CASHING OUT: An Exitwise M&A Podcast Todd Sullivan

On today's episode of the Cashing Out podcast we have a good friend and entrepreneur, John Latella.  John is the former owner and CEO of the family-owned iconic food brand Garden Fresh Gourmet, which John and his partners sold to The Campbell Soup Company in 2015 for $231 million.
John and Todd talk about how he acquired Basha Hummus and El Matador Tortilla Co. to help grow his business to more than $100 Million in sales. We touch on how the Garden Fresh team managed through multiple inbound offers and M&A interest to eventually land on what they thought to be their ideal acquirer, The Campbell Soup Co.  And finally, we discuss what drove John and some new business partners to try to buy the business back just a few years later.
Today, John is an active angel investor and founder of Legacy Fantasy Sports, a fantasy sports platform that allows users to insert their favorite professional players from the past into live professional sports events.
Episode Highlights:
5:48 - Managing inbound interest (M&A) from six different potential acquirers over the years8:55 - What finally let John to sell Garden Fresh to The Campbell Soup Company15:50 - The details of the Garden Fresh sale, and what happened next22:57 - John (and team) have the opportunity to buy Garden Fresh Gourmet back from Campbell's30:20 - John's first phone call after the sale to Campbell's31:46 - The joy of bonusing the original employees of Garden Fresh after the transaction32:54 - John's final Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) advice to his fellow founders and entrepreneurs
Where To Find John Latella:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-j-latella/
Where To Find Todd Sullivan:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddfsullivan/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Todd_Sullivan

Episode 27 References:


Garden Fresh Gourmet 
Garden Fresh Gourmet Acquires Basha Hummus
Garden Fresh Gourmet Acquires El Matador Tortilla Chip Co.

Campbell Completes Acquisition of Garden Fresh Gourmet  
Campbell Soup Sells Bolthouse Farms
Campbell Soup Announces Deal To Sell Garden Fresh Gourmet

Legacy Fantasy Sports  

Exitwise  

On today's episode of the Cashing Out podcast we have a very experienced operator and entrepreneur Joe Meyer. Joe has built several large business units within larger companies like Upper Deck, PWC and eBay.
And he's founded and sold multiple companies to corporate behemoths like AOL and Apple. Joe attributes much of his success to his unwavering perseverance, which was driven home when his college baseball career was painfully cut short. Joe and I also talk about the Herculean efforts needed to get any new business off the ground and then properly positioned to sell when these same businesses are often days from bankruptcy before finding sustainable success.
Finally, we'll learn about Joe's latest venture ExecThread, which is a peer to peer job sharing network. Joe has built ExecThread to close to 1 million of the highest quality business leaders from all walks of life who uncover and share some of the most sought after private job listings for top executives across the globe.
Episode Highlights:
7:18 - As an entrepreneur, the value of selling in the 4th inning
9:40 - Raising Venture Capital may not be the most effective barometer for entrepreneurial success
11:48 - How the regret of leaving his Division 1 baseball team changed everything about Joe's professional career 24:13 - What It's Like To Sell To Apple
30:32 - What was the first thing Joe did after selling HopStop to Apple
34:59 - Joe's next venture, ExecThread
Where To Find Joe Meyer:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joejmeyer/
Where To Find Todd Sullivan:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddfsullivan/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Todd_Sullivan

Referenced:

ExecThread:  https://execthread.com/

Exitwise:  https://exitwise.com/

On today's episode, we have tech expert, entrepreneur and founder of three successful tech companies, Matt Watson.  As a technical and product-focused founder, Matt has a unique talent for balancing technology and business goals and knows what it takes to sell his business when the time is right.
Matt built the largest automotive focused CRM platform in North America called VinSolutions, and he sold it to Autotrader for $150 million in 2011.

After selling his second technology company, Stackify, Matt is now focused on building out his current software development firm Full Scale, leveraging all of his experiences and expertise. Matt is also the host of the Startup Hustle Podcast, where he shares insights, tips and stories from his own entrepreneurial journey and from some of the most successful business leaders in the world.

