Built to Sell Radio
Built to Sell Radio is a weekly podcast for business owners interested in selling a business. Each week, we ask an entrepreneur who has recently sold a business why they decided to sell their business, what they did right and what mistakes they made through the process of exiting their business. Built to Sell Radio is the ultimate insider's guide to approaching the most important financial transaction of your life.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 53 minutes
- Episodes
- 512
- Years Active
- 2015 - 2025
Ep 510 Mastering the Deal: Earn-outs, Equity Rolls & Seller Notes—Risk or Reward?
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 wee…
Ep 509 Mastering the Deal: 4 Buyer Types — Private Equity, Strategics, Hybrids & Acquisition Entrepreneurs
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 …
Ep 508 Exit Story: The Surprising Math Behind a $100 Million Exit
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 fund…
Ep 507 After the Deal: Why Adam Rossi Wanted to Undo His Exit
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 acqu…
Ep 506 Exit Story: $50 Million Was His Number—Here’s How Josh Payne Got There
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 …
Ep 505 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Why David Hauser Walked Away After a $175M Exit to Become a Disciplined Buyer
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 reve…
Ep 504 Exit Story: One Founder’s War with Private Equity—and the $500M Ending
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 …
Ep 503 How to Land an 8-Figure Deal Without Running the Business Day to Day
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 ca…
Ep 502 The Body Language of a Deal with Christopher Hadnagy
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 compo…
Ep 501 Mastering the Deal: Andres Lares on Avoiding the Rookie Mistakes That Kill M&A Outcomes
Ep 500 After the Deal: Ben Leonard on Watching His $6M Business Fall Apart After the Exit
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.…
Ep 499 After the Deal: The Hidden Cost of Generational Wealth
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 i…
Ep 498 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Understanding the Buyer Who Pays 100% at Close
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 …
Ep 497 Exit Story: How $1M in Profit Changed Doug Lowenthal’s Life Forever
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 …
Ep 496 After the Deal: CK on Selling for $510M, Taking a Sabbatical, and Redefining Success
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 n…
Ep 495 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Brent Beshore on the Private Equity Trap and Being Long-Term Greedy
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 …
Ep 494 Exit Story: Building News Sets for TV Stars—and a Business Worth Millions
Ep 493 Exit Story: Selling a 20-Person Agency for 5.5x EBITDA
Most stories we cover involve eye-popping multiples or headline-making exits. They’re fun—but not always realistic.
Jeff DeGarmo’s story is different. No private equity windfall. No tech hocke…
Ep 492 Mastering the Deal: How Greg Alexander Got $162M for a 30-Person Firm—and What He’s Learned from Watching 50 Other Exits Up Close
Greg Alexander sold SBI, his 30-person consulting firm, for $162 million. Since then, he’s had a front-row seat to 50 other service firm exits through his peer group, Collective 54. In this episode o…
Ep 491 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: The Case for Unsexy
What makes someone want to buy an “unsexy” business?
Jon Pole has acquired 19 traditional radio stations. On paper, it’s an industry many assume is in decline. But for an experienced buyer like Po…