From Angel To Exit

Building a valuable company isn’t simply about generating more revenue. It’s about learning from failure, protecting cash flow, creating repeatable systems, building the right team, and eventually deciding what you want your business to give you beyond money. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt speaks with Kyle Ewing, chairman of Windward Equity and founder of TerraSlate, about K...

What if you could take significant money off the table without immediately selling your entire company to private equity or a strategic buyer? In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt speaks with Larry Kaplan, Managing Director at CSG Partners, about Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and why founder-CEOs should consider them when evaluating their business exit strategy. Larry des...

What makes a business valuable to a buyer—and what decisions can quietly make an eventual exit harder? Dan Bauer brings a unique perspective to that question. After growing up in his parents’ HVAC business, building a corporate marketing career that included Bank of Hawaii, Citibank, and MasterCard, and earning his MBA from Harvard Business School, Dan made the leap into entrepreneurship. He event...

A potential buyer doesn’t just want to know how much revenue your company generates today. They want to understand where that revenue comes from, whether it’s repeatable, and—most importantly—how the business can generate significantly more of it after the transaction. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt speaks with revenue science expert Rick McPartlin about building a revenue s...

What happens when a founder ignores conventional startup advice and simply focuses on solving problems better than anyone else? David Lekach grew up immersed in entrepreneurship, learning firsthand from his family's successful retail businesses before launching ventures of his own. His entrepreneurial journey eventually led him to discover an early natural sleep aid product that inspired the creat...

Many founder-CEOs assume that adding more products, customers, and revenue streams automatically increases business value. According to serial entrepreneur Yarin Gaon, the opposite is often true. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt sits down with Yarin—founder of Fractional Partners, former Entrepreneur-in-Residence for a venture capital firm, and mentor to more than 400 founders...

What makes a business truly valuable to buyers? According to serial entrepreneur and The Magnolia Firm founder Christine McDannell, it isn't just revenue—it is how independently the business operates without its founder. Christine shares her remarkable entrepreneurial journey, beginning with a $300 house cleaning business that grew into San Diego's largest privately owned cleaning company before b...

What separates successful acquisitions from the majority of deals that fail to deliver expected value? According to Jennifer Fondrevay, it’s not financial modeling, due diligence, or negotiation tactics—it’s people. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt speaks with Jennifer Fondrevay, founder of Day 1 Ready, author of Now What?, Forbes contributor, and recognized M&A advisor. J...

Building a company is hard. Exiting successfully is even harder. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Ana Chaud shares the remarkable story behind Garden Bar and the lessons she learned scaling, selling, and transitioning beyond founder life. Born and raised in Brazil, Ana spent over a decade as a business consultant working closely with entrepreneurs before launching her own company. Following...

In this episode of From Angel to Exit, host Bruce Eckfeldt sits down with executive recruiting entrepreneur Carl Kutsmode to discuss the realities of scaling, leading, and exiting businesses in the recruiting and talent acquisition industry. Carl shares how his entrepreneurial journey began after transitioning from management consulting into recruiting during the early days of online hiring. Recog...

Building a scalable business is rarely a straight line—and exiting one is even more complex. In this episode, Jeff Corn, founder of Virtuance, shares a candid look into his entrepreneurial journey, from early hustle to eventual acquisition. Jeff began with a simple insight: real estate photography was inefficient, expensive, and outdated. By combining creative expertise with operational efficiency...

What happens when a “bluebird” acquisition offer arrives—and you’re not ready? Laurie Barkman, Founder and CEO of Business Transition Sherpa, joins the show to unpack her journey from corporate marketing leader to CEO of a $100M division, and ultimately through a billion-dollar company sale that reshaped her career. Laurie shares how she stepped into a CEO role within a third-generation family bus...

Selling a business is one of the most important—and complex—decisions a founder will make. Yet many enter the M&A process without understanding how buyers actually think. In this episode, Clay Risher, Investment Banker and Managing Director at True North Capital Partners, offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at buy-side M&A strategy and what drives acquisition decisions. Clay explains the...

