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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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If you’re a business owner, chances are buyers are considering your industry for a roll-up. From veterinary clinics to auto body shops, pharmacies to advertising agencies—you name the industry, there’s probably a private equity firm looking to roll it up. This week’s episode is part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series, where we dive into the strategies and motivations of different types of buyers. Jordan Dubin, co-founder of Guild, shares how he raised $35 million to create a roll-up of garage door companies and reveals what he looks for in a potential acquisition.
What does it take to turn nightlife into big business? Med school dropout Shane Neman cracked the code on the nightclub industry, transforming its back office into a finely tuned, revenue-generating machine. From pioneering one of the first SMS platforms for small businesses to setting up his companies for top-dollar exits, Shane shares the technical strategies that turned his ideas into high-value assets.
Few founders exemplify resilience like Mike Fata, co-founder of Manitoba Harvest. Growing up in a single-parent, low-income household, Fata dropped out of school in grade 10, struggled with health issues, and found himself weighing 300 pounds by age 18. A life-changing commitment to health led him to discover hemp as a nutritional powerhouse, sparking his path to founding Manitoba Harvest and building it into one of North America’s leading hemp food companies. In his interview on Built to Sell Radio, Mike dives into the journey that saw him go from construction worker to the sale of Manitoba Harvest to Tilray for $419 million.
When Carrie Kelsch was encouraged to start a garage door business back in 2004, she had no experience in the industry. By 2022, her company, A Plus Garage Doors, was generating $35 million in revenue with 30% EBITDA margins. This week on Built to Sell Radio, host John Warrillow shares Carrie’s journey—from her first steps in the home services industry to the personal tragedy that ultimately pushed her to consider selling.
Pete Neubig started his entrepreneurial journey buying $35,000 houses with small down payments. After amassing 60 homes, he realized there was more money in managing properties for others. Pete shifted focus to building a property management company, handling maintenance and rent collection for over 1,000 homes, and eventually sold the business for $4.6 million or 1.75 times recurring revenue to an industry giant.
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Jim Lindstrom discusses how he acquired BuzzWord, a company specializing in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting. Lindstrom explains how he built a killer culture by transforming contractors into full-time employees and incentivizing them with a two-part profit-sharing scheme focused on cash flow and EBITDA, setting the business up for future sale.
Luke Peters started off by reselling everyday appliances like bar fridges online. Eventually he built a brand and shifted to selling his products on big e-commerce retailers. Peters grew NewAir to $80 million in revenue before selling it for a lifechanging windfall in 2022.
Matt Ebert’s path to founding Crash Champions didn’t start with a grand plan—it began with a car wreck. At 16, he found himself needing to fix his own car, sparking an unexpected passion that led to building one of the largest collision repair companies in the United States.
Aaron Levenstadt built Pedestal Search into a business worth selling by mastering one thing: SEO. While clients tempted him to offer other services, Aaron knew the real value lay in doing one thing better than anyone else. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Aaron shares how focusing on one service helped him stand out in a crowded market and achieve a successful exit.
Jessica DeLuca co-founded Cult Beauty in 2008, creating one of the UK’s leading online beauty retailers. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Jessica reveals the path that led her to selling the business for £275 million to The Hut Group (THG). DeLuca’s background in tech shaped the business, with her love for data and precision leading to a meticulously curated platform. Frustrated by the lack of unbiased information in the beauty industry, she built a database of expert advice, allowing customers to search products tailored to their needs—an approach that set Cult Beauty apart from the competition.
Alex Bean sold his company, Divvy, for $2.5 billion. But after reaching this monumental milestone, why didn’t the sale bring him the happiness he expected? In this episode, Alex shares his journey and the lessons he learned about life after a business exit.
On this week’s Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow talks to Tim Schumacher, co-founder of SaaS Group, about the mindset of an acquirer. Tim shares Peter Thiel’s “zero to one” versus “one to ten” concept and how knowing which one you are can shape your business.
1 n this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Jim Sebenius, the founder of the Negotiation Unit at Harvard Business School, shares his advanced negotiation strategies for selling a privately held business. Jim's extensive experience includes his time at the Blackstone Group, where he negotiated on behalf of one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers with more than $1 trillion under management. He is also a frequent speaker to YPO and a consultant for privately held companies, helping them navigate complex negotiations. Jim's insights are backed by his in-depth research, including first-hand interviews with former U.S. Secretaries of State such as Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, and Rex Tillerson. These interviews have provided him with unique perspectives on negotiation from some of the world’s most experienced dealmakers, making his advice invaluable for anyone looking to sell their company for maximum value.
Matt Matros built Protein Bar from a single smoothie shop into a fast-growing chain. In 2012, private equity firm L Catterton came knocking with a deal valuing his company at $44 million. Matt decided to roll 40% of his equity, expecting it to grow even more.
This week on Built to Sell Radio, William Brown shares his remarkable journey from selling a $50 Word document offering trading advice to building a multi-million dollar online education business that attracted serious interest from acquirers. Based in Dubai, William's story is a testament to how a simple, bootstrapped start can evolve into a highly valuable and sellable business.
Corporate buyers are notoriously secretive and rarely reveal their inner workings. This is why our latest episode of Built to Sell Radio is so valuable: It provides a rare look into the secretive world of corporate M&A. Our guest is Christopher Vollmond-Carstens, Chief M&A Officer at Ntiva, where they help businesses keep their technology running smoothly, from managing their computer systems to protecting them from cyber threats. Christopher has bought fifteen companies in the last few years, and this week we take a walk inside his mind to understand how he thinks about buying companies. This episode, part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series, offers unique insights into the corporate development division of a big company.
Most people hear about spectacular acquisitions made by strategic acquirers or giant private equity groups. But the reality is, you’re likely to sell your company to a small business in your sector that nobody outside your industry has ever heard of. In our latest episode of Built to Sell Radio, part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series, we get inside the head of Kristi Herold. Kristi is the founder of Jam, a company based in Toronto that connects people through adult recreational sports leagues and corporate team-building events. Kristi has successfully completed 11 acquisitions, making her a prime example of how small businesses buy other small companies.
Jeff Archibald founded Paper Leaf, a company specializing in developing websites, mobile apps and custom software. By offering a narrow scope of services to a variety of verticals, Paper Leaf built a reputation for handling challenging projects that generalist agencies couldn't. Jeff's commitment to simplicity and effective forecasting played a significant role in Paper Leaf's success. He used fixed payment contracts to ensure steady cash flow and offered a limited number of technologies, allowing his team to become experts. These practices stabilized the business and made it attractive for acquisition.
Nicole Osmer is the founder and president of Health+Commerce, a public relations and marketing agency for companies in medtech, biotech, and digital health. Nicole grew Health+Commerce from $1M to $10M in annual revenue over seven years. Along the way, Nicole received an acquisition offer that seemed too good to be true. It turned out it was, and the deal fell apart. Nicole picked up the pieces, and in March 2024, Health+Commerce was acquired by Trinity Hunt-backed Supreme Group.
In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow interviews Michael Lynch, the creator of TinyPilot, a hardware device that allows users to remotely control their computers without installing any software. Like most small companies, TinyPilot was a Main Street business with around $1 million in revenue and roughly $250,000 in profit, so Michael’s story is a revealing snapshot of a typical exit for the majority of small businesses
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Thank you for a great interview. I loved hearing Jeff's journey through a small business exit. This really spoke to me because I'm in a similar space.
Episode 171 is not the first episode, I bet.