{"id":9480,"date":"2021-12-15T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T23:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/?p=9480"},"modified":"2021-12-15T09:55:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T23:55:12","slug":"selling-a-business-for-1-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/selling-a-business-for-1-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling a Business for $1 Billion with Paul Wasserman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/selling-snow-cones-in-a-blizzard-with-paul-wasserman\/id1532346146?i=1000544796624\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-listen-on-spotify\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/6m9u3oK6BlZ5REb4S1gKZ3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Spotify<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-listen-on-google-podcasts\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjg4MjY1MjIyOC9zb3VuZHMucnNz\/episode\/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTE2MzIxMjcyNg?sa=X&amp;ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiomqzZgeL0AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen on Google Podcasts<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1163212726&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theexitpodcast\" title=\"The Exit - Presented By Flippa\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener\">The Exit &#8211; Presented By Flippa<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theexitpodcast\/selling-snow-cones-in-a-blizzard-with-paul-wasserman\" title=\"Selling Snow Cones in a Blizzard with Paul Wasserman\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener\">Selling Snow Cones in a Blizzard with Paul Wasserman<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we are talking to Paul Wasserman, co-founder of Ebates.com.&nbsp; After trying a few different career paths, Paul decided he was smart enough to start his own company.&nbsp; Tossing around ideas with his friend for months, the winning idea came to Paul while he was on a long, mind-numbing drive.&nbsp; That idea was Ebates.com.&nbsp; It had a slow start, but Paul and his investors believed in it.&nbsp; As things picked up, Paul was surprised to learn that 70% of users were still active after 15 years.&nbsp; With their future looking bright, the company decided to go public in 2013.&nbsp; They wouldn\u2019t complete that process however before Rakuten would make them an offer they couldn\u2019t refuse.&nbsp; Exiting the company in 2014 to the tune of $1 billion was a dream come true for Paul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Trying On Various Hats<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul says he didn\u2019t have the typical business track record, but has always been an entrepreneur.&nbsp; As a child, he begged his parents for a snow cone machine, which he took out into a blizzard and tried to sell snow cones.&nbsp; He says it was a flop but a good learning experience.&nbsp; He got into computers in the late 70s and became a self-proclaimed computer nerd.&nbsp; In college, he was an econ major working at a software store.&nbsp; After that, he took a left turn and went to law school because his second passion was arguing.&nbsp; His plan was to do computer law, but he found civil litigation to be extremely boring.&nbsp; So, he got into criminal law, working as a DA.&nbsp; Paul and another DA thought they were both relatively smart guys and should be able to come up with a business idea.&nbsp; They went back and forth pitching ideas for months.&nbsp; They knew it would be something in the business to consumer arena.&nbsp; At the time, Amazon was still fairly new, and Google and Facebook didn\u2019t even exist yet.&nbsp; Their idea was to leverage Amazon\u2019s affiliate program, and thus they launched Ebates.com.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Building During A Financial Crash<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul says they started to pitch to various venture firms before Foundation Capital (the primary investor in companies like Netflix and Cisco) said yes and gave them some seed money.&nbsp; Neither Paul nor his partner were coders, and so they brought in an outside firm to help them build things out.&nbsp; The first year was difficult because things had just crashed in 2000.&nbsp; Luckily, Paul and his partner were conservative with their money and were able to make it through.&nbsp; For the next few years, they saw slow, linear growth where most companies were either rising or falling quickly.&nbsp; Luckily, the investors were very patient and understood their vision.&nbsp; They recognized that Paul and his partner were fanatical about staying with their vision.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Calling In Reinforcements<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As things continued to progress, Paul realized they needed someone who knew the financial side of things.&nbsp; They ended up bringing on a new partner and making him CEO.&nbsp; Paul says once they handed over the reins, things really took off.&nbsp; By 2013 they realized that they were at a point to go public.&nbsp; They started the process and were in the midst of it when the CEO of Rakuten approached them and said they were trying to build out a worldwide brand and thought Ebates would help them to expand into the US.&nbsp; Rakuten made an offer which was brought before the board.&nbsp; At the time, the bankers were estimating they\u2019d go public at about $650 million, which is roughly what Rakuten\u2019s offer was.&nbsp; The board decided to say thank you, but no, thank you.&nbsp; At this point, Rakuten turned around and offered $1 billion.&nbsp; The board readily accepted, and the company sold in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Making Customers For Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Leading up to their exit, Paul says they tracked everything when it came to KPIs, mainly just because they could.&nbsp; Their most important KPI, however, was customer acquisition cost.&nbsp; Paul says he\u2019s always surprised when he talks to other CEOs, and 50% of them aren\u2019t measuring that.&nbsp; Their second major metric was cohorts of when people joined and what percentage they were losing.&nbsp; Paul says the data they were getting back was so good that he was convinced it was wrong.&nbsp; They were finding that 70% of people were still active 15 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Knowing What You Know Now<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What Would You Tell Yourself Ten Years Ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul says he would tell himself to chill, things were going to work out.&nbsp; He would remind himself to stay the course if you truly believe in what you&#8217;re doing, and don\u2019t worry so much about the exit, it will take care of itself if it\u2019s meant to be.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Learn More<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul is currently a professor teaching criminal law at California State University. When he\u2019s not in the classroom, he says he loves to be out flying, as he just got his pilot&#8217;s license.&nbsp; His most recent business venture was with his son during the COVID-19 shutdowns.&nbsp; With his son out of work and living back at home, the two took the time to create an online poker company.&nbsp; Versuspoker.com aims to take the home poker environment online.&nbsp; Paul says it\u2019s made to run home poker games, and it\u2019s just about ready for its launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link\" href=\"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/category\/the-exit-podcast\/?buy_sell=blog\">Listen to More From The Exit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Google Podcasts The Exit &#8211; Presented By Flippa \u00b7 Selling Snow Cones in a Blizzard with Paul Wasserman Today we are talking to Paul Wasserman, co-founder of Ebates.com.&nbsp; After trying a few different career paths, Paul decided he was smart enough to start his own company.&nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":9500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9480"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=9480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}