Marigold Resources

David Fairley estimates he has sold more than 20 online properties, but admits it was the sale of Hammocks.com—one of his first exits—that taught him the most.

Fairley had grown Hammocks.com into a seven-figure website with a pre-tax profit of more than $300,000 when he decided to put it up for sale. He received a “low seven-figure” offer and agreed to meet with the buyer.

That’s when things started to unravel.

The buyer questioned Fairley’s bookkeeping and dropped their price to around $700,000. Exhausted, Fairley felt cornered and decided the only thing he could do was to accept the lower price. 

Peter Shankman started Help A Reporter Out (HARO) to connect experts with journalists who needed people to quote for stories. HARO sent a simple email…

One of the core principles of creating a more valuable business is ensuring it can run without you by getting managers to think like owners.…

Have you ever wondered why startup companies stop growing? Sometimes they run out of potential customers to sell to or their product starts losing market share to a competitor, but there is often a more fundamental reason: the founder(s) lose the stomach for it.

When you start a business, the assets you have outside of your business likely exceed those you have in it, because in the early days, your business is worthless. As your company grows, it starts to have value and becomes a more significant part of your wealth—especially if you’re pouring your profits back into funding your growth.

For most business owners, their company is their largest asset.

Eventually, your business may become such a large proportion of your wealth that you realize you are taking a giant risk every day that you decide to hold on to it just a little bit longer.

Back in 2013, Dave Ripley became fascinated with Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency market was gaining notoriety and Ripley and a friend decided to start Glidera, a company focused on creating tools to help developers integrate cryptocurrency.

Ripley and his partner applied for and won a spot in Techstars, an accelerator that takes between 6% and 8% equity in the businesses they accept in return for access to an intensive start-up curriculum and a network of advisors.

They sold another chunk of the company to a group of Techstars advisors and finally sold the whole business to Kraken, one of the world’s largest bitcoin exchanges.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Drew Goodmanson started Monk Development as a custom website development shop and evolved it into a product enabling churches to establish an online presence. With more than 300,000 churches in the United States, Goodmanson’s company took off and he grew it to more than $3 million in recurring revenue per year, leveraging the Software as a Service (SaaS) business model.

In 2015, Goodmanson sold Monk to Ministry Brands and was then dispatched by Ministry to go and buy up similar software companies. Working for Ministry, Goodmanson eventually acquired 10 small software companies into one mega group.

Goodmanson has the unique perspective of being both the hunter and the hunted, and in this episode you’ll learn about:

In an analysis of more than 50,000 businesses, a new study finds the most valuable companies take a contrarian approach to the boss doing the selling.

Who does the selling in your business? My guess is that when you’re personally involved in doing the selling, your business is a whole lot more profitable than the months when you leave the selling to others.

That makes sense because you’re likely the most passionate advocate for your business. You have the most industry knowledge and the widest network of industry connections.

If your goal is to maximize your company’s profit at all costs, you may have come to the conclusion that you should spend most of your time out of the office selling, and leave the dirty work of operating your businesses to your underlings.

However, if your goal is to build a valuable company—one you can sell down the road—you can’t be your company’s number one salesperson. In fact, the less you know your customers personally, the more valuable your business.