A short podcast conversation (recorded Oct 12, 2023) in which Jim Johnson asks a guest about transitioning from founder-owned businesses to employee ownership. The guest outlines three exit approaches for aging founders and emphasizes selling to employees—specifically via mechanisms like an ESOP, described as a bipartisan-supported employee stock ownership plan.
So tell me a little bit about why and how you navigated this process of going from founder and entrepreneur owning these two businesses, to deciding that, hey, I want to exit, but I'm not going to go sell it to somebody out there. I'm going to sell it to my people. Got a phone call.
I like to say there's three ways a guy who is aging out, which I will be doing at some point, leave. He can leave in a box, leaving a mess behind him, or in this case, sell it to or otherwise bring your co workers, what I call co workers, other people call employees, into the process and into an ownership position. You can do that in a variety of ways. A company, an ESOP employee stock ownership plan, which is a bipartisan, supported, believe it or not.
