Journey Selling an International Agency - Jason Allan Scott, Founder of A Podcast Company

Foreign.

I'm here with Jason, the former founder of a podcast company which was recently acquired. Jason, how you doing today?

I'm very well. Thank you so much for having me. Long term fan, first time podcast guest.

Yeah. I'm excited to have you on. And before we kind of dive into things, you want to give a quick introduction of yourself to people that may not know you.

Yeah, I. My name is Jason Scott. You can pretty much find me under that name. I'm a. I guess a serial entrepreneur, although I've never done any business in serials. But this.

I like that.

Thank you. I love business. I started my first company when I was five. I started a circus in the council estate that I grew up in. I built a beauty pageant, which I sold, a swimming school in Southeast Asia, an event company, a med tech company, and then got into two smaller companies in the last three last eight years. I actually just realized, and I had the great opportunity of finding the hard ways to do pretty much everything until this recent acquisition, which was this most simple sort of acquisition I've ever done. And it was obviously thanks to your platform, which is why I'm happy to be here and share any knowledge I have with your audience.

That's great to hear. Well, you know, huge, huge congrats on the acquisition. So I want to definitely talk about that, obviously. So tell me about a podcast company. What did it do? What problem did it solve? What's kind of the brief background on that?

It's actually quite a strange story, and I'll try and make it as quick as possible. I try to launch a startup eight years ago, almost eight years, two months to the day. And the idea was I was in events. I was doing very well in events. I was top 100 in the world in events. And I went blind for three days, three complete days of darkness. And I went to an optometrist and they said, your eyes are working, so it must be your brain. I went and had multiple tests and eventually, eventually, thanks to an mri, they found scars on my brain and on my spine and those already that haven't picked up. Spoiler alert. Multiple scars, multiple sclerosis was the thing that they found on me that I have this incurable immune disease. And my neurologist said, listen, you need to avoid stress like the plague. And the fifth most stressful job in the world is events. And I'm not very smart. I mean, I say this to everyone. I'm very hardworking and I'm not scared to execute like a mofo, but I'm not The most intelligent person. So I was like, oh, I'll just. I'll start a tech company then and get out of events.

Oh, man. So you move from five to number one.

Exactly.

One, two, and three.

So silly. It was absolutely so silly. But I thought if I do a. If I do a LinkedIn version of. For venues, where venues can see in real time who's looking at them, they can respond in real time, it can up their closure rates. It'll help with how quick people who need workspaces and creative places can book space. And I was from that industry. I just done, you know, I think 12 years in that space. I think at that stage it might have been eight years. So I launched this company. I know absolutely nothing, but I decided that I want to start a podcast at the exact same time so that I can share my learnings as I'm progressing. So maybe it'll inspire someone else who's starting out at 40 into a whole new industry. And that was called the Guest List Podcast. And it's still available, I believe, on Spotify. And Spoiler alert, by the end of season one, episode ten, I. It was a fiasco. It was an absolute failure. Not the podcast so much, but the company itself. My cto, when asked what language he was building my tech in, he said, English. English is not a language.

Well, I've got a technically correct, but not what you want to hear.

