Built to Sell Radio

Griffin Thall and Paul Goodman, two Southern California friends traveling through Costa Rica on a post-college graduation trip in 2010, crossed paths with two bracelet artisans, Jorge and Joaquin, who were living in poverty. Jorge and Joaquin made beautiful, colorful handmade bracelets that seemed to capture the essence of their journey. Thall and Goodman asked the artisans to make 400 bracelets to take home with them.

Nick Gray built Museum Hack, a company that offers fun museum tours in major cities, to almost 3 million dollars in annual revenue when he had an idea.

Pathfinder Health offered software to therapists helping patients with Autism. The company founder was creative, but the company had reached a plateau.

In the last two weeks, we've seen a passenger jet shot out of the sky. A super-bug has emerged in Asia. A bun fight in the democratic primaries which will look like a schoolyard tussle compared to the bare-knuckle cage match we're about to witness in the race to become — or remain — the leader of the free world.

When Scott Raymond started buying real estate, he looked for a property management company to maintain his buildings. He couldn't find anyone to care as much as he did, so Raymond decided to start his own property management business.

Wes Winham was a co-founder and shareholder in PolicyStat, a software company that helps hospitals keep track of their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), including everything from dress codes to how to handle life and death procedures.

Marc-Andre Seguin launched JazzGuitarLessons.net in 2009 to share his knowledge as a guitar teacher.

Dr. David Bach is a Harvard-trained scientist, physician, and serial entrepreneur.

Zain Hasan started an insurance agency called National Insurance Consulting Group (NICG), in 2014.

Jean-Eric Plamondon was in the scrap metal business where the stereotypical operator is a shady character buying metal by the ton with a blow torch in one hand and a wad of cash in the other.

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey built Barefoot Cellars to sales of more than 600,000 cases of wine per year when they got the attention of R&J Gallo, America's largest winemaker.

In 2013, Alex McClafferty co-founded WP Curve, a company that provided IT support for people with a WordPress site.

Starting from humble beginnings, Sherry Deutschmann built LetterLogic into a $40 million juggernaut which she sold recently for more than seven times EBITDA.

Ian Silverberg was considering acquiring a health club when he discovered a surprising lease that all but guaranteed his acquisition would be a winner.

Luxer One went from around $1 million in sales in their first year to an incredible $37 million in 2018 without suffering the dilution of accepting a round of venture capital in part by charging property managers up front for his system. Here's how he did it.

Tom Pisello built Alinean, a consulting company which offered a set of tools to help salespeople express the value of picking their solution. The business was cruising with about half of its revenue coming from recurring licensing fees and the other half from consulting when disaster struck the Pisello's family.

Sunny Vanderbeck was growing Data Return 40% every quarter when he took the company public in 1999 on the way to a market capitalization of more than $3 billion. Until the bubble burst.

O'Neil-Dunne was able to patent his technology and create a competitive advantage by learning the "patois" of his industry. Here's how.

In 1999, Peter Kelly was at Stanford business school when he and two partners spotted an opportunity to remake an industry – used cars.

Mark Deutschmann started Village Real Estate in 1996 and by 2018 he had grown it to 350 salespeople. Then six of his agents decided to compete with him. Anyone would be upset, but you'll be surprised at what Deutschmann did next.

Glenn Grant always assumed he would sell his company for a multiple of EBITDA… until private equity firms started talking multiples of revenue. He decided to learn more.

After falling ill, Nation Leagues owner, David Heimlich, needed to sell his business – but to his surprise, it was worthless. He learned the hard way why you can't be the center of the business.

When Tommy Berretz had his successful swimming pool company valued, he had just one (big) problem: he didn't like what he found out.

John MacInnes pulled his business out of a rut by evolving into a subscription-based model. Here's how he did it.

From a standing start, Dinesh Dhamija grew European online travel agency eBookers to more than one billion in sales in just five years.

Matt Slaine used his wisdom from Wall Street to buy the perfect company, and later sell it for a perfect price.

James Roman grew iVelocity's revenue by a whopping 1000% - was the stress that ensued worth it?

Matt Darby was burnt out and wanted to sell the business – even if it wasn't for cash.

Kristin Delwo co-founded Stacks, a software used by librarians. Though the software was still early in its life, Delwo wanted to scale quickly and decided to look for a deep-pocketed acquirer.

Sometimes you don't have to look far to find the perfect buyer – but you do have to be flexible.

Altia systems has just crested 20 employees and was fine tuning the latest version of its camera system. So how on earth did it sell for $125 million?

Want to bring in a President to run your company day-to-day? Here's how to get it right.

So, your business is ready to sell. But are you? Here's the other side of the ledger you may have forgotten to consider.

We talk a lot about how you sell a business, but the real satisfaction comes when exit and expectations match.

If too many cooks spoil the broth, can too many owners derail a sale?

How does an event with thousands of attendees, millions of dollars in revenue, and keynote speakers like Richard Branson give its founder nightmares?

CJ Whelan and his co-founder evolved a typically "free service" into something that customers were more than willing to pay for – and remain loyal.

Alex Bates's company used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict the future, but even he couldn't have anticipated a 10X payday when he sold his business.

Andrew Lamppa wanted to sell his restaurant within two years of buying it, but it would take another twelve before he had something an acquirer wanted to buy.

Kogentix's product and service offerings may be complex, but their huge growth resulted in an ending that's easy to understand—an acquisition by the biggest digital marketing agency in the world.

Find out how Erik Van Horn went from running a business for only two hours a week to making an eight-figure exit.

Kenan Hopkins spent 7 years paying what he calls "the idiot tax", until he learned the more efficient way to run a business.

Strategic acquirers will pay more for your company—here's how to make your business irresistible to them.

From the acquirer to the seller, Ross Buhrdorf bought more than 25 companies at HomeAway, then sold his business to Expedia for a whopping $3.9 billion. Now, he's sharing his secrets – from both sides.

Connie Fenyo went all in, risking everything to purchase Dye & Durham. And when buyers came knocking, her gamble paid off.

Building a sellable business doesn't have to take years. Drew Kraemer received his first acquisition offer nine months after he started Marketplace Strategy.

The two founders of Stelligent were burnt out running their consulting business until they agreed to stop doing one thing that changed just about everything.

From an agile SMB to the big, corporate environment of one of the Big Four auditors – this business owner learned negotiating a price is only half the battle.

Turning business down can be tough for an entrepreneur, but Mitch Durfee learned the hard way that saying 'yes' can lead to disaster.

From raising $28 million to dealing with a less-than-friendly departure of a partner, find out how Mitchell Reichgut built Jun Group to sell.