division president of Covanta (NYSE: CVA) ...
02.05.2021 Ep 272 Jon Morris - 6 Lessons From Selling Your Company to a Growth Equity Investor Despite starting with just $10,000 in 2004, Jon Morris built Rise Interactive, a digital marketing agency, to more than 100 employees before deciding to sell part of the business to Quad, a global marketing services provider.
01.29.2021 Ep 271 Greg Alexander - How to Sell a 30-Person Consultancy for $162 Million At age 36, Greg Alexander decided to start Sales Benchmark Index (SBI), a sales consultancy. Over the next eleven years, Alexander built the business to 30 employees who collectively generated about $30 million in consulting fees per year.
01.22.2021 Ep 270 Pete Martin - How to Sell a Consulting Business for 12 X EBITDA (Without an Earn-Out) Pete Martin built EntryPoint Consulting to 34 employees when he sold it to KPMG for a staggering 12 times earnings — without an earn-out.
01.15.2021 Ep 269 Jack Rivlin - 11 Hard-Earned Lessons From Selling a Struggling Business Jack Rivlin co-founded The Tab, a U.K. based media company that published digital campus newspapers across the U.K. After ten years, The Tab had earned almost 6 million unique visitors and raised $10 million of capital from the likes of ...
01.08.2021 Ep 268 Ryan Daniel Moran - 6 Lessons Ryan Moran Learned From a Seven Figure Loss Ryan Daniel Moran built Sheer Strength, a supplements business, up to a run rate of around $10 million per year when he decided it was time to sell.
12.23.2020 Ep 267 Saud Juman - Why Policy Medical Got 7.2 x Revenue Saud Juman built PolicyMedical, a company enabling hospitals to document their procedures and policies, into a software company growing 100% a year when he sold it for 7.2 times revenue. It was a remarkable exit for a business Juman started ...
12.18.2020 Ep 266 Tyler Jefcoat - What to Do When Your Partner Is Not Ready to Sell Tyler Jefcoat co-founded Care to Continue, which provides in-home care for seniors, in 2012. Jefcoat built the company to more than 100 employees when he got an offer from a private equity group for more than five times EBITDA. Jefcoat ...
12.10.2020 Ep 265 Todd Kaufman - How To Overcome Owner's Guilt Todd Kaufman and his partner Justin Searls started Test Double, a custom software development company, in 2011. The business was a success from the start and grew more than 25% a year. By 2019, Kaufman and Searls were generating more ...
12.04.2020 Ep 264 Lee Richter - How to Get 10x EBITDA in an Industry That Trades at 5 In 2002, Lee Richter and her husband bought Montclair Veterinary Hospital in Northern California. Californians were embracing alternative medicine, and the Richter’s wondered if their affluent customers would invest in holistic therapies for their pets.
11.27.2020 Ep 263 Mark Timm - The Kevin Harrington Way to Structure the Sale of Your Business Mark Timm built Cottage Garden, a company selling decorative music boxes, to $8 million in revenue and around $1 million in EBITDA when he decided to sell it. Timm sold the business for around 4.5 times EBITDA. He got half ...
11.20.2020 Ep 262 - Michael Dash - How to Sell a Struggling Company If you're feeling exhausted from running your company, you can take a little solace from Michael G. Dash. Dash built Parallel HR Solutions, a staffing company, up to around $5 million in revenue with clients like Overstock.com, Goldman Sachs, and ...
11.13.2020 Ep 261 Rob Walling - Play Hard to Get, Without Risking Your Deal Rob Walling started an email service provider named Drip back in 2012. Walling bootstrapped his growth to almost $2 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) when, in 2015, Clay Collins, the founder of Leadpages, came knocking.
11.06.2020 Ep 260 Stephen V. Smith - The 50% Bump Stephen V. Smith built WordSouth, a marketing communication agency to 30 employees before a rare condition landed him in the Intensive Care Unit of his local hospital for seven weeks. Close to death, Smith gathered his team and began the ...
