Startup Exits

In the days when TVs were "dumb", everyone tuned into the same content. Today, the TV watching experience is highly personalized, including the ads. This realization led Ben Antier and Cedric Tournay to start Publica, an advertising platform for smart TVs that was acquired by Integral Ad Sciences ($IAS) for $220 million in 5 years since inception. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Ben about:

• What is an internet connected TV (CTV)?

• How are ads served on smart TVs?

• Do smart TVs personalize ads and track users?

• Influence of COVID on TV consumption

• TV ads for startups: will TV ads become more accessible?

• Will user generated ad content make its way to "the big screen"?

• Advertising in the post cookie world

In 2021 it's not uncommon to hear that you should build a community before building a product, but not many people could have told you this advice in the 1990s. Rob Howard, who built the early community for ASP.NET while working at Microsoft, is one of those people. After seeing the incredible power of an engaged community, Rob went on to start Telligent in 2004, an industry-leading community software company that he ran and scaled until its acquisition by Verint in 2015.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Rob about:

• Community building in the 90s

• Software for communities: 2004 vs 2021

• Distinction between using social media vs building a community

• Having both perspectives: being an acquirer and the acquired

• The future of community building

• What's next for social media?

“We’re building a city the size of Paris each week, so every non-optimal project that’s built today is a missed opportunity for changing the world” –– this is one of the reasons why Carl Christensen founded an AI-driven architectural design startup, Spacemaker. The company raised over $30 million, was declared a startup of the year in Norway and was acquired for $240 million in just 4 years.  

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Carl about:

• What's wrong with how cities are built?

• What's the result of non-optimal urban planning?

• How's urban planning done today?

• Startup ecosystem in Norway

• Where else can AI-driven design be valuable?

• Will AI replace architects?

Revett Eldred is a British-Canadian entrepreneur with two, eight-figure exits. After spending his career as a programmer in the 60s and 70s, he got tired of the bureaucratic nature of corporate America and started his own consulting firm, Minerva. Revett grew the company from 0 to 250 employees, became the first Canadian partner of Microsoft, won a bunch of prestigious awards and sold Minerva after 12 years –– all without a dime of outside capital!

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Revett about:

• Being a programmer in the 1960s

• Closing a first client as an unknown firm

• Sales strategy: break it down into stages

• Working with Bill Gates

• Cashing an eight-figure check after selling Minerva

• Can you predict the 2020s from the 1960s?

• The future of the office and WFH

Revett Eldred is a self-proclaimed "aging geek" and "retired bum" and spends his time giving back to young entrepreneurs, like myself and my brother Alex. We should all be grateful for people like Revett. 

Facebook purchased GIPHY for $400 million and Take Two purchased Dots for $200 million –– what do these two acquisitions have in common? Three things: both are 9-figure exits, both happened in 2020 and both were incubated by Paul Murphy. In this episode, we focus on Paul’s experience in incubating and growing Dots, a series of casual and highly addicting mobile games, towards their eventual sale, and Paul's subsequent transition to venture capital.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Paul about:

• Incubating multiple startups at Betaworks

• Can pretty design be a value prop?

• Spending $10k on FB ads in 1 hour by accident

• Attempts at entering the Chinese market

• Moving from being a founder to VC investing

• Would Paul-the-VC invest in Paul-the-founder?

• What if the team is great but the idea is bad?

Paul Murphy is currently an investor at Northzone, an early-stage venture capital firm in London. 

In late 2000s, Janelle Benjamin predicted the upcoming digitalization of the gaming industry and started SuperData, an ahead-of-its-time market intelligence and analytics company for digital games and VR. She grew the company to dozens of employees, millions in revenue and a successful exit to Nielsen.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Janelle about:

• What is market intelligence and how is it collected?

• Analytics now vs 10 years ago

• Running a business with your husband/wife

• The future of the gaming industry

• Privacy and data collection in games

• Acquisition by a competitor

Janelle Benjamin currently mentors and invests in startups run by underrepresented founders.

Usman Haque is one of the most influential figures in the world of Internet of Things (IoT). After studying architecture in London, Usman founded Pachube (now known as Xively), a pioneering IoT platform that went on to be acquired by LogMeIn and later by Google for $50 million.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Usman about:

• Merging the world of architecture with tech

• Pioneering the early days of IoT

• Why should sensors talk to each other?

• Helping the Fukushima cleanup

• Current state of IoT

• Security concerns in an IoT world

With friend and co-founder Alex Mehr, Shayan Zadeh came to US from Iran at a time when both countries had no diplomatic relations or direct flights. They went on to study computer science, work at NASA and Microsoft, and start Zoosk – an Inc 5000 dating platform that went on to exit for $250 million. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Shayan about:

• Coming to US as a founder

• Generating and filtering startup ideas

• Weathering a storm vs. Beating a dead horse

• Early days of Zoosk and key pivot

• Why have two CEOs at a startup?

