28 Aug Built to Sell: The $40M Earnout That Never Got Paid, and the One That Did with Rob Walling and Garren Hilow
Garren Hilow bootstrapped Abveris, an antibody discovery business doing $12 million in revenue, and sold it in 2021 for $150 million up front with another $40 million available in an earnout. His team came within one percent of the revenue target. The acquirer said they had missed it, refused to share the accounting behind that conclusion, and dared him to sue.
Rob Walling sold Drip with 40 percent of his purchase price tied to an earnout and collected all but a fraction of it.
In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, John Warrillow puts the two founders side by side to work out what actually separated the two outcomes, and you discover how to negotiate an earnout you have a chance of collecting.