No, but you're not. When I'd given him a massive salary, he was kind of sitting back waiting for him to build a LinkedIn platform. So I was very naive. I had never even watched an episode of Silicon Valley, which I'm sure is one of your favorite shows, given your man portrays combat. But I. I sort of stopped everything for about four days. And after four days, I sort of came back onto LinkedIn and started looking around. And I had over 60 emails or LinkedIn DMs, and they all said, love the podcast. Learned about an mvp, learned about lead market strategy, learned about how to get your first client. All the stuff that I was kind of explaining as I was learning through the podcast. And I thought, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this properly. I reached out to the top five podcasts at the time. It was Mario Folio, Lewis Howes, Johnny Dumas, and Pat Flynn. A couple of them had courses. I signed for all their courses. I signed up for the masterclasses. I signed up for everything. And I'd already studied radio broadcasting years and years ago back in 2000 back 1998. I mean, that's how old I am. And so I was like, I can do this. I know I can do this. And at the time, it was 2015, you know, being a white guy with a microphone, you were already 50% up there. You had a really good chance. If you could have a baseball cap and a hoodie, you were pretty much going to be the next Joe Rogan. So I was super excited about starting a podcast and making that my next business. I turned that into a business, and by the end, end of season two, I'd found, I think, 11 ways to monetize the podcast. And someone reached out to me from American Express that said they did this thing called the top 100 small businesses in the UK, and I should send this idea that all I have is a laptop, Internet connection and a microphone and I'm doing these numbers that I'm doing and no staff and no team. And I said, sure. And I sent it forward and ended up winning. And I went to number 10 Downing street, which is like the British version of the White House, only harder to get into, if I'm honest. And I, I, I couldn't believe that this was a thing. And I, I just, that predominantly, probably for the next three years, I want to say in the third year, I got a call from an incredible author and entrepreneur, a woman called Charles Wasserman, obe, and she said, listen, I'm doing a massive event. And Lewis Howes, the biggest podcast at the time, is going to be on stage. He's just hit 100 million downloads. He's just been on Ellen DeGeneres, but he's told me it took him five years to monetize his podcast. You monetized on episode one, season two. I think it'd be great to have you on the stage and talk about what you're doing and how you did it. And I was like, yeah, if I can share this knowledge of the only real social media platform we've got, I'll jump up on stage. So I did. Firstly, bad mistake. Like, going in after that man is very difficult. It's, it's like being the supporting act for the Beatles or Harry Styles. It's just I'm not six foot two, super good looking at American. There's certain energy that. And he's an ex, like, professional sportsman. But, but at the same time, I could sort of go up and beat my imposter syndrome by going, look at my work. Like, I sold 55,000 copies of my first book thanks to the podcast just through my Audience. I built a podcast that used the audience to raise money on a crowdfunding campaign, and we raised US$2.1 million. Like, I had all these things that I could point out and go, I've done all this, even though I've never had a massive audience for my podcast. And I was asked by the team that was there, you have to sell a course. It's one of the things people do on these stages. I didn't know anything about this, and I said, well, I don't have a course. And they said, well, you're going to sell a course and then you're going to go up and build a course, and we'll help you get it out there, but that's what you do on these stages. And I built a course, and people did quite well. But not many people started a podcast, and I couldn't understand it. And I went back and I said, what else can I do? And they said, oh, you need to do a masterclass. You need to charge more money because, you know, they pay more, they'll care more. And I was like, okay. And I did a masterclass, and people still didn't start a podcast. And then I interviewed everyone that took the master class, and I said, where did I go wrong? And they said, we don't need a course. We need a podcast company. We need someone to come in and do all the stuff so we can just be the talent. We can just do this. We can be pretty faces on a screen with a microphone and Internet connection. We don't want to do that. Production, distribution, the content creation, the content, repurposing, the blogs, the transcripts, the Twitter threads, like that. That needs to be someone else's job. And I kind of said, okay, I have enough friends who complain about having to get a job to pay for someone to look after their kids. I can teach them to do those jobs and I can start a podcast company. And that's where it came from.

That is an incredible story. Yeah, I'm looking at your company's website site now. So in terms of. So you essentially help people launch and monetize their podcast. Is that accurate?

Yeah, except we only do that for business, and we handpick all our clients, or they will soon handpick all their clients. So that's also part of the sort of magic source, is the fact that we don't take everyone. Everyone has to go through an application process and an interview process, and we kind of understand what the success metric is. And then if we believe we can hit that success metric normally in one to three seasons, and again a season is 10 episodes in a trailer, then we take it on. And if we can't, we'll. We'll do the next season for free until we hit that metric.

That is. That's awesome. That's a great way to ensure that you're only taking on work that, you know, you can really drive results for instead of having clients that are just. I, I really like that point because I think, you know, if you try to be everything to everyone, you're usually end up being average to everyone. So really, you know, honing in on, you know, potential podcasts that, you know, you can grow, I think that that's really smart. Um, let me ask you another question. When was like the moment where you were like, oh, crap, like, I. I really have something here. Like, I really found product market fit customers are coming in. Do you remember that moment if you have one?

I can remember that moment so well and it's gonna sound terrible and I apologize to everyone that listens to this.

I.