• Cancelling an IPO

After coming to US as a student, Thejo Kote met his cofounder Jerry at the University of California Berkeley; there, they worked on a school projected that turned into a $115 million acquisition seven years later. Crazy! Thejo is a founder of Automatic, a "fitbit for the car" company that paved the way for making cars more connected and was acquired by SiriusXM in 2017.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Thejo about:

• How a school project turned into a successful startup

• Getting into and life after Y Combinator

• Failing to raise at YC demo day

• How raising from top tier VCs can lead to negative signaling

• Pivoting from software to hardware, B2B to B2C

Since the beginning of his tech career in the 1990s, Yan has experienced multiple startup exits as both an employee and as a founder. Most recently, he founded and served as the CTO of Reverb.com – a wildly-successful marketplace for musical instruments that became a top 300 most visited website in the US and was acquired by Etsy for $275 million.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Yan about:

• Immigrating from Soviet Union and getting into startups

• Turning passion into business

• Hiring your target audience as customer service reps

• Addressing "What if Google decides to compete with you?" type questions

• Overcoming the chicken and egg problem of marketplaces

• Why Yan is so confident in bitcoin

• Bitcoin in 10-20 years

Will is a tech entrepreneur with multiple exits. In late 2000s he founded Kixeye, a game studio that pioneered the free-to-play genre and dominated Facebook gaming with hit titles like War Commander, VEGA Conflict, Backyard Monsters and Battle Pirates. Will led the company to millions of users, hundreds of employees and a $120 million acquisition by Stillfront Group in 2019.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Will about:

• Launching a gaming company

• Casual vs hardcore gaming

• Dangers of relying on a single platform (Facebook)

• Monetization strategies for games

• Are gaming companies startups?

• Strategy: one hit game or multiple smaller ones?

• Future of the gaming industry

Brett is a Silicon Valley OG and one the leading figures in the world of product design. Having founded a design studio in the 90s, Brett helped Fortune 500 companies make iconic tech products, such as the Xbox 360 and Nike's Triax watches. He then went on to start Astro Gaming, the DTC maker of what is arguably the most popular gaming headset in the world, which was acquired by Skullcandy and then by Logitech for $85 million.  

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Brett about:

• Why did the world need another design shop?

• Relationship with Jony Ive

• Design for startups vs big companies

• Offering a service for equity

• Moving fast vs being perfect

• How much design is copied?

• The future of AR

After moving to Silicon Valley, Andrew experienced the costly and painful process of fixing things around his condo. But why fix, when you can prevent? So he founded Sheltr, a "physical for your home" preventative maintenance startup that grew to become a leader in major US cities and was acquired by Hippo Insurance – all in less than a year.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Andrew about:

• Going from a personal pain point to validating the market need

• Educating your customers

• B2B and B2C strategies

• Support from being an early employee at Instacart

• The future of home maintenance 

Few people know what procurement is. But this didn't stop Chris Crane, who saw opportunity in the very outdated and incredibly inefficient world of sourcing and procurement, from trying to disrupt it. Turns out that his efforts were worth it – 5 years and hundreds of thousands users later, Scout RFP was acquired by Workday for $540 million. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Chris about:

• What is procurement and how does it work?

• Taking advantage of inefficiencies in big companies

• How to sell to huge enterprises

• Switching roles from engineering to product

• Acquisition vs IPO

• Workday – going from an investor and client to acquirer

• The future of procurement

Launched on the day the App Store opened, Urbanspoon was one of the most iconic apps created in the early iPhone era. Having been through a few exits already, Patrick co-founded and helped to grow Urbanspoon to millions of users and a successful acquisition by IAC and Zomato.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Patrick about:

• Early days of Urbanspoon

• Startups & family: work-life balance

• How Urbanspoon was featured in Apple’s commercial

• Innovative UX or gimmick?

• Scaling a product in a paradigm shift

• Acquisition transition: founder vs employee experience

• Patrick’s new company, FreshChalk

• How do you productize personal recommendations?

• The future of word-of-mouth

Ben is a fascinating founder. Over his 15-year career as an entrepreneur, he started and sold 2 companies – Yodle to Web.com for $350 million, Opcity to Realtor.com for $200 million – and hired over 2,000 people. If you do the math, that's about $35 million in value creation and 130 new jobs per year. Crazy!

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Ben about:

• Disrupting Yellow Pages

• How to be good at sales

• How to build a 1000-person sales team

• Ben’s first exit – Web.com acquires Yodle

• Do founders need industry expertise?

• Ben’s second exit – Realtor.com acquires Opcity

• Can you buy a home without humans involved?

• Future of local advertising

Ben is currently on the executive team of Realtor.com and is an advisor to several startups.

After finishing his MBA in South Africa and moving to China in 2006, Grant was interested in selling to the Chinese, not buying from them. He started Naked Group, a luxury brand of resorts, and Naked Hub, a community and design focused coworking company that was acquired by WeWork for $400 million after 3 years of being on the Chinese market.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Grant about:

• Startup environment in China

• Startups in US vs China

• Future of the modern office

• WeWork acquisition

• Brand building

• Disrupting education

Grant is currently focused on disrupting education and making the lives of teachers better.

