In this episode, we sit down with Glenn Harwood, co-founder of AlgoDriven, who has just completed an all-cash exit to Emergence Software, a San Francisco-based hold-forever software company. Glenn started selling cars at Mercedes-Benz in Australia at 20, became a top-15 salesperson nationally, moved to Al Ain and then Dubai, and eventually turned a frustration with how dealerships valued used cars into a SaaS platform now used by over 1,000 dealerships across ten countries, appraising $25 billion worth of cars every year. This is a rare thing in the MENA startup ecosystem: a genuine, completed exit story, all cash, with early investors made whole and the founders staying on to keep building. Glenn is refreshingly open about the mechanics of the deal, the sleepless nights, and what it actually takes to close an acquisition on December 30th. We cover: How Glenn went from used car salesman to running the number one Mercedes used car department in Australia, and how that domain expertise became the foundation for everything that followed.Why five valuers in a dealership would give five different answers for the same car, and why every industry still running on gut instinct is a startup opportunity.Why every competitor digitised the clipboard and ended up with something more painful than pen and paper, and what AlgoDriven did differently.How they expanded to ten countries on a $2M Series A while remaining profitable, and what the lean international expansion playbook actually looked like.Why the acquisition beat raising a Series B, and how Emergence offered something a funding round couldn't.What it's actually like to close a deal on December 30th, chasing signatures across three continents over Christmas on no sleep.Glenn's honest framing of the VC game: you either IPO, get acquired, or go out of business, and why he's really happy with where they landed.----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction05:00 – "You Either IPO, Get Acquired, or Go Out of Business"06:30 – What is Algo Driven?08:00 – From Computer Stores to Mercedes Sales10:00 – The Spark: Why Car Dealers Need Better Data14:00 – The Real Cost of Getting Valuations Wrong16:00 – Building a Mobile-First Product with Consumer Feel20:00 – First Customers and Taking VC Money24:00 – International Expansion on a $2M Series A28:00 – The Path to Emergent's Acquisition34:00 – Deal Mechanics, AI, and What's Next ----------------------------------------------- Thank you to the partners who make this possible: • Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save. 👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTART Promo code: FWDSTART Sarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results. ----------------------------------------------- Transcript: ----------------------------------------------- Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Glenn Harwood on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennharwood/ Check out AlgoDriven: https://www.algodriven.com/ Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------