10.30.2020 Ep 259 Nathan Hirsch - How to Handle an Acquisition Offer from a Customer In 2015, Nathan Hirsch and his partner started FreeUp.com, an online marketplace of virtual assistants. Four years later, Hirsch and his partner were billing more than $12 million when they received an acquisition offer from a customer they couldn’t refuse.
10.23.2020 Ep 258 Adam Torres - The Freedom Point In 2001, Adam Torres started Team Dynamix, a software used by colleges and universities to keep their IT department organized.
10.16.2020 Ep 257 David Jondreau - How to Double Your Take From a Sale Without Being a Jerk David Jondreau built American Sign Language, a company that supplied interpreters on contract, to $2 million in annual revenue when he decided it was time to sell.
10.09.2020 Ep 256 Tom Farinacci II - When The Hunter Becomes The Hunted Tom Farinacci built Houston Green Leaf up to 35 employees when he solid it to Grounds Control, a national landscaping company, for around four times EBITDA.
10.02.2020 Ep 255 Kim Walsh-Phillips: Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary on How to Structure Your Earn-out Kim Walsh-Phillips founded Elite Digital Group, a marketing agency for clients looking to leverage social media. Walsh-Phillips built her firm to $3.2 million in revenue, but she got stuck when she reached 30 clients.
09.25.2020 Ep 254 Gary Nealon – How To Quadruple An Offer For Your Business Gary Nealon started selling ready-to-assemble kitchen cabinets under the RTA Cabinet Store brand. It was around the time HGTV was taking off on a steady diet of home improvement shows. Nealon was contacted by one of the show's producers who ...
09.18.2020 Ep 253 Peter Carlin - How to Punch Above Your Weight Class With Acquirers Peter Carlin started Logicearth to improve how companies teach their employees online. They built e-learning courses that were almost as good as being there in person. They caught the attention of a marketing agency called The Creative Engagement Group (TCEG), ...
09.11.2020 Ep 252 Alex Rink - How to Sell Your Business To A Competitor Alex Rink built 360pi, a software application that provided online retailers with competitive pricing information. 360pi grew into a multi-million-dollar company with 40 employees when Rink began hearing his business might be worth as much as 3-6 times revenue.
09.04.2020 Ep 251 Jonathan Evans - Sociopaths & Imposters: How To Sell Your Baby To A Giant Jonathan Evans was an air ambulance helicopter pilot when he started to think about how drones could safely navigate the sky around him. Commercial pilots had rules of the sky, but there were no guidelines for drones despite companies from ...
08.28.2020 Ep 250 - What 250 Owners Have to Say About Selling Your Business It’s a big week at Built to Sell Radio as we celebrate our 250th episode. That’s 250 entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, and owners who have shared their stories and their time over the last 5 years. To mark the event, Built ...
08.21.2020 Ep 249 Aric Bandy - 9 Lessons From An Acquisition Offer Gone Wrong Back in 2007, Aric Bandy saw Google investing heavily to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so decided to pivot his company, Agosto. Instead of offering general IT consulting, Bandy focused on helping clients move their businesses online using ...
08.14.2020 Ep 248 David Yaffe - 5 Lessons from growing a startup to a 9-figure exit in 2 years David Yaffe was working at Google when he spotted an opportunity to connect advertisers with smaller publishers competing for online advertising dollars. He and two friends started Arbor, raised more than $2 million in seed capital and built a prototype. ...
08.07.2020 Built to Sell: Intel The format for Built to Sell Radio typically features our host, John Warrillow, interviewing an owner who has recently sold their business. This week, we’re going to try something different. Today’s episode features John’s analysis of four of the exits ...
07.31.2020 Ep 247 Matt Schmeltz - Turning a $2M Business Into a 9-figure Windfall in 3 Years When Matt Schmeltz and his partners acquired CloudCraze, it was a simple software application helping businesses that use Salesforce.com manage their customer relationships. CloudCraze generated $2 million in annual recurring revenue, but Schmeltz & Co. figured it could do much ...
07.24.2020 Ep 246 Ashok Vasudevan - Exit Like a Tycoon Without Losing Your Soul In 1995, with just $5,000 in start-up capital, Ashok Vasudevan launched Tasty Bite offering ready-to-eat Indian entrees to American consumers. Twenty-five years later, Tasty Bite is America's largest brand of prepared Indian food sold everywhere, from Walmart to Whole Foods. ...
