Best Hosted By John Warrillow The Creator Of The Value Builder System Podcasts (2025)

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Ep 518 Growth Equity, Control, and When Rolling Equity Fails — John Ruffolo (Inside the Mind of an Acquirer) 48:01

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6d ago48:01

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If you're considering your endgame, you're probably looking at private equity. Most PE firms use a familiar formula: buy a majority stake and ask the owner to "roll equity"—re-invest part of the proceeds—into the newco they're building. The downside: you become a minority shareholder in a business you no longer control. There's another path: growth…

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Ep 517 The Surprising Truth of a 9-Figure Exit — and How Not to Lose $23 Million (After the Deal) 55:55

13d ago55:55

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If you've ever noticed those ads inside a mobile game, you have Zain Jaffer to thank. He co-founded Vungle and helped popularize rewarded video ads—the ones that revive your character or hand you in-app currency after you watch. In this Built to Sell Radio episode, Zain explains how he rode the smartphone wave to a $780M all-cash exit to Blackstone…

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Ep 516 How Joyride Fetched 7x Revenue for a Business Selling Abandoned Cars (Exit Story) 39:19

20d ago39:19

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Most cities have a problem: what to do with cars that get towed and never picked up. They pile up in impound lots—taking up space and tying up cash. Stan Markuze helped solve that problem by co-founding Joyride Auto, an online auction platform where repair shops, scrap dealers, and car enthusiasts can buy those abandoned vehicles directly from the …

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Ep 515 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer with Valtech's Randy Woods 1:01:34

25d ago1:01:34

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After a 23-year journey building Non-Linear Creations into a marketing giant with more than 120 employees, Randy Woods sold it in 2017 to Valtech. Valtech is a distinguished digital agency offering marketing, digital technology, and business transformation consulting services. Post-sale, Woods now serves as the SVP of Strategic Growth Opportunity a…

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Ep 514 Why the Old Private Equity Playbook is Dead - Inside the Mind of an Acquirer with Lee McCabe 46:55

1M ago46:55

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Today's episode of Built to Sell Radio is part of our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer series. John Warrillow interviews Lee McCabe, a former Meta and Alibaba executive turned private equity investor—now an advisor helping PE firms modernize how they create value. McCabe argues the old model of buying cheap, piling on debt, and hoping for multiple ex…

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Ep 513 Exit Story: How Dave Sifry Lost $100 Million, Lessons from Starting 9 Companies, the Dangers of Raising Money, and Why He's Doing It Differently with Warmstart 58:43

1M ago58:43

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Dave Sifry has founded nine companies, including Technorati and Linuxcare, raising more than $170 million along the way. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, he reveals how he went from being worth more than $100 million on paper to watching that value disappear — and what he'd do differently if he had the chance again. Despite those scars, Sifr…

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Ep 512 Exit Story: Selling iLab for 6× ARR, Choosing Strategic Over PE, and Life After an Eight-Figure Exit 57:06

2M ago57:06

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In 2006, Tad Fallows and two friends spotted a problem inside Harvard's cancer labs: researchers were spending more time managing freezers, fruit flies, and mice than actually doing research. They built iLab, a SaaS tool for universities and hospitals, bootstrapped it to high–7-figure ARR, and eventually sold to Agilent Technologies for roughly six…

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Ep 511 Exit Story: Why Ronan Berder Walked Away from Techstars and Sold Wiredcraft for 67 Million Euros 1:09:48

2M ago1:09:48

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Ronan Berder built Wiredcraft to 140 people, then sold to Publicis for a reported 67 million euros. This Exit Story traces the moment he walked away from Techstars and a product dream to double down on services—and why that decision paid off.By John Warrillow

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Ep 510 Mastering the Deal: Earn-outs, Equity Rolls & Seller Notes—Risk or Reward? 16:54

2M ago16:54

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Most owners want 100% cash at closing. Most acquirers want the opposite—they try to hold back as much as possible and tie it to future results. That tug-of-war defines the negotiation. In this week's episode of Built to Sell Radio, you discover how to turn common transition structures from potential pitfalls into opportunities for upside.…

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Ep 509 Mastering the Deal: 4 Buyer Types — Private Equity, Strategics, Hybrids & Acquisition Entrepreneurs 27:01

2M ago27:01

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What happens when it's time to sell? Every acquirer looks at your business differently. In this special episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow breaks down the four most common buyer profiles and explains how each thinks about acquiring a company. Along the way, you'll hear clips from past guests from our Inside the Mind of an Acquirer serie…

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Ep 508 Exit Story: The Surprising Math Behind a $100 Million Exit 49:48

3M ago49:48

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Dan Berger built Social Tables into a SaaS success story with $20M in recurring revenue and more than 6,000 customers. He sold the business for $100 million. But after raising $27M in venture funding and navigating liquidation preferences, his personal payout was just under $20M. In this week's episode of Built to Sell Radio, Dan reveals the surpri…

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Ep 507 After the Deal: Why Adam Rossi Wanted to Undo His Exit 1:07:16

3M ago1:07:16

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Adam Rossi built a 250-employee software company serving law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They routinely beat Lockheed Martin in head-to-head bids. Then a banker came back with five acquisition offers — each at the "absurd" number Adam and his wife had thrown out as a hypothetical. The winning bid came from SRA International, a publicly t…

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Ep 506 Exit Story: $50 Million Was His Number—Here's How Josh Payne Got There 46:51

3M ago46:51

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Unlike most tech founders, Josh Payne never dreamed of a billion-dollar valuation. His goal was simpler—and harder. He wanted his equity stake to be worth $50 million. To get there, he skipped the usual playbook. No blitzscaling. No VC treadmill. He raised a small seed round, built a profitable company, and avoided dilution. By the time he sold Sta…

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Ep 505 Inside the Mind of an Acquirer: Why David Hauser Walked Away After a $175M Exit to Become a Disciplined Buyer 57:08

3M ago57:08

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Most founders measure success by the price they get for their company. David Hauser did that—he built Grasshopper to $30M Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and sold it for $175M – almost 6 times revenue. He and his partner owned the majority of the shares so the deal was life-changing for Hauser. But what makes this interview different is what Hauser …

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Ep 504 Exit Story: One Founder's War with Private Equity—and the $500M Ending 1:11:29

3M ago1:11:29

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After selling When Rich Galgano was 25, he left a sales job in wire distribution to start Windy City Wire. Within nine months, he was doing over $1 million in sales—while fighting a lawsuit from his former employer. Fast forward 30 years, and Galgano had built the dominant low-voltage cable distributor in the U.S., sold it for just under half a bil…

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Ep 503 How to Land an 8-Figure Deal Without Running the Business Day to Day 53:02

4M ago53:02

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When Ryan Atkinson sold CORE Resources to 24 Seven, it wasn't his first exit. After selling Redwood Global in 2014, Ryan played a different role in his next venture—injecting $2 million of his own capital while his partner ran the business day-to-day. The model worked. They grew CORE Resources into a go-to firm for specialized technology talent sol…

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Ep 502 The Body Language of a Deal with Christopher Hadnagy 48:55

4M ago48:55

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Negotiating the sale of your company may be the highest-stakes conversation of your life. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, part of our Mastering the Deal series, you'll learn how to stay composed when everything you've built is on the table. Christopher Hadnagy, author of Human Hacking, teaches elite military units and Fortune 500 companies …

6M ago57:13

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