After about a year and I was still doing something else on the side, I was, I was trying to build a marketplace again. I was trying to do this software for venues thing because I'd failed so, so massively the last time. I couldn't get it out of my system. So this business was just running on the side. People were taking on. And I'd get a call saying, hey, someone's made it through the application. Can you do a quick call with them? And I'd jump on and I'd do the call and I'd see if they hit my tricks. And then I put them through a system and I did it for one of my podcasters and I got her through season one and she got a massive potential sponsor deal, a sponsorship deal with Lego. And she said to me, can I tell you, you seem to be all over the shop. Can I just. I'm not going to take up this, this opportunity with the podcast, but I'd love to come in and help you create a process system. And I'm obsessed with business. And I was like, oh my God, like McDonald's? Like, yeah, if you could come in and give me a proper process, I think that will change things. So she came in and she did a trello board and she did a notion and all these things that I wasn't doing it, didn't really care. Then I again just left it. And she called me up about two, three months later and she said, how's it going? And I said, I Actually have no idea. I think everyone's happy. I haven't had a single support ticket. No one's complained. But I'll send some emails out and I'll see how it's going and it was going really well but it's sort of feeling like work and again I realize how lucky I am to say that, but that was the truth. I just felt like I was doing so many of these calls and emails. So I upped my price. I five times my price for working with us and people kept coming and then I 5 times it again. So I 10x my price from the first year to the third year and people still came. I had product market fit and we had never paid for an advert. We still haven't or they haven't an advert. A piece of marketing. Nothing. We've got like 16 backlinks to the website.

That's definitely word amount. Yeah, that's, that's probably market fit. If you can take your product today and 10x the price and no one complains. You have very people. Well number one, you're undercharging definitely. But people see a lot of value and what you're offering. So that is, that is an incredible story. So you built this successful company, you, you know, enjoy running it. What made you decide to sell the business?

Two part. So the first was exactly like I said, it just didn't feel. I'm originally from Cape Town, South Africa and I'm a, I'm from a poor white family who had to work for everything that we achieved. Right. And I'm an immigrant, first generation immigrant to the United Kingdom where I currently am. And I, I'm just used to working hard for my money and I didn't feel like was working hard for. And I know that sounds ridiculous and maybe I'll kick myself down the line but I, I thought someone else could come into this and it'll, they'll love it, they'll. They'll have the passion for it that I, that I no longer have. I feel like I'm, I'm doing something I'm really good at that I've been doing for so long that I didn't feel like I'm really good at it. I feel like if I wasn't good at it eight years in, I would have to be not paying attention and I didn't feel like the, to be again, to be completely brutally honest. I didn't feel like there was a, a challenge in it anymore. I didn't have my own show for the first time. In like three years, I didn't have other shows that I was helping out so much. And you did a tweet. So this is actually all your fault, which is why I said, I do this.

Oh, no, my fault.

You did a tweet talking. We said, I, I found a thing, I worked in a thing. And I think you said, I raised 200,000 through my agency business and then I decided to build a platform and that was it. I was like, if I could sell this a certain number, I can build a platform solving bigger problems that feels more challenging, that helps more people. And instead of helping a hundred people a year, I can maybe help thousands of people a year, maybe tens of thousands or millions.

That is incredible. It sounds like you're on your way. You know, you got, you got the business sold. So I love that. And yeah, that's kind of how I, you know, started my first quote unquote successful startup was I had a smaller job board before that and I sold that for 30,000, which felt like 30. I always joke I was in college, so it felt like $30 trillion. Like it literally felt, you know, we, you know, me and my friends celebrated and everything, but I use that as seed funding for, you know, to build a larger business. So I always love when entrepreneurs, you know, find, you know, expertise in one area, but they uncover a way to build something bigger through, you know, maybe a smaller prior business. So walk me through. I'd love to know just the acquisition process. So, you know, you, you list the business for sale on acquire.com. what happens within the first two weeks? What was your experience?

