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The Exit Podcast
In a world surrounded by opportunity The Exit talks to those people who have bought and sold businesses. In 30 minutes, you will learn how they did it, why they did it and a world of EXITS, currently occupied by a small few but accessible to most.
Episode 230
Leveling the Investment Field: Laurits Just Announces Flippa Invest
Laurits Just, manager of Flippa Invest, shares his journey from working at BlackRock to co-founding Bits for Digits, a marketplace for partial business acquisitions that was later acquired by Flippa.
Inspired by a blog post about Basecamp’s partial sale to Jeff Bezos, Laurits and his co-founder created a platform to facilitate similar transactions for founders without direct access to high-profile investors.
Now managing Flippa Invest, Laurits discusses their new data-driven alternative financing platform that connects accredited investors with digital business owners seeking growth capital.
The platform allows US-registered businesses to raise between $50,000 and $1 million, with potential for oversubscription, while leveraging integrated data from sources like Stripe and QuickBooks to showcase business performance.
Episode 229
Navigating Deal Killers: Jim Stevenson’s 25 Years of M&A Wisdom
Jim Stevenson, founder and CEO of Bletchley Group, shares strategic insights from 25 years of advising companies through exits and acquisitions.
Jim discusses crucial aspects of preparing a business for sale, emphasizing the importance of running solid fundamentals while leaving room for buyers to see growth potential. He also highlights common mistakes that kill deals, including overvaluation, waiting too long to sell, and founder dependence.
Episode 228
From Basement to Nine Figures: Aaron Spivak’s Hush Story
Aaron Spivak, founder of The Founders Club, shares his entrepreneurial journey from launching a juice shop in his mother’s basement at 18 to building Hush, a premium weighted blanket company that achieved nine-figure success.
Aaron discusses how Hush innovated in response to market challenges, developing the world’s first cooling weighted blanket when faced with 70,000 competitors.
Episode 227
Three Exits over 35 Years: Zoe Kalar’s Global Success Story
Zoe Kalar, founder and CEO of WeAre8, shares insights from her remarkable journey through three successful exits over 35 years, including one for $100 million.
Starting her first company at age 21, Zoe discusses the challenges of early exits, including painful earn-outs and misaligned values with acquirers.
She shares crucial lessons from her experiences across different markets – from her first bootstrapped company in Australia to building a transformative business in China, and later creating a data infrastructure company that became the backbone of media trading in the US.


YOUR HOST
Steve McGarry
An entrepreneur, content creator, and investor based in sunny Tampa, Florida. In 2015, while living in San Francisco, Steve sold his first fintech startup LendLayer to Max Levchin’s (founder of PayPal) consumer finance company Affirm.
Episode 226
Parent Communities to a National Brand: Lindsay Pinchuk’s Bump Club Tale
Lindsay Pinchuk, founder and CEO of Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing, shares her journey from building Bump Club, a community-focused business for expectant parents, to its eventual exit.
Starting in 2010 as a series of local events in Chicago, Lindsay grew the company into a national brand working with major retailers like Target and Nordstrom, reaching millions of parents monthly.
Episode 224
Angel Investing with Purpose: Xandra Laskowski’s Investment Philosophy
Xandra Laskowski, founder and CEO of Osea Angel Investors, shares her journey from tech industry veteran to angel investor.
After retiring in 1998, she started a family office in 2008 and began angel investing in 2013.
Xandra discusses key criteria for startup investments, including the importance of founders having prior exit experience and maintaining two years of runway.
Episode 223
Bridging the Funding Gap: Kristen Cooper’s Startup Ladies Story
Kristen Cooper, CEO and founder of The Startup Ladies, shares insights on empowering women entrepreneurs to secure funding and scale their businesses.
Starting from informal meetings, Kristen built an organization that now has 150 members across five states.
Episode 222
Exit Ready at Any Scale: Adam Kirsch’s Advisory Wisdom
Adam Kirsch, Director at West Monroe, shares insights from his journey as both an entrepreneur and M&A advisor.
