Built to Sell Radio – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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.

Have you considered the psychological toll of building your business?  

In this week’s Built to Sell Radio episode, John Warrillow sits down with Bill Hudenko, a psychologist, Dartmouth professor, and serial entrepreneur, to discuss the psychological impact of building and exiting a business. Bill shares his personal journey through multiple exits and offers insights into the mental health challenges that come with selling your life’s work.  

As someone who has experienced these challenges firsthand, and as a professional with access to extensive data, Bill provides practical advice on how to avoid the common mental health pitfalls associated with selling your business.  

In 2015 Mike Winnet started U.K.-based Learning Heroes after recognizing that most e-learning programs were long and boring. Winnet saw an opportunity to transform the industry by creating short, engaging, animated training courses. 

Winnet started by trying to sell his courses to job seekers, but when his efforts failed, he pivoted to selling to companies. Instead of a few hundred dollars a year from job seekers, selling to companies meant he was getting a few thousand dollars a year.

The switch from B2C to B2B worked, and in less than three years, Winnet grew his company to around £2 million in annual recurring revenue, which was when he was approached by Litmos, a learning management software provider. Winnet sold Learning Heroes to Litmos for approximately four times revenue.

In 2013 South African entrepreneur Jason Bagley started Firing Squad, a lead generation company specializing in cold emails. 

In 2020 Firing Squad signed an agreement to be acquired by Southern Web and was later rebranded to SiteCare.

The deal was something Bagley would later come to regret.

In 2012, Patrick Campbell founded ProfitWell to help SaaS companies increase revenue and reduce churn by managing their data in a single place. 

After bootstrapping the business to 8-figures, Campbell decided it was time to raise money. While seeking a financial investor, Paddle approached him with an acquisition offer. Soon after, in 2022, Campbell sold ProfitWell to Paddle for over $200 million.

Ed Buckley started Peerfit, which allows companies to offer fitness classes as part of their employee benefits package. The company grew to more than 150 employees before receiving an acquisition offer for almost $100 million from a major fitness brand widely reported to be Peloton. As part of the deal, Buckley retained some of the IP, which, in a strange twist, he was able to sell in another eight-figure exit months later.

In 2012, Ryan Coon started Rentalutions, a platform to help landlords manage and communicate with their tenants more effectively. 

The business showed steady growth, but Coon wasn’t satisfied. 

Five years in, Coon rebranded the company to Avail and focused his marketing to target DIY landlords with under ten rental units to manage. The changes proved successful as Coon grew the business to around $7 million in revenue before selling to Realtor.com in 2020 for approximately five times revenue.

When Jodie Cook started her social media agency, nothing happened without her involvement.

Desperate to free herself up from the minutia of running her company, Cook started to systematize her business with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). After a few missteps, Cook mastered the art of delegation. 

In 2016, Ryan Kulp launched Fomo because he saw marketers using aggressive popups on their websites.

Kulp reasoned that if he could show other people were shopping and interacting with a site, it would give new visitors confidence in the company.

Fomo allows businesses to show off real-time customer interactions (purchases, opt-ins, even pageviews) with a line of code the company installs on their site.

Kulp led Fomo to around $1 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) before deciding to step down as CEO in 2020. Two years later, an acquirer approached Kulp about acquiring Fomo. Initially, he wasn't interested, but after some soul-searching, Kulp decided to sell Fomo to Relay Commerce in a lucrative exit.