It was incredible. Like, absolutely. And I don't think that to be braggadocious or to big you up in any way, we had a phenomenal response. Now, part of that may be because I only did a 0.8x valuation on revenue. So I think that a big difference. I think the other thing that I did maybe was I wrote it up very clearly and I explained that it was super process driven, that they could speak to every single one of our clients, that it was all organic, that if someone came in and really added some paid for marketing, etc. Etc. It could do incredibly well. And maybe that that made a big difference. I didn't have a pitch deck, which, which surprised me. I did have my financials. I did have projections. I did. I could show that I only lost two clients a year for the last three years. I could show that people were on multiple seasons, right? They were like season 8 and season 9 and season 10. So that showed that I had something good enough for people to stay. So the LTV was incredibly high and our profit margin is 78%. So I think that was another sort of big win for someone. And we got lots, we got lots of people signing the NDA. I think out of that we probably got about 30 to 40%. That did follow up with an email that asked like, what's your secret sauce? What's your defensible mode? You know, why are you selling? That was the biggest thing, right? The two biggest things that came out was why are you selling a business like this? And it seems to be very personality driven. Like everything that we look up on this is about you and then it sort of sells off you and if we take you out of it, will the company still run? Will the clients still be looked after? So I think that was the biggest problem I had. But I had so many, so many inquiries that I didn't expect that at all. And I, you know, previously I've sold something or Flippa. I'd sold something off another website not to name. And Shane Flipper, you guys were great. No, no disrespect, but it was hard work. It was really sort of backwards forwards, backwards forwards. This was the peer to peer piece, worked really well. And the ability to add an attachment, send an attachment. And again, I suppose I've, I've done it so many times. I know that time kills more deals than anything else. So I was quick to Always respond within 5 to 10 minutes no matter what I was doing. I was quick to send, you know, my CSV or of my banking details that showed every single expense and every single piece of money that came in. I was happy to say, you know, look me up, you'll, you'll see all the shows that I work on. I was quick to link in with every single person that applied with me so they could see everything that I've put out and all the comments and all the engagement that made a big difference as well. And they say the proof is in the pudding, it's in the tasting. It was the fact that everyone kept coming back going, wow, you're so quick to respond. Wow, you're really quick at getting back with this answer. Didn't expect this much transparency. Okay. And then I would, I spoke to someone on your team and I said, what's the secret sauce? Because I'm always trying to find, you know, the unfair advantage. And they said, jump on a call as soon as you can.

I was literally about to pause and say that that's what we recommend to every seller that goes on court because you have to sell your business. And it's, it's surprising when I see founders list their business, someone signs NDA and they don't like in sales. Like, the longer you let a sales lead sit without responding to it, even by just an hour, the response rate goes down dramatically. And what you're doing by responding quickly with a buyer is you're showing that, you know, this is a serious acquisition offer or opportunity. And if they're going to work with you, they're getting kind of a preview of what is due diligence going to be like? What is transition going to be like? Are you trustworthy? Because there's also goodwill that you need to build with buyers rapport. They have questions. And when you can, you know, give the, you know, impression that you're easy to work with, you have your, you know, the items that are requested, you know, readily available, it makes a buyer feel much, much, much more comfortable and much more interested in buying your business. And it's such a simple thing. Just get on calls with buyers, answer the questions and be quick to respond. It, it literally makes in the world. So, Jason, you knocked it out. Who on my team told you that? Just give them a shout out question.

I'll, I'll find them on the, on the email. I don't know, off top of my head, I was going to say Lloyd, but I'm told there is no Lloyd. Like, whoever the person was, it always pops up on the chat. You know, when you go in, you go, I've got a problem. And this little person comes up and.

It was always, we, we got a Lloyd.

Yeah, it's Lloyd. And then it's Lloyd. He was absolutely fantastic.

All right, I'll, I'll make sure he gets kudos. Well, okay, so. So moving on. So it sounds like you had a lot of buyers reaching out. Do you remember the number of NDAs that you had?

I do, actually. Sixteen, because my birthday is April 16th. For those that want to get 16. Exactly. Sixteen inquiries.

Nice. And then. So how did you find the right buyer out of that? How did you vet buyers? How did you narrow it down to the one that eventually acquired the business? And you don't have to name names or anything like that, but just on a high level would be great.