In today's conversation, we talk about being open minded to either raising capital or selling your business to enable the next stage of growth. Matt also shares how important it is to understand how your transaction earnout is achieved when you are no longer making all the decisions.
A few episode highlights:
4:38 - A car dealer walks into Sears to buy a computer... 
7:15 - I'm your Zuckerberg to your Winklevoss
8:21 - The hustle to get VinSolutions off the ground
12:17 - The strategic advantage that created a SaaS rocket ship 18:10 - The pros and cons of taking venture investment to handle exponential growth
22:14 - The Autotrader acquisition, and how it almost didn't happen
26:44 - The "Rule of 40" in valuing the business
39:05 - The potential pitfall of selling to the wrong Private Equity group
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Matt Watson.

On Episode 24 of the Cashing Out Podcast we have a great guest, fellow college athlete and former owner of All Star Driver Education,  Brent Wall.  In 2007, Brent bought All-Star Driver Education from his father because they had very different views on how to grow the business. And Brent was tired of working for the family business without having true ownership. Once Brent took the reins, he grew this small family business into a 13 state operation with accompanying software, a platform which he ultimately sold in 2019 to a Private Equity firm.

In our conversation, Brent shares his family dynamics that led to him buying the business. How picking the wrong potential buyer for his business set his exit process back several months. And finally, how Brent determined how much money he needed to sell his company for to comfortably enter the next phase of his entrepreneurial career as a crypto and blockchain investor.
A few episode highlights:
4:35 - Playing in the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament against #1 seed North Carolina (think Vince Carter & Antawn Jamison)
6:14 - The complexities of growing the family business
24:52 - The peaks and valleys of the Mergers & Acquisitions process...  and having to go through the process twice!
29:35 - The value of M&A expertise in Brent's journey
39:14 - Brent's next entrepreneurial journey, creating a Crypto Hedge Fund, Silver Harbor Capital

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brent Wall.

On Episode 23 of the Cashing Out podcast, we have a special guest, good friend, and founder of MaxPreps, Andy Beal.  In 2002, Andy launched MaxPreps which became one of America's top sports media properties, and it was the pre-eminent online source for high school schedules, scores, statistics, and video highlights.  In 2007, Andy made the decision to sell MaxPreps to CBS Interactive for $43M.  Andy stayed on with MaxPreps serving as its President for the next 13 years until he left CBS in 2020.
In today's conversation Andy and I talk about the debate over selling MaxPreps instead of raising more capital, and how having a great Board of Directors can help set you up for a really successful exit. 
A few episode highlights:
(10:08) ... The thesis behind the creation of MaxPreps, and how it disrupted an entire industry
 
(13:10) ...  How a lunch and a milkshake at Red Robin lead to a perfect company name
(23:08) ... Building the perfect M&A team to get to a successful exit
(38:41) ... EXIT OVERTIME:  Who did you call?  / How did you celebrate? / How did you reward yourself?
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Andy Beal.

Today I have a special guest, serial entrepreneur, and CEO Sandeep Sood.  Sandeep started his career as a designer and application developer for a variety of companies, before launching his first business, Monsoon, a high-end software development agency to the Fortune 500. 
After a 13 year journey, in 2015, Sandeep sold his business to Capital One.  For the next 3 years Sandeep immersed himself into how large scale financial products were really built within large corporations, and then used that experience to create an even better software development agency to service large financial institutions, called Kunai.
Today, Sandeep talks about his multiple exits, the pros and cons of working at a large public acquirer, and how he negotiated as part of his exit the ability to build a second business in the exact same industry.  A few episode highlights:
(7:27) ... Going to work at the acquirer - Capital One
(24:51) ...  What drives Sandeepmeer to continue building his next venture, Kunai
(32:52) ... Founder "Lightning Round": Who was the first person you called?  How did you celebrate with your team?  How did you reward yourself?
(36:25) ... Final founder thoughts from Sandeep - encouragement for all types of entrepreneurs, not just those that are trying to build unicorns
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Sandeep Sood.