Adam emphasizes the importance of being “exit ready” from day one, highlighting key preparation steps like maintaining an organized data room, developing clear roadmaps, and building relationships within your ecosystem.
Episode 221
The Three Ps of Exit: Rose Hamilton’s CPG & Exit Wisdom
Rose Hamilton, CEO and founder of Compass Rose Ventures, shares insights from her extensive experience helping CPG brands scale and prepare for exits.
With a background at companies like Best Buy, The Vitamin Shop, and Pet360, Rose now specializes in working with founders and investors in the health, wellness, pet, beauty, and food industries.
Rose emphasizes the importance of staying connected to customers while scaling, noting that founders often lose touch with their core market as they grow.
Episode 220
Seven Exits and Counting: Justin Goodbread Blitzscaling to Exits
Justin Goodbread, CEO of Financially Simple, reflects on his journey through seven successful business exits, with his most recent venture scaling to an eight-figure exit in just 49 months.
Justin discusses the alarming statistics around business exits, noting that of 11 million businesses expected to attempt selling in the next few years, only one million will successfully transact, and just 4% of those will be pleased with the outcome and exit amount.
He emphasizes the importance of understanding business value and identifying value gaps across eight key areas: planning, leadership, sales, marketing, people, operations, finance, and legal.
Episode 219
The Great Wealth Transfer: Scott Bushkie’s M&A Insights
Scott Bushkie, Managing Partner and founder of Cornerstone Business Services, shares insights from his 26-year career helping business owners navigate successful exits.
Scott discusses the upcoming massive wealth transfer as Baby Boomers retire, with 50% expected to transfer their businesses by 2030.
He emphasizes the importance of early exit planning, comparing entrepreneurship to a marathon where initial excitement fades into a plateau.
Episode 218
The Art of Exit Preparation: Kirk Michie’s Advisory Insights
Kirk Michie, managing partner at Candor Advisors, shares insights from his 30-year career in capital markets and M&A advisory.
He discusses his transition from financial advising to helping founders navigate successful exits.
Kirk emphasizes the importance of understanding your “why” as a founder before pursuing an exit, noting that matching with the right buyer depends on understanding one’s core motivations and objectives with your exit.
Episode 217
Mastering Restaurant Exits: Robin Gagnon’s We Sell Restaurants Story
Robin Gagnon, co-founder and CEO of We Sell Restaurants, takes us through her 21-year journey helping restaurant owners navigate exits.
Her company has grown to become the largest restaurant brokerage firm in the nation, operating in 45 states with over 1,000 listings valued at approximately $450 million.
Episode 216
Patents and Profitable Exits: Todd Sullivan’s M&A Wisdom
Todd Sullivan, CEO of ExitWise, shares insights from his journey through multiple successful exits, starting with a hockey equipment patent that he licensed and sold 22 months after creating it.
After this, Todd progressed through several ventures, including companies acquired by CBS and Microsoft, before founding SpiritShop.
Todd emphasizes the importance of balancing venture capital expectations with personal goals, advising entrepreneurs to prioritize their own financial security over investors’ demands for outsized returns.
Episode 215
Founder-Friendly Exits: Tim Schumacher’s SaaS Acquisition Philosophy
Tim Schumacher, co-founder of SaaS Group, shares insights from his experience acquiring and growing software businesses.
Tim and SaaS Group’s philosophy prioritizes a founder-friendly approach to acquisitions, focusing on cultural fit, team preservation, and transparent deal processes.
Tim believes that the timing of an exit should be based on personal readiness rather than market conditions, and deal structures should align with the founders’ goals and circumstances.
Episode 214
Navigating M&A: Andrew Dickow’s Insider Perspective
Andrew Dickow, Managing Director at Greenwich Capital Group, shares insights from both the buy and sell sides of mergers and acquisitions.
Andrew discusses valuation methodologies, focusing on the importance of clean financials and understanding market multiples.
He also advises entrepreneurs to be wary of unsolicited offers from private equity firms and emphasizes the importance of hiring proper advisors to run a competitive process.
