Built to Sell Radio

In 2013, Kate Field started The Kombucha Shop offering home-brew kits that people can use to make kombucha. By 2018, the kombucha craze was in full swing and Field was invited to pitch her business on Shark Tank. Field asked for $350,000 in return for 10% of her company which was generating around $1.2 million per year selling kombucha kits. Field got an offer for $200,000 in cash and another $150,000 line of credit in return for 10% of her company from Barbara Corcoran and Sara Blakely, the Spanx founder who was a guest Shark that day. Despite her success on television, a series of surprising events led Field to walk away from the Shark’s offer and sell The Kombucha Shop the following year. This episode is a raw account of the highs and lows of the entrepreneurial journey.

David Darmanin co-founded Hotjar, a software company that helps website developers and owners understand how their users interact with the sites they build. Darmanin and his partners bootstrapped Hotjar to around $40 million in Annual Recurring Revenue before selling it in 2021.

David Perry co-founded Gaikai, a video game company that enables popular games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty to be played on just about any device. Perry raised $50 million through three rounds of funding and sold Gaikai for $380 million to Sony.

Anthony Fracchia built Altruis Benefit Consulting to $2.5 million in revenue when he started to get unsolicited calls from potential buyers. He initiated conversations with an acquirer only to learn they planned to gut his staff and kill his brand.

Rafael Zimberoff built ShipRush, an application that helps businesses streamline their technology, to 12 full-time employees when he sold it to Descartes for $14 million, plus a $3 million earn-out.

This week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio is the Intel edition. We focus on four recent guests and highlight the strategies that made their companies built to sell.

In 2013, Jon Claydon started Streamline Marketing to help brands manage their affiliate programs. Claydon bootstrapped his business to around 30 employees but avoided hiring for some senior roles in favor of doing much of the work himself.

Prantik Mazumdar and his business partner Rachit Dayal built Happy Marketer, a digital marketing agency, to more than $10 million in annual revenue before they decided to sell to Dentsu Aegis Network. Mazumdar and Dayal agreed to sell for around 7 times EBITDA,  40% of which was paid up front with the remainder available in a four-year earn-out tied to the future profitability of Happy Marketer.

Josh Delaney started FAB CBD, a CBD e-tailer, in 2017. Delaney's Mom was his first customer, but his sales quickly went beyond family members. By 2020, through a combination of savvy marketing and good fortune, FAB CBD had risen to more than $10 million in annual sales. In early 2021, Delaney caught the attention of High Tide, a Calgary-based cannabis company that offered him $13 million in cash plus $8 million High Tide shares in return for 80% of FAB CBD (an implied valuation of $25.8 million).

Ben Kellie got his start in the aerospace industry, helping Elon Musk figure out how to get his rockets to land on a floating barge without blowing up. In 2015, Kellie left SpaceX to start The Launch Company, where they supply hardware parts and consulting to a growing list of new aerospace companies like SpaceX. Less than five years after starting, Kellie was approached by Voyager Space, a private equity-backed group rolling up new space companies.