07.17.2020 Ep 245 Peter Demangos - The Tech Start-Up vs. The Bootstrap Lifestyle Peter Demangos has started two businesses in the Human Resources sector. One was a bootstrapped insurance brokerage where they sold employee benefits programs to large clients. The other was an HR software company called Collage, where Demangos and his co-founders ...
07.10.2020 Ep 244 Debbie King - 3 Ways to Untangle Yourself from Your Business Debbie King was running on a treadmill so familiar to service company owners. Her company, Association Analytics, helped associations make sense of their member data, and she was wasting time on proposals that often did not get accepted. Then, when ...
07.03.2020 Ep 243 Lee Gregory - The 8 Figure Trigger Lee Gregory built Sir Lines-A-Lot, a company that paints lines on highways, to 40 employees. It was blue-collar work, so when Gregory learned his company could be worth north of eight figures, he decided it was time to sell. During ...
06.26.2020 Ep 242 Josh Davis - Walking Away from an 8 Figure Exit Josh Davis started Spirit of Women, a marketing agency selling content about women's health to hospitals. Davis built the company up to almost $10 million in annual revenue when he kicked off a process to sell it, which he hoped ...
06.19.2020 Ep 241 David Lekach- The Backstory Behind Dream Water's $34.5M Exit David Lekach started Dream Water; a natural sleep aid bottled in a 5 oz shot similar to the famous 5-Hour Energy Drink. Lekach built Dream Water up to almost $10 million in annual revenue before selling it to Harvest One, ...
06.12.2020 240 David Amigo - Getting Acquired Doesn't Have To Be A Blood Sport This week's episode of Built to Sell Radio features David Amigo. He co-founded Carolina Country Homes, a modular home dealer. Amigo grew his company to $10 million in annual revenue but never loved the modular home business where red tape ...
06.05.2020 Ep 239 Ana Chaud - How the Fine Print in an Acquisition Offer Can Leave You Penniless Before the pandemic, fancy salad bars were popping up in major cities across the US, making the category one of the fastest-growing sectors of the restaurant industry. Despite their popularity in major cities, when Ana Chaud moved to Portland, Oregon, ...
05.29.2020 Ep 238 How to Hire a CEO Without Losing Your Company When we discover a vaccine or reliable treatment regime for COVID-19, there will inevitably be an unscrupulous gang of counterfeiters trying to make a quick buck by selling fake remedies. Systech International could provide a defense against these crooked operators. ...
05.22.2020 Ep 237 How to Package Your Service Into a Product Michael Spinosa and Scott Greenwell started a digital marketing agency called Unleashed Technologies at the start of the 2007 financial crisis. Spinosa believes the recession helped Unleashed get started because their flexibility and lower fees enabled them to pick up ...
05.15.2020 Ep 236 How to Structure Your Earn-out in Uncertain Times Anson Sowby started Battery, a creative advertising agency in 2013. Battery quickly won assignments from companies like Netflix and LEGO featuring A-list celebrities such as LeBron James, fuelling their growth to 50 employees by 2019. That's when Paris-based Havas decided ...
05.08.2020 Ep 235 How To Increase An Acquisition Offer Without Appearing Greedy In 2012, Gabriela Isturiz co-founded Bellefield Systems, a company offering a timekeeping application for lawyers. Over the next seven years, Bellefield grew to 45 employees when Isturiz decided to hire an advisor to find a strategic investor. Given Bellefield's growth ...
05.01.2020 Ep 234 How To Maintain Your Leverage After You Sign An LOI Ganesh Ramakrishna and Mike Watson built Opex Analytics to 140 employees before they sold it to PE-backed LLamasoft in the fall of last year.
04.24.2020 Ep 233 How To Get Acquired By A Partner Adam Ochstein started an HR software company called StratEx in the depths of the 2008 recession. CEOs were asking HR managers to do more with less and Ochstein's software promised to help HR managers do just that. Despite the challenging ...

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