Built To Sell Radio

Dave Sifry has founded nine companies, including Technorati and Linuxcare, raising more than $170 million along the way. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, he reveals how he went from being worth more than $100 million on paper to watching that value disappear — and what he’d do differently if he had the chance again.  Despite those scars, Sifry has built an extraordinary career. He has founded nine companies and today is founder and CEO of Warmstart, a platform that helps entrepreneurs turn old contacts into new business. 

In 2006, Tad Fallows and two friends spotted a problem inside Harvard’s cancer labs: researchers were spending more time managing freezers, fruit flies, and mice than actually doing research. They built iLab, a SaaS tool for universities and hospitals, bootstrapped it to high–7-figure ARR, and eventually sold to Agilent Technologies for roughly six times revenue.  But the journey wasn’t smooth. Cash was often razor-thin with 75 employees on payroll, and an early inbound offer at 3× ARR forced Tad and his partners to decide: take the deal, or gamble on building more value. 

Ronan Berder built Wiredcraft to 140 people, then sold to Publicis for a reported 67 million euros. This Exit Story traces the moment he walked away from Techstars and a product dream to double down on services—and why that decision paid off. 

Most owners want 100% cash at closing. Most acquirers want the opposite—they try to hold back as much as possible and tie it to future results. That tug-of-war defines the negotiation.  In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, you discover how to turn common transition structures from potential pitfalls into opportunities for upside. 

What happens when it’s time to sell? Every acquirer looks at your business differently. In this special episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow breaks down the four most common buyer profiles and explains how each thinks about acquiring a company. Along the way, you’ll hear clips from past guests from our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series. 

Dan Berger built Social Tables into a SaaS success story with $20M in recurring revenue and more than 6,000 customers. He sold the business for $100 million.  But after raising $27M in venture funding and navigating liquidation preferences, his personal payout was just under $20M.  In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, Dan reveals the surprising math behind his deal and shares the emotional highs and lows of walking away from his company. 

Adam Rossi built a 250-employee software company serving law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They routinely beat Lockheed Martin in head-to-head bids.  Then a banker came back with five acquisition offers — each at the “absurd” number Adam and his wife had thrown out as a hypothetical. The winning bid came from SRA International, a publicly traded defense contractor, for a price that created generational wealth for his family. Adam took all cash and walked away with no earn-out.  But as Adam discovered, the hard part wasn’t negotiating the deal — it was figuring out what to do after it closed.   

Unlike most tech founders, Josh Payne never dreamed of a billion-dollar valuation.  His goal was simpler—and harder. He wanted his equity stake to be worth $50 million.  To get there, he skipped the usual playbook. No blitzscaling. No VC treadmill. He raised a small seed round, built a profitable company, and avoided dilution. By the time he sold StackCommerce, Payne still owned 75%—and hit his number. 

Most founders measure success by the price they get for their company.  David Hauser did that—he built Grasshopper to $30M Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and sold it for $175M – almost 6 times revenue. He and his partner owned the majority of the shares so the deal was life-changing for Hauser. But what makes this interview different is what Hauser did next: he crossed the table to become an investor and now acquires businesses through Durable Capital.  It’s a study in contrasts. As a founder, Hauser chased growth. As an investor, he’s ruthlessly disciplined. He mocks the PE herd chasing home services roll-ups and avoids auction-driven deals. Drawing on his experience founding Grasshopper and Mark Cuban-backed Chargify, he outmaneuvers ETA buyers and first-time acquirers with quiet, direct, close-ready offers. This is a rare window into how someone who’s built and sold a business thinks about buying one—and what makes a deal attractive from the other side. 

After selling When Rich Galgano was 25, he left a sales job in wire distribution to start Windy City Wire. Within nine months, he was doing over $1 million in sales—while fighting a lawsuit from his former employer. Fast forward 30 years, and Galgano had built the dominant low-voltage cable distributor in the U.S., sold it for just under half a billion dollars, and stayed on as CEO. 

When Ryan Atkinson sold CORE Resources to 24 Seven, it wasn’t his first exit. After selling Redwood Global in 2014, Ryan played a different role in his next venture—injecting $2 million of his own capital while his partner ran the business day-to-day.  The model worked. They grew CORE Resources into a go-to firm for specialized technology talent solutions and ultimately sold the company to 24 Seven—one of the largest privately held marketing, creative, and digital talent firms in North America—in an eight-figure exit.  In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, Ryan shares how they structured the deal, avoided resentment, and nearly lost the sale in the final hours. 

Negotiating the sale of your company may be the highest-stakes conversation of your life. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, part of our Mastering the Deal series, you'll learn how to stay composed when everything you’ve built is on the table.  Christopher Hadnagy, author of Human Hacking, teaches elite military units and Fortune 500 companies how to negotiate using psychological insights. In this conversation, he shares how founders can use the same tools to level the playing field with sophisticated buyers. 

When Ben Leonard sold Beast Gear—a strength and conditioning equipment brand he built from his spare room into a business generating $6 million in revenue—he thought he’d made the deal of a lifetime.  He got 80% of the proceeds up front, agreed to a small earn-out, and became the face of Thrasio, the acquirer.  Then things started to go sideways. 

You’ve built a valuable company. Maybe you’re even thinking about selling. But what happens after the wire hits?  In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, Alex Bean, co-founder of Divvy, shares what it felt like to sell his company for $2.5 billion—and why the real challenges began after the deal closed.  This conversation will help you think more strategically about what you’re really building—and how to avoid the regrets that often follow a big payday.

Most acquirers want you to stick around. Roll equity. Hit targets. Train your replacement.  But there’s a different kind of buyer out there. One who wires 100% of the money at closing—and lets you walk.  Dan Mytels represents this type of buyer. Through his firm, Salt Creek, he’s acquired 100 businesses—most of them mature, profitable, niche companies where the owner was ready to move on. They don’t always offer the highest multiple, but they do offer something many founders value more: a clean break. 

When Doug Lowenthal discovered that $1 million in EBITDA was the minimum threshold acquirers looked for in his industry, he had a goal. Then he learned that managed service providers—businesses that offer outsourced IT support—were trading for 6–8× EBITDA. That’s when he realized he was building something truly valuable.  But getting there required more than just strong financials. Doug had to rethink how he led his team, structured his business, and prepared for life after the deal. 

Chang Kim—friends call him CK—sold his company Tapas for more than $500 million and walked away without an earn-out. Instead of jumping into his next venture, he did something few founders have the nerve to do: he took a year off.  In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, CK opens up about what life looks like when work becomes a choice, not a requirement. From cross-continental travel to difficult conversations with his kids about wealth, this is a rare, candid look at what happens after the wire hits. 

Private equity firms are the most likely buyers for your business—and some do a fine job preserving what makes a company great. But many are financial engineers. They offer a generous multiple, then lever up the business, cut costs, and flip it within a few years. Longtime employees get let go. Culture erodes. You walk away with a check, but it can feel like selling out.