Today on the Life After Business podcast, we’re talking to Tim Hall. Tim’s story is so amazing that I just had to get him on the show. Tim was an executive at Cartoon Network and worked at Hasbro. Then Tim had the opportunity to buy the division of Intel. He was able to grow that business to 85 million dollars in revenue, but when the business climate changed and the economy went into a recession, Tim realized he’d missed his exit. Sit back and relax as you listen to what Tim would have done differently, opportunities he didn’t take, and much more.

While Tim was in Corporate America working toys and electronics with Proctor & Gamble, Hasbro, and was a top Executive at Cartoon Network he helped launch the Jurassic Park toys, pitched Star Wars toys to George Lucas and even worked with Disney.

Tim saw the opportunity to get into entrepreneurship to buy the division of Intel’s electronic toy division before they shut it down completely. He hired an investment banker and attorney to make sure they knew he was serious and then approached them to purchase the division they were going to use as that year’s tax write off.

Through grit, perseverance and sheer passion Tim grew that small division he bought for $500,000 into an $85 Million dollar company with $11 Million in EBITDA. He learned a ton in the trenches as an entrepreneur and found out the hard way what the risk is trying to reach for the  next revenue or value milestone…

Wayne Rivers is the co-founder and President of The Family Business Institute, Inc. that has been around for over 28 years. He is an author of four books on family business and has been quoted in many articles for large publications like Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, The New York Times, and Washington Post. Wayne is also a Wall Street Journal panelist, a speaker, and has appeared on the Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC.

Needless to say, he really knows his stuff! In his 28 years at The Family Business Institute, Wayne has worked with many families in all kinds of situations. On the podcast, he tells us stories of different encounters he has had with families over the years. His main goals are business prosperity and family harmony for all of his family business clients. The biggest question they have to answer first is, are you a business family or a family business?

Wayne explains how a family business needs to plan ahead for successions to make sure everyone is on the same page with where the business is going. Family businesses need to bring in top talent, not just keep it in the family. He also discusses how these days you always have to be looking to reinvent the business and not become complacent.

“A business’s destruction is sewn, today, with those seeds of complacency because it’s so unbelievably hard to sustain anything over long periods of time. You’ve got to reinvent but the second component of that is so important. It’s the most important thing that I could share with family businesses, is you’re in a people business. Even if you’re in the IT business, you’re still in the people business. If you’re not out there creating a new vision, reinventing your company and then attracting the best people all the time, you’re not going to make it,” says Wayne.

Listen to the full episode to hear more words of wisdom on family business from Wayne Rivers. Thanks to Wayne for sharing his experience with us and I hope you all enjoy today’s episode! Please leave me any comments you have in the section below.

To help out this show, leave an honest review on iTunes. I read every review and your ratings will help the Life After Business Podcast gain exposure and hopefully help more business owners to exit happy!

Email: [email protected]

Wayne Rivers is the co-founder and President of The

Today’s guest’s name is Cody McLain. Cody is a serial entrepreneur. He’s in his late 20s and has already sold multiple businesses. At the age of 15, he started a web hosting company and grew it up to $600,000. Unfortunately, he partnered with an individual involved in penny stocks who defrauded Cody in his business and he lost it all.

Cody then started another venture, grew it, sold it, and had an entire period of reflection where he was trying to figure out what it means to live a life of happiness. Who did he want to be now? He was searching for his ‘why’ and went on to start multiple other ventures including his current company, SupportNinja, that has over 200 employees and $4 million in revenue.

Cody and I touch on a lot of different subjects about how to systematize your business and how to keep culture and values in a company while growing it to a place that you can actually replace yourself. We discuss the process of hiring a CEO that can replace you to take the company to the next level so you can focus on the things that you like.

Cody shares a lot of his wisdom and experience with us on the podcast including what it was like on the day he sold his company. He explains how he continuously searches for that ‘why’ in life.

“It still comes back down to that meaning, that ‘why’ and wanting to accomplish something, wanting to change something. That drive is still there yet I take time to appreciate what I have,” says Cody.

Thanks to Cody for sharing his experience with us and I hope you all enjoy today’s episode! Please leave me any comments you have in the section below.

To help out this show, leave an honest review on iTunes. I read every review and your ratings will help the Life After Business Podcast gain exposure and hopefully help more business owners to exit happy! 

Personal Website: http://www.codymclain.com/

After founding his first company in middle school, Cody has gone on to build and sell a variety of million dollar enterprises. His first two companies were in the web hosting industry which led him to open an office in India and provide outsourced support to other hosting companies. Today he is the founder and Executive Chairman of SupportNinja, an outsourced services company for I.T. companies and startups alike. SupportNinja handles the back-office and front-end Customer Support for a wide range of online platforms, apps and SAAS providers around the world.

Today’s story is about a gentleman named Thomas Smale, Founder of FE International which is an M&A firm specializing in the sale of SaaS, e-commerce and content based businesses. Thomas started his career flipping online businesses. He would buy $50 to $100 websites, build them up, and then sell them for profit.

Thomas started realizing that there was a huge potential market for this and people started going to him and asking for advice. He built an instructional e-course and then ended up building FE International to where it is today with his business partner, Ismael Wrixen. They have done $100 million in transactions, over 500+ deals.

Thomas and I take his wisdom and his experience from the volume of transactions and deals that he’s seen to shed light on what the top online businesses are doing to grow valuable companies and sell to the people that they want to. In the episode, we discuss three different key business models in the online space and three different categories of buyers out there. Thomas talks about increasing the value of a business by systematizing operations and potentially putting a recurring revenue stream in place as a part of the owner’s exit plan.

Contact Information and Bio for Thomas: 

Email: [email protected]

Thomas is the Founder of FE International. He is a serial online business entrepreneur and expert. In his early 20s, he began building and selling small online companies. This turned into a full-time career when he founded FE International in 2010, growing the business with zero funds from ground up and consistently doubling annual revenue, as well as the average deal size. Thomas specializes in advising in the M&A of SaaS, e-commerce, affiliate and content businesses. He has consulted hundreds of internet entrepreneurs on exit strategy, growth and business development.

Could you survive for 2 years without a salary? Tom Fafinski [Entrepreneur, Attorney, Real Estate Investor, Peer Group Leader] explains how he grew a 7 figure + law firm, only to cut it back to its bones before he grew it back up again and sold for over a million dollars in all cash… up front!

Normally professional service firms get 1-2 times EARNINGS paid on an earnout but Tom had systematized his firm enough to get a stellar offer so he could become a Real Estate Investor and Co-Founder of Virtus Law with his favorite co-worker.

Tom created his dream firm after surviving a difficult sale to a second generation attorney durning the financial crisis because he made the BEST decisions, at the toughest times, and he didn’t rely 100% on the income…

“To be dependent on the business makes you a liability.” – Tom Fafinski

Email: [email protected]

Thomas M. Fafinski is Co-Founder of Virtus Law, PLLC. Tom graduated 13th in his class cum laude at William Mitchell College of Law and was also a cum laude graduate of the College of St. Thomas, with a BA in Finance. Tom is: