Intentional Growth

#281: David Lekach Sells Dream Water for $34.5 Million (Part 2: the Exit Story)

Dec 30, 2021

01:20:39

In part two of this two part series, David Lekach dives deep into the details on why and how he sold Dream Water in 2018. The strategic buyer was a public cannabis company based in Canada, as well as one of Dream Water’s distributors. The unique relationship David had with the buyer was only one colorful part of the story… The buyer paid to do due diligence on David’s company! The deal process took months to complete and David even almost lost the entire deal the night before the wire transfer was supposed to be made. If you want a deep dive of the entire exit process, you do not want to miss this episode.

What You Will Learn

Why the sale of Dream Water was so emotional for David
The negotiation strategies David used that resulted in the buyer paying for due diligence
Why creating and writing up a Plan B in the Letter of Intent can align everyone and create a commitment to get a deal done
Why David's intention when selling was never centered on money. It was all about making sure the deal was fair for everyone involved - including his employee’s
How understanding the deal structure of an exit will get you what you want and help you better understand the emotions of selling your business
David and Ryan’s thoughts on the value of technical knowledge vs. common sense when selling a company
Why learning financial literacy will set you apart from all other entrepreneurs
How David used psychology during the negotiation with the buyers
Why David set money aside after the sale to say thank you to everyone who helped him—and why that was written into the deal structure
What makes mentorship and coaching so important
The ways transparency and clarity can alleviate stress from the exit process

// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment

Bio:

David Lekach is an entrepreneur from Miami, Florida. In the early 2000s, David started Dream Water and managed to get his products into big box stores like Walmart, CVS, Publix and Safeway. After eight years of being the owner and operator of Dream Water, David sold his company to One Harvest, a Canadian cannabis company, for 34.5 million USD in 2018. Before launching Dream Products, David worked briefly as an investment banker. Prior to that, David served as the managing partner in a small Miami-based law firm, handling a variety of legal and business development consulting projects, including the structuring and general oversight of international real estate ventures worth more than $50 million and numerous consumer goods projects, ranging from licensing to product development engagements.

Since the sale of Dream Water in May 2018, he has helped several organizations across the consumer packaged goods, cannabis, direct-to-consumer and Amazon platforms, and travel retail spaces with innovation, executive team building, as well as with legal and deal structuring, usually while taking on a variety of strategic development initiatives.

Quotes:

04:25 - “You’re never going to forget when you’re in the sh*t, like, that grind, you know?” - David Lekach

11:23 - “I’ve negotiated this thing perfectly. Like, philharmonic level conducting. It couldn’t have been better. Then, a stupid joke at the end equals… Then I think there’s no transaction to be had. I just scared my company for no reason.” - David Lekach

25:06 - “I always wanted to be one with my role and one of the things I was very present to is the CEO. What does CEO mean? ” - David Lekach

25:11 - “One of the things that I thought was an important part of my job was to always be networking into (in my case) the CPG, the private equity, or the institutional financing world and strategics.” - David Lekach

32:09 - “It starts with some sort of level of honesty with yourself. What do you feel like you know? What do you feel like you don’t know? And how to find the gaps in there.” - David Lekach

43:03 - “You never know when you’re going to get an unsolicited terms sheet.” - David Lekach

43:12 - “The more buttoned-up and uptight you are, the easier it is to get through tax season, the easier it is to get through a transaction, the easier it is to get through regulatory situations, whatever the case may be.” - David Lekach

47:30 - “I took ‘upfront dollars’ and that was non-negotiable.” - David Lekach

48:26 - “I don’t want to go get [money] after the fact. I want it in my bank account because I’m spending those dollars today and I’m taking my time today.” - David Lekach, on getting money up front for due diligence

67:36 - “Don’t count money. Don’t assume anything. Don't look for another job. We don’t know until this thing closes” - David Lekach

72:50 - “Because it wasn’t just me.” - David Lekach, on why giving back to his team was so important to him.