What happens when a business becomes successful—but not “exit-shaped”? In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt interviews Johnny LeHane, an exited founder and investor who helped grow WAKA (World Adult Kickball Association) from a bar-napkin idea into a national social sports company operating across 70+ cities and 35 states, reaching roughly $10M in revenue. Johnny didn’t start with...

Selling a business isn’t just a financial transaction—it’s a strategic, emotional, and operational transformation. Elizabeth Shea founded SpeakerBox in 1997 after recognizing a gap in technology PR services in the Washington, DC market. Over two decades, she built the firm into a respected boutique agency serving venture-backed and B2B tech companies. From early partnership buyouts to her eventual...

What separates a successful exit from a discounted deal? In this episode of From Angel to Exit, Bruce Eckfeldt sits down with Chris Maresca — serial entrepreneur, seven-time exit founder (including one IPO), and current private equity due diligence leader — to unpack what really happens behind the scenes during acquisitions. Chris has built 14 startups, led turnaround consulting engagements, and n...

Selling a business is often described as a financial milestone, but according to Denise Logan, that framing misses the most dangerous part of the process: the emotional transition. In this episode of From Angel to Exit, host Bruce Eckfeldt talks with Denise—therapist-turned-lawyer and author of The Seller’s Journey—about why founders so often stall, sabotage, or regret their exits despite strong v...

Lee Minkoff, Managing Director,  Renovus Capital Partners In this episode of From Angel to Exit, host Bruce Eckfeldt speaks with Lee Minkoff, Managing Director at Renovus Capital Partners, about how private equity buyers approach founder-led, service-based companies in the lower middle market. With a focus on businesses under $10M in EBITDA, Lee shares how Renovus uses a sector-focused strategy to...

What do anthropology and exit strategy have in common? For Ujwal Arkalgud, everything. In this insightful episode, Ujwal shares how he built a services business from scratch, used cultural insight to win Fortune 500 clients, and scaled into a SaaS platform with 70% EBITDA margins. His approach to engineering credibility, navigating buyer psychology, and preparing for an exit led to multiple privat...

Peter Lang went from burnout running a digital agency to building and exiting multiple businesses through programmatic M&A—all without outside capital. In this founder-to-founder episode, he shares how acquisitions helped him scale faster, unlock hidden value, and eventually step away from the CEO role entirely. If you’re running an agency or founder-led business and looking to scale or exit s...

Tim Murphy, former CEO of Boomer Parks, shares the story of transforming a bankrupt amusement park group into a profitable, private equity-ready asset. From revamping guest experience to shifting customer focus and optimizing pricing, Tim walks us through how he scaled operations and achieved an $18M swing in EBITDA. This episode is packed with lessons in operational turnaround, pricing strategy,...

At just 24, Scott Snider sold his landscaping company—but quickly faced an identity crisis. Today, as president of the Exit Planning Institute, he’s on a mission to help founders avoid the same post-exit regret. In this episode, Scott shares his entrepreneurial journey, why most exits fail the owner emotionally, and how the CEPA framework empowers founders to build with the end in mind. Discover w...

Karl Sigerist, Managing Director at the Shaughnessy Group, shares insider strategies on how founders can prepare for a high-value exit. With decades of experience on both the buy and sell sides, Karl reveals why 80% of lower middle market deals fail—and how you can avoid becoming a statistic. Learn the must-have foundations for exit readiness, how to think like a buyer, and why building a culture...

What happens when you turn down a solid acquisition offer? In this powerful episode, Walter Paulsen shares hard-earned insights from decades of founding, scaling, and selling companies in Silicon Valley. From early lessons in rejecting a high-value exit to building Blackhawk’s explosive gift card growth engine, Walter dives deep into founder psychology, exit strategy readiness, and why focus and h...

What do startup founders often regret most at exit? Overvaluing too early, choosing the wrong investor, and skipping key legal protections. In this episode, Mital Makadia, Partner at Grellas Shah, shares legal and strategic insights from two decades of advising startups through funding and M&A. She breaks down common founder mistakes, why strategic investors can be dangerous, and how to protec...