10 Aug Built to Sell Radio: Why “Off-Boarding” Is an Essential Ingredient in Building to Sell
Michèle Hecken built Alpha Translations up to $4.4 Million (USD) in revenue and almost a million dollars in EBITDA before she sold it in 2019 for $6 million cash (6.7 x normalized EBITDA).
It was a fantastic exit for Hecken who got her start in University translating legal contracts from German to English.
Hecken’s episode features one value bomb after the next, including:
- A definition of “off-boarding” and why every founder needs to do it.
- How Hecken differentiated herself with time-zone arbitrage.
- How to get your employees to verify their own work.
- How to overcome “delegator’s guilt”.
- The extraordinary power of peer groups.
- How to be the “Chief Energy Officer” for your company.
- The important role industry conferences play in finding an acquirer.
- How to get an all-cash offer and avoid the earn-out trap.
- Why you need a trophy to remind yourself of what you have accomplished.
- How to overcome the uneasy feeling of living off your capital.