After finishing his MBA at Harvard, Josh Hix and co-founder Nick Taranto combined their passion for health and nutrition with a business opportunity and started Plated, a meal kit service company. Plated grew rapidly, became a dominant player in the industry and was acquired by Albertsons for $300 million.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Josh about:

• Do you need a business degree to start your own company?

• Should founders be passionate about the problem they’re solving?

• Is it good for a startup to have competitors?

• Startup financing: credit card debt and raising from angels

• Shark Tank experience for startup founders

• The right network and good timing can lead to an acquisition

• The future of food tech

Mark Volchek is an entrepreneur turned VC. While a student at Yale, Mark set out to disrupt academia by making student payments electronic. Higher One grew to a thousand employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, went public on the NYSE with a valuation of $600 million, then went back private as 3 entities that were all sold for hundreds of millions each. What a ride!

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Mark about:

• The power of connections in B2B enterprise sales

• How to measure product/market fit for a B2B company

• Distributed workforce at scale: hundreds of employees in many locations

• What’s needed for a startup to IPO?

• Running a public company vs a private company

• Going back private after being a public company

• Fundraising advice from a founder turned VC

• Finding great startups in non-obvious places

• How to approach investors as a startup founder

Armando Biondi and Massimo Chieruzzi are Italian entrepreneurs that got tired of managing Facebook ads for their clients and decided to automate and optimize them via a SaaS product – AdEspresso. They grew AdEspresso to become world’s #1 Facebook ad tool and led the company to an acquisition by Hootsuite in 2017.  

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Massimo and Armando about:

• Going through 500 Startups the second time around.

• Silicon Valley vs Italy: how different are things for founders?

• What makes Silicon Valley the mecca for startups.

• What to offshore and what not to.

• The future of digital advertising: AI & automation.

• Marketing mistakes that founders make.

• Startup M&A: a step-by-step breakdown.

• Startups vs big corporations: a founder’s perspective.

Tim Gill founded Quark in 1981, which built the world's most popular enterprise publishing software and held 90% of the market share at its peak. After selling all his shares in Quark for $500 million in 2000, Tim became one of the wealthiest 400 people in America and the single largest individual donor to the LGBT rights movement in US history.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Tim about:

• Early days of word processors.

• Cost of shipping updates in the 80s & 90s.

• Bringing in an external CEO.

• Founders leaving the company.

• How Tim negotiated to be bought out for $500 million.

• Startups in the 80s vs now.

• How to spend capital and control burn rate.

• Current state of home automation.

• Future of smart homes.

Sean Byrnes is the founder and ex-CEO of Flurry – a mobile analytics company that lives inside apps on billions of devices and as a result has the best understanding of mobile consumer behaviour. Having held 90% of the market share, Flurry represented “mobile strategy in a box” for Yahoo during its acquisition in 2014. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Sean about:

• Preparing for a paradigm shift.

• Pivoting into a smartphone era.

• Finding a real, painful problem to solve.

• Going against Steve Jobs.

• Signs of a product-market-fit.

• Diversifying your customer acquisition strategy.

• Competing in an early market that’s exploding.

• Data privacy in 2019.

• Interpreting data for startups.

• Pros and cons of being a first-time founder.

• Is fear of failure a motivator or paranoia?

• Factors that influence acquisitions.

Sonny Vu is a serial entrepreneur turned investor and advisor. Along with cofounders John Sculley (former Apple CEO),  Sridhar Iyengar and Christy Trang Le, Sonny started, ran and sold Misfit – one of the most iconic wearable brands on the planet.

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Sonny about:

• How to come up with the right ideas and analyze the market and competition.

• Sonny's experience with Noam Chomsky, John Sculley, Vinod Khosla and Bill Gates.

• How Apple influenced Misfit.

• What makes the right founding team?

• Learning how to sell is the key to success.

• How to partner with large brands as a small startup.

• Remote teams for startups.

• How Fossil acquired Misfit.

• Reasons why companies may want to buy your startup.

• Transitioning from a startup to a large corporation.

• Future of wearables, AR/VR and battery tech.

Tim Jenkins is a founder and ex-CTO of SendGrid, world's largest email delivery platform that sends as many emails per day as Twitter generates Tweets. SendGrid IPO'd in 2017 and was acquired by Twilio for $3 billion dollars in 2019. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Tim about:

• SendGrid's experience with TechStars. 

• Product-market-fit. What makes a great CTO? 

• Startup culture. 

• Remote operations for startups. 

• How startups go public. 

• SendGrid's relationship with Twilio. 

• Timing of startup exits. 

• Exit strategy for startups.

Chris Barton is a founder and ex-CEO of Shazam, one of the most iconic and loved apps that has ever been built. Shazam amassed over a billion downloads and was acquired by Apple in 2017 for $400 million. 

On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Chris about:

• Is it bad to start a business with friends? 

• Should founders be secretive about their idea? 

• Fundraising strategies for startups. 

• Running a startup in a financial crisis. 

• Entrepreneurial perseverance. 

• Tech predictions for the next decade. 

• How Apple acquired Shazam. Startup exit strategy.