Exitwise Productions

E29: Today, I want to do something a little different and share a story about an 82 year old serial entrepreneur who is also a professional tennis player. I've known this person my whole life and he helped shape my entire entrepreneurial career with his unwavering encouragement and lifelong words of wisdom when he told me, "No one is ever going to give it to you. You have to fight for every point,...

E28: On today's episode of the Cashing Out podcast we speak to Greg Lopez , a very experienced operator and entrepreneur with a deep financial and accounting background. Greg’s superpower is clearly his financial expertise - so, you'll hear his warnings for CEOs who need to better manage businesses around cash flow instead of the P&L. We discuss how buyers and sellers clash over net working ca...

E27: 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 m...

E26: On today's episode of The Wise Exit, 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 b...

E25: 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 , an...

E24: On Episode 24 of The Wise Exit, 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 thi...

E23: Today 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 ser...

E22: 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 him...

E21: Today, I have a fantastic guest, Shannon Wilburn , who was co-founder, CEO and today is a board member of the franchise sensation, Just Between Friends . Shannon started her career as a fifth grade elementary school teacher, but as a pastor's wife in need of more income, she pivoted into the life of entrepreneurship.  In 1997, Shannon and her co-founder opened their first children's and mater...

E20: Today, my guest is a very experienced and well-known M&A professional and entrepreneur, Kison Patel .  Kison entered the M&A world as a sell side M&A advisor representing commercial banks and hotel chains.  Over the years, with hundreds of transactions under his belt, Kison realized that many business acquirers lacked efficient technology to manage their transaction ins and to ult...

E19: Today I have a special guest, Touraj Parang , who has not only founded and sold three venture backed startups, but he's also led eight transformational acquisitions as a corporate development buyer at GoDaddy.  Touraj has been a Silicon Valley M&A attorney, a venture investor, an entrepreneurial mentor, and today is the president of Serve Robotics, which provides delivery to people in pub...

E18: Today I have a fantastic guest from my men's league hockey team and serial entrepreneur, Greg Packer .  Greg was born in Detroit. He graduated from the University of Michigan, and went on to build two large Professional Employer Organizations (or PEOs). Greg built his first PEO, Amstaff right out of college and eventually sold the business to ADP, which rebranded as ADP Total Source.  At ADP...

E17: Today I have a special guest, M&A expert, and serial entrepreneur, Brian Scanlon . Brian started his career by founding a marketing agency, Social Mediators, a full service digital marketing agency, which he sold in 2014. Brian's exit was not life changing, but he was able to put an entrepreneurial win on the board and much like myself he then decided to focus his attention on helping his...

E16: Today I have a special guest, fellow podcaster and serial entrepreneur with multiple exits under his belt, Jeff Durso .  Jeff is a Massachusetts native who after attending MIT, sold his first business at the height of the internet bubble in 2000. We'll hear how a strategic partner can turn into an acquirer without any notice and how a well-timed silence during the subsequent negotiation with...

E15: Today I have a special guest, friend, and forward-thinking entrepreneur, Chris Meso .  In 1989 while still in his twenties, Chris founded Mobile Air, which after more than 30 years of growth has become the largest private, portable HVAC specialty services business in North America. What's special about Chris's story is that not only did he know the right time to sell the business, but Chris a...

E14: Today we have a special guest and good friend of Exitwise, Joe Chura . Joe has had an incredible entrepreneurial journey starting on the Ford Motor Company assembly line to founding two automotive digital marketing platforms, which he sold to cars.com in 2018 for a walk off home run outcome. Joe is an exceptional leader, marketer and lifelong learner who has taken on many different challenges...

E13: This episode is Part II of a two-episode series.  If you haven't listened to Part I, we invite you to listen to it first before enjoying this episode. Today, based on multiple requests from our listeners, my friend, fellow entrepreneur, and co-founder of Exitwise, Brian Dukes is going to interview me, Todd Sullivan , to help our listeners learn a little bit more about my background and how we...

E12: Today, based on multiple requests from our listeners, my friend, fellow entrepreneur, and co-founder of Exitwise, Brian Dukes is going to interview me, Todd Sullivan , to help our listeners learn a little bit more about my background and how we came to start Exitwise. We'll take you through the four companies I've started and sold while sharing a few memorable stories about my co-founders, in...

E11: Today I have a special guest friend and former personal mentor, Jeff Ma . Jeff is best known as a former member of the MIT Blackjack team who won millions in the mid 1990’s. Jeff's success was the basis of the main character of a New York Times bestselling book, “Bringing Down The House”, and the highly successful movie “21”. Because of his focus on data and analytics, Jeff's success at the b...

E10: Today, I have a special guest, friend - home improvement entrepreneur, Brian Elias .  With just $5K in savings, Brian started and built 1-800 Hansons, a company selling replacement windows, siding and roofing in the Midwest. Brian built Hansons to more than $70M in sales and today Hansons is one of the top 10 home improvement companies in the US. In 2017 Brian sold the majority of his share i...

E9: Today I have a special guest, friend and prolific entrepreneur, Jay Adelson. Jay is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded and built countless significant companies over the last 20+ years:  Founded Equinix (EQIX) in 1998, eventually helping drive to a successful IPO  Helped launch Digg, Inc. and providing initial business strategy, taking the role of CEO beginning in 2005 Co-founded Revisio...

E8: Today I have a special guest and friend who's been through an IPO and sold his last company to Microsoft. Stephen Cox created his first success as an early employee at PurchasePro, a B2B eCommerce platform, which went public in 1999. Steven followed that up by building TakeLessons, an online music lessons platform to help other musicians and educators connect with students in person and online...

E7: Brandon started in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and then jumped to private equity to learn the tricks of the trade. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Brandon not only started a company, but he also worked in strategy and in M&A roles in multiple industries. Ultimately, Brandon discovered his life changing opportunity as an independent sponsor by purchasing and rolling u...

E6: Larry is a recognized industry expert in the field of Customer Experience and the author of two books, Managing Forward and recently published Innovating Analytics. Larry founded ForeSee Results to provide multichannel customer satisfaction analytics and analysis to clients worldwide in a variety of industries including retail, government, healthcare, finance, education and more. Larry grew th...

E5: Shane Bliemaster has the interesting perspective of working for three companies that were acquired, the last of which was his own.    He went through his first M&A transaction as an employee of Peanut Labs, which was acquired by e-Rewards in 2010. Then he was part of the founding team of MoviePass, which was acquired in 2017. And finally, his last exit was as the founder of Marketing Suppl...