Startup Exits

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...