The Exit - Presented By Flippa

This week on the exit: Nathan Hirsch describes himself as a long-time entrepreneur. He started working at 15, and soon realized that he didn’t really enjoy responding to a boss, or adhering to a schedule. During college, his entrepreneurial spirit boomed: in 2008, Nathan had an Amazon account, and started experimenting with dropshipping even before it was a thing. Soon enough he was running a million dollar business out of his fraternity house. The business was growing so fast he needed to hire people quickly… and that’s where the idea for freeup.net came from. Four years after its inception, the marketplace for hiring pre-vetted freelancers in all industries reached $12M dollars in revenue, and two entrepreneurs approached Nathan and his business partner with an offer… Listen to find out how the exit unfolded. Nathan Hirsch is currently the CEO of EcomBalance, a US based bookkeeping service for eCommerce businesses with monthly analysis. As well as being the CEO of AccountsBalance, A monthly bookkeeping services for agencies, SAAS, coaches, service providers, and online businesses. Nathan is also the Co-Founder of the Outsource School, which teaches you how to crack the code on hiring and scaling your business to 6 and 7 figures with virtual assistants. In 2015 he founded FreeeUp.com with the sole purpose of providing online business owners with a more reliable and faster way to hire talented workers online. Nathan exited the company after an acquisition in 2019. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhirsch/ Nathan’s Current Companies: https://ecombalance.com/ - https://accountsbalance.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/company/outsourceschool/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on the exit: Get the inside word from Flippa CEO, Blake Hutchison, who shares insights from the largest marketplace to buy and sell online businesses, including why Flippa is seeing huge growth in buyer registrations, what a multiple crunch means for business valuations, and the latest innovations from Flippa to help buyers and sellers get deals done. You’ll also learn about what buyers are hunting for and why more institutional buyers are turning to Flippa to acquire digital assets. Blake also shares a sneak peek into what’s planned for the future of Flippa, listen now to learn more. Blake Hutchison is currently the CEO of Flippa, the #1 marketplace to buy & sell online businesses. Originally founded in 2009, Flippa exists to support the small business ecosystem so that any business owner or buyer can sell or acquire a business. Flippa is the leading platform and network connecting online business owners with buyers all over the world. Flippa Insights Report: flippa.com/blog/insight-report-december-2022/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakehutchison/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation Learn all about Flippa’s Off-Market: flippa.com/product/off-market Discover how Flippa’s AI driven matching engine for business owners and prospective buyers works: flippa.com/product/recommender-engine -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: Nick’s very first exit came from a personal training business he started when he was 16 years old in the late 80s. He sold that business for $3K, and that was the very beginning of Nick’s entrepreneurial journey which eventually led to his latest exit for $2.3B. In between he worked for Rupert Murdoch in acquisitions and corporate structure, then negotiated over 40 acquisitions with Getty Images. This episode of The Exit is a masterclass in exits and acquisitions from an entrepreneur who has had 117 acquisitions and over 20 exits. Whether you have years of experience, or you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode has something for everyone. Nick Bradley has over 100 acquisitions under his belt and has built a career on helping entrepreneurs become prepared to exit their company. Nick is currently the CEO and Founder of High Value Exit where they help successful CEOs, founders, & entrepreneurs build high value, high-impact, exit-able businesses. Nick has a passion for empowering growth-minded business owners to scale rapidly towards a high-value exit and ultimately, freedom. Nick is also currently the host of the "Scale Up With Nick Bradley” Podcast which is one of the UK's leading business podcasts. High Value Exit: https://highvalueexit.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenickbradley/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily l