Yeah, so I can tell you exactly. So the first thing I thought about was I'd like them to keep as much of my original team as possible, but I definitely want them to keep every single client I'm working with. That was really important to me. So I needed to know that whoever I passed this on to needs to care as much or more than I do. And, you know, all jokes aside earlier about saying I cared less and less about the job, I still cared about my clients and about their messages and about their missions and about their stories that they were telling. So I would do a lot of questions. I'd allow them to sort of bombard me, bombard me until the point where they were like, okay, I'm ready for an loi. And I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. I was like, I have some questions now. What does your first 90 days looks like? How are you stepping in? You know, is it going to be a big shock where you come in and say, I'm the new owners and we're doing this and we're doing that, or are you happy for a very slow, gradual I'm there and they. And they and they. I do a handover, I'm still there, I'm still there and then I sort of disappear into the darkness. That works really well for me. If you're not happy to do that, that I'm not happy to continue. The next thing I looked for was any sort of niche expertise. Could they bring anything in that I couldn't? And the top three were all people in that space. I mean, one of them was an amazing guy. And I'll do a shout out to John Cochran from a company, I think it's in Washington D, called Rise25. And they were in podcasting and they were in audio storytelling. And he'd worked for the White House as a, I think a correspondent for the media. So I was like, this is a real great fit for what I do and for storytelling. Right. Our problem with, with that is that most of our clients were UK or Europe. We only had a very small group in the us I was a bit worried about the time zone differences versus if I sell something to a German buyer, for example, because it's a lot closer. And the third buyer wanted to completely change it, which is a bit unfortunate. So wanted. Although they are right in thinking there's a gap in the market for, for Spanish and for Latin languages, they wanted to sort of take the process that I've got and completely change who they go after as opposed to keeping what they've got and then also go after a brand new audience. So that brought me down to two pretty quickly. And then it was just as much correspondence as I could do. How fast did they respond to my emails which Means they're probably going to respond a lot slower to my clients. How do they respond? You know, is their personality in their response, is their kindness in their response? Do they care to ask question questions as opposed to just firing off one liners? What the questions about service and process or was it more about sales numbers and data? And that would tell me a lot about how they were going to go forward. And then I made my decision from that.

Nice. That's also really smart too, because what you're also getting is a preview of what is due diligence going to be like. And I think kind of one of the most unfortunate parts in an acquisition is you find the buyer, you sign an LOI and then it just doesn't go through. And some early indicators are on the other, just same thing that I just said before, which is the buyer slow to respond? They don't completely understand your business. They don't have a plan when going into due diligence. They don't have the funds on hand. They don't really appear to understand, you know, what they're going to do with the business when it closes. So these are also good questions to ask upfront. Like before I sign this, I always recommend a pre loi signing call. Just like, hey, I'm going to sign this loi. Just wanted to run through, you know, once I sign this, what happens? And then schedule a meeting every week. And if all you have to talk about is the weather, just talk about the weather. But you, you want to have that constant communication. And also during that process, you continue to, to sell your business and be responsive, point out opportunities for growth. And you know, that that's really, you know, how acquisitions I've seen, you know, close successfully the most. And it sounds like you did that. So moving now into the fun part, jokingly, tell me about due diligence. How did that go? How long did it last? Any lear from you signed the LOI now, now where, where are you in that journey?

We didn't get to that. Now that was something quite interesting. So we're about to do the loi. Everything was moving quite smoothly forward and I, I suddenly got nervous about the fact that we were in different jurisdictions and I tweeted you and I said, hey, I can't seem to find someone who can deal with like UK to us on your M and A list. Seems to be like an American specialist. Is there anyone? And you were kind enough to tweet back and go, you know, check this out, check this out, check this out. Like, great, okay. So now we've got a couple. And I reached out to a bunch of them on LinkedIn and, you know, saying, Hey, I found you on acquired.com. i'd love to have a quick chat because they're about to sign the loa, but I'm a bit worried about the different, like, jurisdictions when it comes to the legal parameters. And. And then what I would do as well is I would keep giving them updates on where we were. So, like, the New York Public Library reached out and said, hey, Jason, you did two talks last year that was super successful. Are you okay to do three talks this year about podcasting and about, like, the benefits for small business? And I was like, yes. I would go back to the potential buyers and go, guess what? Like, I'll do this and drive all the traffic to you. And they're like, oh, my God, we really want to. So I kept, like, making it super exciting to why they should take me as soon as possible. And then a big university in America reached out and said, we'd like to work with you to a podcast. And I'd go back and say, hey, I've got this. They'd go, why can't we get this loi? And I hold on to the loi, like, let me just find the right sort of specialist to talk to. And I ended up speaking to an incredible guy at Cooley's law firm and saying, hey, I've got all these people, but I'm not quite sure how it works. I know you worked in the UK and you worked in the US like, what do I need to know? Should it be Utah or Texas, or, like, what should the paperwork be in? And they kind of kindly enough said, why are you even doing an loi? They seem like they're ready to buy. You seem to be slowing down. If this was a sales call, would you be given them more reasons to slow down? And I was like, no. And they went, here's the paperwork. Do an apa. It's even easier than a business sale, and you're done. And that's what we did.

