Built to Sell Radio

Shawn Finder built email marketing platform Autoklose to $1 million in revenue when a chance encounter at a conference led to an acquisition conversation with VanillaSoft. Finder thought his company was worth much more initially than VanillaSoft did – their valuations were quite far apart and both sides had to negotiate to ultimately meet in the middle.

Mike Agugliaro is an electrician by trade and over 12 years built Gold Medal Service to around $700,000 in revenue with his partner Rob Zadotti. The days were long, which was one reason Zadotti decided to quit. Agugliaro took a few days to consider how things had gotten so bad. He realized they had been making a lot of mistakes and knew they could do better.  Agugliaro convinced his partner that if he would stay, they could build a better company together. Zadotti agreed, and that kicked off a journey that would see Agugliaro and Zadotti build Gold Medal Service into a $32 million company with double digital profit margins.

Marc Elkman built Fresh Meal Plan, a meal delivery service for healthy eaters, from an idea to $20 million in annual revenue in just three years. Still in his twenties, Elkman earned a # 70 spot on the Inc 500 list of fastest-growing companies in America. Then he caught the attention of New Heights Capital, a private equity group focused on the fitness industry. New Heights acquired the controlling interest in Fresh Meal Plan in 2016 and Elkman continues to hold a minority stake. 

Over the last month, we've interviewed four fascinating guests on Built to Sell Radio. John Warrillow shares the transferable lessons with you on Built to Sell Intel, a monthly live webinar hosted for our listeners. Dr. Jeremy Weisz hosts this Q&A and asks for John's take on four successful exits.

Wes Mathews built High Level Marketing, a digital advertising agency, to $6.5 million in annual revenue. The business was thriving, but when COVID hit, Mathews started to question the risk he was shouldering employing 49 people. It was around that time that Mathews received an email that would change his life forever.

This week on the show, we tried something a little different. Instead of interviewing an owner about their exit, we canvassed founders for their questions about building to sell and asked the host of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow, to answer them. In this episode, John draws on his experience interviewing more than 300 founders on Built to Sell Radio to answer five essential questions.

Ben Leonard is a fitness enthusiast who found himself in bed with a heart problem in his early 20's (he's fit and healthy now). His doctors told him to rest. Said not to go to the gym, he cleared out his bag and noticed some of the accessories he used had worn out prematurely.  The experience sparked an idea. Leonard decided to launch a brand of fitness accessories made to last longer and cost less than the alternatives. He named his fledging company Beast Gear.

James Prebble co-founded Palladium Digital, a consultancy helping companies think about their digital strategy. The company experimented with various business models until they landed on helping private equity groups get a return on their investments. Private equity groups hired Palladium to perform "digital due diligence" before they invested. Along with identifying any flaws in a target company's digital strategy, Prebble and his team were also asked to identify any untapped digital assets that, if adequately exploited, had the potential to transform the business being considered for investment. Discovering these so-called "Rembrandts in the attic" is what private equity groups often look for to jack up their return on investing in your business. 

Andrew Gazdecki was born in Detroit and lost his father as a young boy. He and his Mom grew up using food stamps. In College, Gazdecki created an online marketplace for freelancers (think a tiny version of UpWork). He sold his online marketplace for $50,000 and said it "felt like a trillion dollars" at the time. 

Back in 2013, on the heels of building a successful online dating application, Darrell Lerner decided to apply his experience in the dating industry to pet adoption. He built a website and mobile app called AllPaws which allows users to find a pet based on a variety of criteria important to people considering adopting an animal.