This week on The Exit: Born in Tehran, Iran, Bobby Yazdani left the country at age 16 during the Iranian Revolution. Jumping forward, Bobby graduated from Berkeley and started work at Oracle. Back then you had to log into the internet and the concept of internet cookies didn’t exist. But Bobby could see the potential for a suite of technology and browser-based applications working with the internet. So together with a group of friends from Oracle, he left to start Saba. What followed was the creation of a category: Learning Management Systems. The idea was to move training to the internet which led to the shift of content and learning onto the internet. It was a hugely profitable system which evolved into supply chain and talent management. After their first big investment the exit quickly followed, but Bobby wasn’t done with Saba. Listen to find out about the first exit, and Bobby’s experience of then taking the company public. Bobby Yazdani is Founder and Partner of Cota Capital, a San Francisco-based firm investing in private and public U.S.-based modern enterprise technology companies. Before forming Cota Capital, Bobby spent over 20 years investing in technology companies both individually and through his family office, Signatures Capital, which he founded in 2006. Bobby founded Saba Software in 1997, taking the company public in 2000. Saba was acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. in 2020. At Saba, Bobby served as CEO from 1997 to 2002 and from 2003 to 2013. Cota Capital: https://www.cotacapital.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobby-yazdani-015a13a/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: When he was in college, Will Sacks and a bunch of friends raised enough money to turn their dream of a solar powered race car into a reality. The car raced from Chicago to LA, and that’s when Will realized his call was to create things. Out of college, he founded a lighting company, but that didn’t really take off. A few years later, Will and his former partner were debating birth control pills, vasectomies and other ways to not fall pregnant. That’s when they came up with the idea to create a platform to help women understand their bodies, tracking their cycles and analyzing their fertility data. That’s when Kindara came to life. The company raised money in multiple ways, including a $3M seed funding round that helped build a hardware device, a thermometer to track fertility. Listen to hear how the exit happened in 2018, how Will experienced burnout and had to step down as a CEO, and how Kindara revolutionized women’s reproductive health. Will Sacks founded Fulcrum Venture Accelerator in 2019 with the mission to empower socially-minded entrepreneurs and help them succeed at raising capital. Will once created a solar powered race car that he raced from Chicago to Los Angeles and most recently founded Kindara with the mission to empower women everywhere through body literacy. Kindara raised around $9M in angel and venture funding and was acquired in 2018. He and the Fulcrum Venture Accelerator team are based in Boulder CO, and Nashville TN, USA. Website: https://fulcrumventureaccelerator.com/ Instagram: @Willsacks - https://www.instagram.com/willsacks/ @Thefulcrumhq - https://www.instagram.com/thefulcrumhq/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamsacks/ His current company: https://www.thedreamexit.com/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: Don McLaughlin was working as an inhouse lawyer for a consulting firm that served the Fortune 500 when he saw an opportunity to better manage electronic data. Don left to build Falcon Discovery, entirely bootstrapped, within the first 12 months the business was generating more than $1M in annual revenue. The fast growth resulted in two acquisition offers being made, the first for $2.5M, the second for $5M. Don turned them down both, believing that the business had more growth potential. While that was true, what Don didn’t prepare for was the emotional toll building such a fast growth business would take on him personally. He regretted not taking earlier acquisition offers and describes it as “hitting rock bottom”. It was tough, but he persevered and rebuilt the business, negotiating an exit a year and a half later. Listen to find out how Don pulled through and secured a successful exit after facing enormous challenges. Don McLaughlin is the Founder & Managing Partner of The Dream Exit Collective. His company helps business owners and entrepreneurs optimize themselves and their businesses, so they can achieve a dream exit on their terms without burning out. Don is a father of three, former trial attorney and serial entrepreneur who hit rock bottom in the midst of growing a multi-million dollar legal tech and consulting firm that served the Fortune 500. He successfully exited that firm after discovering 4 key shifts to maximize company value and build personal resilience, and now helps other business owners do the same. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dreamexitcollective/ His current company: https://www.thedreamexit.com/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: Sometimes timing can change everything. John Knific and his business partners Kate Volzer and Kris Ciccarello started Wisr.io, a digital platform allowing colleges and universities to create private, university-branded networks for their students, in 2016. In early 2020, the business was doing well, but then Covid hit. Campuses started shutting down, and being one of the only virtual connectivity solutions available for students, Wisr.io saw astronomical growth. In 45 days, the business generated double the revenue they had made in the past three years with a team of just six people. The business kept growing, and John and his business partner started to look for investment but what they ended up with was an acquisition. In 2021 a potential partner made them a compelling offer that ultimately resulted in an exit… Listen to hear the full story. John Knific is a serial entrepreneur who has built two venture-backed SaaS companies. He co-founded Wisr.io, which was acquired by the Education Advisory Board (EAB) in 2021. Post acquisition, he served as Managing Director of Product for EAB for two years, overseeing solutions that serve 2,500 universities. In 2023, he left EAB to launch K2 Venture Partners with Wisr co-founder Kris Ciccarello. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnknific/ Acquired Company: https://eab.com/wisr/ His current company: https://www.k2vp.com/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: When Heikki Haldre was at university, his brother gave him a computer and told him that it didn’t matter what he did as long as he did something. So he started a business. Living in Estonia, a newly developed country, Heikki worked with high net worth individuals who were looking to incorporate companies. Looking back, he acknowledges that this type of business was pretty horrible. In fact, out of the 10,000 companies discovered by the Panama Papers, about 1,000 were incorporated by Heikki. He quickly got out of that space, selling the business to a Luxembourg company and never looked back. Heikki took the money from the sale to build a career that would include three more exits, the biggest of which involved selling a virtual fitting room business to Japanese technology conglomerate, Rakuten, the sixth largest Ecommerce company in the world. With four exits under his belt, Heikki has a wealth of knowledge to share about how to find potential buyers, setting your business up for a great sale price, and managing the transition period. Listen to hear his full exit story. Heikki Haldre was the Founder, CEO, and CPO of Rakutan before its acquisition in 2016. Post the acquisition Heikki was the Board and strategy Advisor for Rakutan Fits.me. Heikki is currently the Founder of Miros, The world’s first visual language for eCommerce search. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hhaldre/ His current company: https://miros.ai/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: When Eddie Whittingham left the police force to become a lawyer, he never expected to eventually leave law to start his own cybersecurity business, and then sell that business to Proofpoint, one of the biggest SaaS-based cybersecurity companies in the world. After just one day of work as a lawyer, Eddie knew law was not right for him so he set to work building his own business with the goal of matching his salary at the time. The Defense Works was a fraud prevention SaaS business, and with a focus on impeccable customer service and the goal of achieving almost zero churn, the business grew exponentially. After just 3.5 years Proofpoint reached out on LinkedIn with an acquisition offer. The result? An exit offer he couldn’t refuse for 10x the annual recurring revenue. Listen to hear the full story, as well as the three traits Eddie sees in all successful entrepreneurs. Eddie Whittingham is currently the Founder of GoFounder. GoFounder is a company that provides the tools and training necessary for entrepreneurs to start and grow their dream businesses. GoFounder provides programs that are designed to help potential founders achieve their goals, regardless of their experience or expertise. Eddie was also the founder of The Defence Works before their acquisition by Proofpoint in 2020. Listen to Eddie and our host Steve McGarry’s conversation on this episode to find out more about Eddie’s exit! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiewhittingham/ His current company: https://gofounder.com/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

This week on The Exit: Adam sits down with us to share his journey of exiting when the offer was too good to refuse. After a varied career from volleyball coach to starting an MBA, Adam eventually ended up in Major Gifts Fundraising, where he came up with the business Gavyty, an artificial intelligence company developing productivity and data security for fundraisers. Adam quickly realized users weren’t engaging with his product as he expected, but with a small nuanced shift to focus on email usage, customers quickly began using the product regularly and the business grew to generating over $1M in revenue quarterly. In 2019, exit conversations started but the board was pushing to scale more. With three PE firms vying to acquire the business it was only a matter of time before one made an offer too good to resist. Listen to find out how the acquisition went, and Adam’s tips on when is the right time to exit. Adam Martel is currently the CEO and Founder of Givzey. Givzey is the first AI-enabled fintech company specifically developed for the social good sector with a focus on providing donors flexible giving options and enabling nonprofit organizations easier and quicker access to capital to accelerate their world-changing missions. Before Givzey, Adam was the CEO and Founder of Gravyty until December 2021. Gravyty is a Boston-based artificial intelligence company developing productivity and data security tools to revolutionize frontline fundraising and protect donor data at nonprofit organizations. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martel-36734b2/ His current company: https://givzey.com/ For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/