{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Moneywise","title":"I Sold for $25M. The Buyer Went Bankrupt. I Bought It Back for $2M.","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3164,"description":"Please answer our short Moneywise listener survey! (Very, very short): https://forms.gle/EaS5NUt4Akb7wddt9\nJOIN HAMPTON:\nThis episode came directly out of conversations happening inside Hampton, a private community for founders and CEOs with $3M+ in revenue or $10M+ exits. Members range from $5M net worth to billions. They wrestle with these same questions off the record. Apply at http://joinhampton.com/mw.\nCHAPTER MARKERS\n00:00 — Intro: Two trash bags and $3,000 in LA\n02:15 — Austin's background: 10 years broke, restaurants, and the fitness world\n07:52 — Gold's Gym, 1,000 employees, and the \"building someone else's empire\" moment\n10:15 — The 203K loan, LA real estate at the bottom, and how it funded everything\n12:41 — Buying one Bitcoin in 2013 at $700 and forgetting about it\n15:37 — The Kickstarter: $445K raised, $150K in the hole, and 62 countries of shipping chaos\n22:50 — Scaling to $35M and deciding to sell\n25:23 — The $25M sale: deal structure, taxes, and what he actually walked away with\n31:43 — Thrasio's collapse and buying the company back for $2M\n37:48 — First thing he did with the money: retiring his parents and handing them a blank check\n40:23 — Money, happiness, and why optionality is the real product\n43:28 — Estate planning: why his son gets nothing until age 35\n49:02 — Would you take $1 billion to walk away from everything?\nHe sold his company for $25M. The buyer went bankrupt. He bought it back for $2M.\nAustin Wright moved to LA at 19 with $3K and two trash bags. He spent a decade broke, waiting tables, sleeping on an air mattress, sharing a car. Then he spent another decade grinding his way up to regional VP at Gold's Gym, overseeing nearly 1,000 employees and opening gyms across Southern California.\nThen he quit to build something of his own.\nWhat followed was a pop-up playpen that raised $445,000 on Kickstarter against a $20,000 goal — and nearly bankrupted him because he didn't account for international shipping. He dug out, scaled the brand...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/vCvB-0dtzg339Iof9Uhri-E5Cu1YvE_goNcKch75CeI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS83ZTZj/OWRiMTI3NjI1YWUy/MWY4ZWJkOTU2YzFl/NzE0Mi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}