Intentional Growth #343: The Decision-Making Process of Selling TXI to an ESOP with Josh Golden
On today’s show I have Josh Golden on to share his story about how he started, grew, and sold his company Table XI (now TXI) to an ESOP on December 31, 2022.
My favorite part of this interview? Josh focuses most of the interview about what went into his decision-making and why he sold the company to an ESOP.
I was super excited to finally interview Josh because I have been watching his journey for over five years. It was fun to hear Josh reflect on the recent exit, especially because of how intentional he was over the last five years.
Josh starts the interview by telling the story about how we met on a chairlift and struck up a conversation about him feeling “stuck” because he didn’t know what to do next with this business: continue growing it, sell it to a strategic buyer, do an ESOP, hire a CEO, etc.
As Josh shares his journey from the origin story through the exit, he does an amazing job articulating what he was trying to accomplish at each stage, what was important to him at that point in the journey, why he made the decision he did, and how that decision played out based on what he wanted.
I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation with Josh!
// WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE: Intentional Growth™ Podcast
What You Will Learn
- Why Josh was feeling “stuck” and what questions were on his mind that he needed answers to.
- Why Josh decided to become an entrepreneur instead of following the academic route his parents took.
- The origin story of Table XI, early partnership buyouts, and how Josh feels about it today.
- Why it’s important to listen to the market and continue to evolve the business.
- What client requests you should say “yes” to based on how your company infrastructure is built and where you want to take the business.
- Josh's story of parting ways with high-ticket clients because values were not aligned.
- What “distracted visionaries” need to do when bringing people on.
- What it was like for Josh to take a back seat after hiring a CEO.
- What hiring a CFO did for the company’s performance and valuation.
- What led Josh to take his company the ESOP route.
- Why Josh didn’t convert to an ESOP when he first decided that was the exit he wanted and what he did in between that time in order to almost double the value of the business.
// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment
Bio:
Josh is an entrepreneur with extensive experience helping organizations leverage technology to achieve transformative goals.
He started TXI in 2002, a product innovation firm that has grown to seventy professionals over twenty years. Over the past five years, Josh transitioned out of active management of Table XI, handing the reins to an incredibly talented leadership team, and began exploring a number of new projects and investment opportunities. Josh remains involved in TXI as an owner and chair of the board.
Since leaving the day to day at Table XI, Josh ran a startup in the health and wellness space that sold to a large competitor where he was engaged as a strategic advisor through mid-2021.
Upon completing his three-year return to the world of startups, Josh has been spending his time strongly focused on family, health and well-being, and re-platforming his life for the next chapter which included a move to Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.
Interview Quotes:
18:11 - “It was like beating our heads while we tried to get the money. People who had the money, didn’t understand the opportunity. People who understood the opportunity, didn’t have the money. It was this misalignment of capital and intention and desire and skill.” - Josh Golden
33:31 - “We had tried to get all people with very different approaches to problem-solving to work together to build a unified teams that develop unified solutions for our clients.” - Josh Golden
36:11 - “There’s two parts to our business. One is figuring out what thing to build and the second part of our business is building the thing right.” - Josh Golden
38:07 - “You cannot be fully dogmatic about anything.” - Josh Golden
41:03 - “At one point we fired a client that made up 50 percent of our revenue.” - Josh Golden
42:32 - “We have definitely put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our value system.” - Josh Golden
43:38 - “I think that, fundamentally, there are two kinds of people who start companies. Ones who think that they should have it all and ones who want to give it all away. And neither of these are the correct answer to early stage equity.” - Josh Golden
50:08 - “I can’t sell this because it’s too weird.” - Josh Golden
51:06 - “You need to disconnect your time and your ownership. You need to figure out how to spend less time on the business while you maintain your ownership because of some possible future where you achieve this scale or you get this business tuned in such a way that it’s actually a valuable asset.” - Josh Golden
01:00:54 - “In the conventional PE, I never saw how I could’ve actually gotten the deal done.” - Josh Golden
01:09:31 - “I think if we’re all just altruistic, we have all sorts of different problems. You have to have a mixture of self-interest and collective interest in operating any sort of system.” - Josh Golden
01:18:40 - “Being socially connected, feeling trusted and supported by your colleagues is very valuable and important but having a clear role and a clear goal is actually more valuable.” - Josh Golden
1:21:05 - “[In recessions], ESOPs lay off way less people.” - Josh Golden
Links and Resources:
Connect with Josh Golden! (LinkedIn)
Curating Your Life: Ending the Struggle for Work-Life Balance with Gail Golden
How to Grow the Value of Your Business using the 5 Intentional Growth™ Principles
Intentional Growth™ Online Training
Reach out to me if you have questions about the Intentional Growth™ Training or Fractional CFO services