Regarding timing, Andrew notes a recent boom in M&A activity due to anticipated lower interest rates and potential tax implications.
Episode 213
From Bootstrapped to 4000 Employees: Connor Tomkies’ Support Ninja Saga
In this episode of The Exit, Connor Tomkies shares insights from his entrepreneurial journey, including the successful exit of Support Ninja, a company he bootstrapped and scaled to over $50 million in revenue and 4,000 employees.
Episode 212
Disrupting Aviation Education: Jason Schappert’s MzeroA Success Story
Jason Schappert, founder of MzeroA, shares his journey from flight instructor to successful entrepreneur, specifically discussing how he bootstrapped MzeroA, an online aviation education platform, from zero to an eight-figure exit over 16 years.
Jason highlights the challenges of disrupting traditional aviation education by moving ground school online, facing skepticism but ultimately proving successful.
Episode 211
Preparing for the Multimillion-Dollar Exit: Wayne Zell’s 44 Years of Wisdom
Wayne Zell, a renowned exit attorney, founder of Aspire to Exit, and CEO of Zell Law shares insights from his 44-year career in estate planning, exit planning, and business law, which he has also written about in his book, “Your Multimillion-Dollar Exit”.
Wayne emphasizes the importance of proper preparation for business exits, discussing key aspects such as valuation, personal financial planning, and management succession.
The conversation also touches on more complex considerations, such as the differences between strategic and private equity buyers and the complexities of stock purchases versus asset purchases.
Episode 210
Forecasting Growth and Engineering Success with Simon Alex Bérubé
Simon Alex Bérubé, app entrepreneur, startup coach, and investor, shares the story of his transition from software engineering to founding a sleep improvement mobile app company that grew to 40 employees before being acquired by Teladoc after an eight-month exit process.
Simon emphasizes the importance of accurate and long-term forecasting, clean financials, organized documentation, and overall maintaining “a clean house” in preparing for an exit.
Regarding when to exit a business, Simon suggests that the best time to sell is during rapid growth with predictable forecasts.
Episode 209
Vincent Alessi’s Advanced Materials Exit and Journey to OpenAI
Vincent Alessi, a multiple-exit founder and current subject matter expert at OpenAI shares his journey from humble beginnings in Michigan to becoming a successful entrepreneur and AI expert, specifically within the field of biology and chemistry.
He discusses his first venture, Covaron Advanced Materials, which developed innovative materials with a strong sustainability profile. The intellectual property alone was worth $32M and the company was acquired by an industrial consortium after a nine-month process.
Episode 208
Navigating the Acquisition Maze: Paul Shustak’s Exit Insights
Paul Shustak, currently co-founder of AsqMe, shares insights from his transition from Microsoft, Sony, and Adobe to founding four of his own startups, one of which was a SaaS platform that helped families provide care for parents with Alzheimer’s.
Paul details the acquisition process, including initial negotiations, valuation considerations, and stress points that can arise at each phase and cause a deal to fall apart if not properly addressed.
Episode 207
Disney Music Group to AMP Agency and Matt Fitz-Henry’s Tale of Two Exits
Matt Fitz-Henry, Chief Innovation Officer at AMP Agency, discusses his journey from music to tech entrepreneurship, starting with his experience at Universal Music Group and Disney Music Group, and then moving on to multiple successful exits.
Matt details his first venture, a digital agency that grew to 45+ employees in three years before being acquired in a swift 90-day process.
His second venture, Genome, a digital innovation, transformation, and product development company, also scaled to about 50 employees and was acquired by AMP Agency in 2022.
Episode 206
Blazing New Trails: April Pride’s Cannabis Industry Success Story
April Pride, a creative entrepreneur with multiple successful exits in the cannabis industry, shares her journey from interior design and branding to founding a cannabis accessories company, which she sold within three years for a 28X return.
She discusses the challenges of raising capital as a woman in the cannabis industry and her decision to exit early despite criticism. April highlights the importance of timing in exits, emphasizing the need to sell before burnout and to trust one’s intuition while considering market forecasts.