Thinking About Exits: The Playlist

The Agony & Ecstacy Of Selling My Business: Jason Eckenroth

In this honest talk from Business of Software Conference Europe 2017, Jason Eckenroth shares how it felt to sell his business ShipCompliant. More importantly, he talks about the mistakes he made in selling and what he wished he had realised before he did. Jason believes ‘exit by acquisition’ should not be the only manifestation of success for bootstrappers.

How & When To Finish Big: Brian & Eric Dosal

Brothers Brian & Eric Dosal co-founded BrightGauge in 2010. Their story of acquisition is a happy one – they were acquired in 2018 on their own terms. In this talk from BoS USA 2019, Brian and Eric share how they finished big – not just with cash in their pocket, but with a new purpose, happy employees, and pride in knowing the company was set up to continue well.

Things I Learned Selling My Business To Microsoft: Eric Sink

I’ll leave it to Eric to introduce this talk from BoS USA 2011:

“Over the years, we’ve been approached by several parties interested in acquiring our company. I learned a lot from those discussions, even though none of the deals happened. And then I found out how little I knew. Microsoft acquired the assets of our Teamprise division in November 2009. Taking a deal all the way to closing was, er, very educational. I obviously can’t share any specifics about our deal, but I learned a lot about M&A that I think may be of interest to others looking to sell a small software firm to a big company”.

Riding The SwiftKey Rocket From Startup To Acquisition: Jon Reynolds

Jon Reynolds founded SwiftKey, the predictive typing app, in 2008 with university friend Ben Medlock. By the time of this talk in 2017, SwiftKey had grown to over 300 million daily users. Jon was CEO of the company from its genesis and guided it from humble beginnings, through to selling the business to Microsoft in 2016. In this session, Jon shares the SwiftKey story, including his experience of acquisition.