Very nice. Yeah. So Cooley is one of. One of my favorite law firms to recommend. It's. It's run by individual named Joe Wallen. I don't know if you. If you came across him. Yeah, wonderful guy. So I'm glad they were able to assist you like that. So, okay, so you. You got the. The asset purchase agreement signed and fun, I assume from there it just escrow funds are wired over to you, and then you close. Was there any Sort of post transition agreed upon or anything like that.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm still busy with that now, which. And we've got a slight NDA, so I can't talk about so much about where it's moving, how it's moving. We've got a nice long process all the way till end of September, where I'm staying on and I'm helping with. I'm really good at and sort of advising on some of the stuff that they're looking to do moving forward. I'm still doing posts for them, which feels great. And it feels very much like I was a little bit nervous with this because unlike any other business I've ever created, it felt more like my baby, you know, I'm pretty ruthless. Like, I know. Kill your darlings. You build a business and you kind of work out what it's going to do. Like, I normally, I build businesses to sell. I know exactly what I'm doing. I know while I'm building it, what processes to put in place so it's easy to sell. And I don't feel, you know, I don't have any emotions when it comes to the negotiation table. This is what I'm looking at. This is what I need. This is what I've gold for. But it felt different with the podcast company because of the clients, because of what we do and how we do it, and because it's about stories, and I want to think about what story I was leaving behind. So I was happy to sort of say, if you want to do a year, if you want to keep this running till the end of the year, I'll stay on until the end of the year. Like, I'm happy to do it. I've. The only plans I've got are to trap and see some places around the world and start my own podcast again without any sort of outcome based on it. Like, that's it, that's all I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna go off to your business of the acquired business. But outside of that, I'm not doing anything. I'm just gonna do research for like six months. And. And they were brilliant. They were like, nope, we're good. We're good with that. If you're okay with it, we'll. We'll. We'll keep it as it is. But if we need you to stay on longer, are you happy to do it? And it's actually been really, really good. And I think it's because of all the things we've said. It's about constantly speaking to one another. You know, we. Whatsapping, we were imessaging, we were emailing, we'll be using the platform. It was, we were jumping on Zoom calls, we were jumping on Riverside fm. So I could explain, like, what's a better podcast thing than Zoom is? And talking to the team and talking to clients and it's. It's been fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

That's great. I love how you were so open to a transition plan because that also widens your, your interested buyer pool as well. Because I always say, you know, when you sell a business, there's so many, many, you know, let's, let's call them skeletons in the closet. They're just things that you don't know about, you know, but having you there allows the owner, the new owner of the business, to have confidence that, you know, they're not going to buy it and then you're gone. And then they don't know how one part works where it take you 30 seconds, like, oh, that part connects with this, whatever it may be. And it could take a week if I'm the new owner and I have to kind of figure it out. So what you're doing is de risking acquisition and then also ensuring, ensuring that you know, what you built will go on and be successful to new owners. So it's really win win on both sides. And then it definitely helps increase the chances of an acquisition closing. Just when a buyer knows that once they send you money that you'll be there to ensure the success of the business because they're typically acquiring it to grow it farther and breathe new energy into it. That's great, Jason. I think you knocked it out of the park. I'm happy for you.

Thank you very much. Again, like, I am, if anything, I'm a student and I. The one thing I know is that I know nothing. So I think I've just been like, I did your entire course over the weekend. I watched everything on the space. I must have tweeted you a million times saying, what about this? And what about this? And your team have been brilliant. I spoke to one of your technical guys about the platform, what I enjoyed and what I didn't. And it's been, it's been such a great move. Like I said, like, I've been very honest. I think I even tweeted you saying, hey, I'm going to come off to your space in SMBs. I'm not going to go after your exact thing. Is that something you're going to go after? And you're like, nope, we're not, we're not looking at it right now. Not boring businesses. And I was like, great. Like, I think it's such a fun space. I don't think I ever realized, like, how, if you do it right. But I also think there's a lot of people in this space that don't understand the importance of sales, that you're not really selling a business as a package. You're. You're selling. Your first job is selling. Right. Your first job is all the things we learn in sales. Replying quickly, being transparent, being honest, de risking as much as possible giving options. Like, one of the things that kept coming up was seller financing. But no one ever wrote, wrote like, hey, are you open to seller financing? Here are my thoughts on seller financing. It was always like, are you open to seller financing? Yes or no? I was thinking, you're not selling me, you're telling me so. My answer is going to be no. But if you've written, would you be open to seller financing? I'm thinking over three years, if we hit certain markers, I would have been like, sure. I'm more than happy. That's a sales call. Like, talk me into it.

Yeah.

So I've loved it. I've really, I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I, as I did. And I, I love the entire process from start.

