Founders Last Call Podcast

Episode 2 of Founders Last Call looks at Broadcast.com, the internet radio and video company Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner built, and the Yahoo deal that made them rich.

Yahoo signed it on March 31, 1999 and announced it April 1, at an exchange ratio of 0.7722 Yahoo shares per Broadcast.com share. We walk through the steps they took to get to that exit, why a money-losing company was worth that much to a buyer, and what the deal looked like once the dot-com bubble burst.

If you’re a founder thinking about when to sell, this one is about reading the moment.

n 1999, Ben & Jerry’s reported sales of $237 million, up 13.3% from the year before, but net income was only $3.4 million after an $8.6 million restructuring charge. In this short episode, we look at the financials and the specifics behind why the company’s price rose so high in 2000.

We cover the bids in the company’s SEC filings. Ben Cohen’s investor group offered $32 a share in February 2000, and a joint proposal from Unilever, Meadowbrook, and Cohen came in at $38 in March, which is the price the deal closed at. We also cover the $11.4 million termination fee in the merger agreement, and the lessons founders can take for their own exits.

In 2000, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont ice cream company they started in a renovated gas station in Burlington, to Unilever for about $326 million. It was a sale that many people, including the founders, had first tried to avoid.

In this first episode of Founders Last Call, we trace how the deal came together. We look at what the founders wanted from an exit, the offers and counteroffers along the way, the steps they took to protect what mattered to them, and what happened to the business and the founders after the sale.

Whether you own a business, advise owners, or hope to build something worth selling, this episode shows what a planned exit looks like in practice, and where it can get complicated.

What you’ll learn

• How the founders went from reluctant sellers to a negotiated deal
• The steps they took to shape the outcome
• What the sale meant for the company, the founders, and its mission

In this episode: Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield
Runtime: about 25 minutes