That's great to hear and Jason, it's been wonderful hearing your story. But as a final question, I know you say you know nothing, but it seems like you know a lot. If you just had to kind of, you know, maybe three top pieces of advice for another startup founder looking to sell their business, what would they be number one?

Remember McDonald's. McDonald's doesn't do well because it sells burgers and fries and Coke and occasionally milkshakes.

As a, as a final question, I know you say you know nothing, but it seems like you know a lot. If you just had to kind of, you know, maybe three top pieces of advice for another startup founder looking to sell their business, what would they be number one?

Remember McDonald's. McDonald's doesn't do well because it sells burgers and fries and Coke and occasionally milkshakes. It does well because it has an operation manual that it can be handed to absolutely anyone and they can immediately become a McDonald's owner. That is massive. So as you're building your business, whether right from the beginning or now that you realize you're going to start selling, create an operational manual with everything in it. Oh, I thought you'd Say something you got.

I said three, so you got two more. I love that example and I completely agree.

Thank you. The second is realize that if you can de risk your sale, you will have a better chance of selling. That's massive. If you can say things like, I'll stay on for a period, I'm happy to do certain KPIs. You know, I'm. I believe in what I do. I stand behind it. You know, integrity is really important. Care about the sale as much as you care about the business and about what that period is going to feel like because they will remember that I'm, as I said, I'm from an ex events background people and remember two things, the peak emotion of the night and their exit. Which is why you do goodie bags at events. So that was massive. And the third thing is time kills more deals than indecision does. So try and move at pace, constantly reassuring, questioning, testing as you move through, but move at a speed. Create event horizons. By this stage, we should be here. By this stage, we should be here. Think of it as dating. Sorry, less as dating and more as courting. The plan is to get married, not just to have a bunch of dates.

I love that advice, especially the last point in terms of time really, really does kill deals. And just having a simple strategy going into an acquisition and you touched on this with your first point by being prepared. Have your books in order, have your processes laid out because people will ask for them and if you're able to provide them quickly and the response is.

To get married, not just to have a bunch of dates.

I love that advice, especially the last point in terms of time really does kill deals. And just having a simple strategy going into an acquisition and you touched on this with your first point by being prepared. Have your books in order, have your processes laid out because people will ask for them and if you're able to provide them quickly and the response isn't, oh, I'm gonna need to go make that, you know, buyers again will see that as you've really de risked the business and you're making it easy for them to wrap their head around this business that you've built. So again, it sounds like you did a fantastic job, Jason. I hope to get you on this podcast again. Maybe someday in the future when you sell another business, I would love definitely.

Going to come to you first.

Sounds good. Well, Jason, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. If people want to learn more about you or your story, where's. Where's the best place to find you online.

I'm on Twitter at Jason on Scott. I'm on LinkedIn where I'll be talking about my next adventures. And I'm going to release a podcast soon. Just sharing the next six months and what I'm looking to do and who I'm working with and who I'm talking to.

Awesome. I'll make sure to put that in the show notes. Well, Jason, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and congrats again on the acquisition.

Thank you. And thank you again for what you've built. It really is a fantastic piece of kit.

I appreciate that. I got to give a shout out to my team, though, because I'm not technical, so they. They get all the credit. But I'll. I'll be sure to relay that. All right, Jason, reach out and I appreciate you.

Thanks so much. Take out.

Isn'T. Oh, I'm going to need to go make that. You know, buyers again will see that as you've really de. Risked the business and you're making it easy for them to wrap their head around this business that you built. So, again, it sounds like you did a fantastic job, Jason. I hope to get you on this podcast again maybe someday in the future when you sell another business.

I would love that. I'm definitely going to come to you first.

Sounds good. Well, Jason, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. If people want to learn more about you or your story, where's the best place to find you online?

I'm on Twitter at Jason on Scott. I'm on LinkedIn where I'll be talking about my next adventures. And I'm going to release a podcast soon. Just sharing the next six months and what I'm looking to do and who I'm working with and who I'm talking to.

Awesome. I'll make sure to put that in the show notes. Well, Jason, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and congrats again on the acquisition.

Thank you. And thank you again for what you've built. It really is a fantastic piece of kit.

I appreciate that. I got to give a shout out to my team, though, because I'm not technical, so they. They get all the credit. But I'll. I'll be sure to relay that. All right, Jason, reach out and I appreciate you.

Thanks so much. Much. Take care of.